The 50 Biggest Computer Mistakes
from the Kim Komando Show
Review by Brian Smither
The Kim Komando Show is heard on over 400 radio stations. The closest, it seems, for Sacramento is Grass Valley’s KNCO 830AM, Sunday 10am-1pm. Her biography from the Society of Women Engineers 1999 National Convention details wide-ranging accomplishments.
Kim Kommando goes back quite a bit. She did late-night infomercials back in 1992 or 1993 and pretty much pioneered the mass marketing of do-it-yourself introductory computer training. She discusses Windows exclusively. Over the years, she has worn the hat of contributing editor and computer columnist for a variety of general interest magazines and a few non-computer related trade publications. She has written several books, most of them compilations of excerpts from her radio show, now syndicated nationally, but started locally in Phoenix AZ.
Kim Komando’s website has a three-step process through which you can learn where The Kim Komando Show can be heard in your area. The third step is to provide your e-mail address where they will send a list of affiliates local to your area of interest. Why not just list all the affiliates? It’s got to do with some quirk of the competitiveness of radio shows of this genre and of not providing handy lists to your competitors. As if they couldn’t find out easily enough by other means.
The Kim Komando Show is somewhat light-weight (appeals to the AOL-type crowd), answers questions from callers (and are correct more often than not), highlights interesting shareware and new gadgets, repeats news tidbits about the industry that come her way, etc. (Other radio talk hosts with programs airing in the Sacramento area are Bob O’donnell and David Lawrence. My opinion is that O’donnell rates 3 out of 5 stars and that Lawrence gets four.)
WestStar, the company that distributes and markets The Kim Komando Show (Ms. Komando may own a major interest in WestStar), has produced a book-on-CD. Fifty topics collected as a series of PDF files with accompanying sound files that read along with the text.
The EULA says that this "book" can only be installed on a computer running Windows. Regardless if you may have a device that can display PDFs and play WAV files, you are not allowed to enjoy The 50 Biggest Computer Mistakes on any system that isn’t running Windows. So, I think I’ve found the 51st biggest computer mistake.
Most "mistakes" are really nothing more than common sense items ("Be sure to wash and wax your car on a regular basis"-type of thing. And "Don’t drive in third gear down the highway."). A few are dubious (NTFS is what you should use with WinXP, until something goes horribly wrong and you need to boot from floppy). And even fewer of these discussions elaborate on what you should do after you’ve made the mistake.
Overall, however, this eBook should be included on every new computer that is also pre-setup with AOL. New buyers of cars and computers typically make common mistakes (subscribing to AOL is one—funny, that’s not mentioned on this eBook).
Kim Komando’s eBook includes about a dozen glamour shots in various sizes and a collection of WAV files for use as system event sounds. So if you don’t necessarily find her discussions of computer topics all that intellectually stimulating, you can always paste her wallpaper on your desktop and, during system bootup, have Windows say, "Hey there! Thanks for turning me on!"
A Tour of the Calculus
Review by Brian Smither
Allow me to admit at the outset that I am a Geek, a Nerd. In High School, I enjoyed studying. I really liked math – still do. When my wife has her hair done at the local salon, I while away the hours by perusing the math and science sections in the nearby bookstore. While I was on vacation in Colorado, I stopped by a smallish book/video store and found "A Tour of the Calculus."
Was I suffering from jet lag, high altitude insomnia, or some other condition that would prompt me to find anything that would dull the brain into unconsciousness? No. But I have long been searching for a book that departs from the standard academic textbook format and puts some life into this otherwise dry world of numbers. "Tour" doesn’t go deep but that of which it does discuss, it does so with insight and grace.
What is a book review about the calculus doing in a computer-oriented news-magazine? High-tech wouldn’t be high tech without an understanding of how the real-world works with respect to how events relate to other events. The calculus brings us to that relationship when one of the events, typically the flow of time, comes to a standstill.
Berlinski introduces us to the major players in the discovery of the calculus by being the fly-on-the-wall voyeur. As each major theory and minor proof is introduced, we are taken to that person’s study, meeting hall, or other likely place of where the light bulb of realization snapped on. Berlinski does not fail to keep us in suspense as he reveals the inner workings of the calculus as well. Here is a short excerpt of the book’s introduction:
"Whatever physicists may say, both space and time, it would seem, go on and on; the imaginary eye pushed to the very edge of space and time finds nothing to stop it from pushing further, every conceivable limit a seductive invitation to examine the backside of the beyond. We are finite creatures, bound to this place and this time, and helpless before an endless expanse. It is within the calculus that for the first time the infinite is charmed into compliance, its luxuriance subordinated to the harsh concept of a limit. The here and now of ordinary life, these are coordinated by means of a mathematical function, one of the noble but inscrutable creations of the imagination, the silken thread that binds together the vagrant world’s far-flung concepts."
Berlinski structures the book along the lines of the structure the student typically takes in the approach to comprehending the calculus: a fantastic leading idea, a basic axiom, a profound intellectual invention, a property of reality with deep implications, two crucial definitions, one ancillary definition, a major theorem, then the fundamental theorem of the calculus. For each part, we are taken on an adventure of mystery and suspense, romance and seduction, defying the will of God and coming to understand the why of it.
"A Tour of the Calculus" is a good read, excellent preparatory material for the new college student. Even if you have no "natural mathematical ability," take the chance with this book.
A Tour of the Calculus
David Berlinski
Vintage Books (Random House) 1995
350 pages, $14.00
ISBN: 0-679-74788-5
