Books about Laptops from Amazon.com

Got a new MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro? Want the scoop on Mac laptop basics, using Mac OS X Leopard, networking a laptop, or connecting your laptop to wireless devices? There’s no better place to find what you need than MacBook For Dummies, 2^nd Edition!

With your Mac laptop, you can take your movies, music, documents, e-mail, and Internet wherever the action is. MacBook For Dummies, 2^nd Edition provides the lowdown on maintaining and upgrading your MacBook, customizing the Dock and desktop, traveling with a laptop, turning iPhoto into your portable darkroom, and much more. Learn to:

• Locate the battery compartment, iSight camera, ports, and “on” button
• Move your existing files from an older computer
• Use all the cool new features of Mac OS X Leopard
• Work with iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, and GarageBand, all packaged with your MacBook
• Identify the signs of a well-functioning laptop and check for trouble
• Set up your Mac for multiple users
• Explore the cool options available with a .Mac account and iDisk storage that lets you retrieve your files anywhere
• Manage your digital music, photos, and movies
• Use Bluetooth and get all your wireless devices communicating with each other

And if you’ve been considering switching from a PC to a Mac, MacBook For Dummies, 2^nd Edition guides you through the process and even shows you how to run Windows on your Mac laptop. If there’s a MacBook in your future — or present — this is the book for you!.
Price: $13.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Laptop Lunch User's Guide provides great ideas for making creative, healthy lunches that children love. The book features nutritional requirements, strategies for improving lunchtime nutrition, tips for picky eaters, suggestions for smart shopping, quick-reference shopping lists, waste reduction tips, creative lunch menus, and kid-friendly recipes..
Price: $3.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

• Builds on the huge success of Laptops For Dummies, now in its second edition
• Eight minibooks comprising nearly 850 pages give laptop owners the detailed information and advice they need to make the most of their computers
• Offers focused content for new and intermediate laptop users, covering laptop basics and beyond, from synchronizing information with a desktop PC and coordinating e-mail between two computers to accessing the Internet or a desktop computer remotely
• Minibooks include laptop basics, software for laptops, accessories to go, traveling with a laptop, security, networking a laptop, sources of power, and upgrading a laptop
• Sales of laptops continue to outpace sales of desktop PCs, with retail laptop sales up 24 percent in the 2006 holiday season

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Price: $16.46 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Since the Allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, the Bush administration has celebrated the imminent demise of the Taliban, with claims of a "moral and psychological defeat" playing a prominent role in the presidential elections of 2004. Some commentators suggested that "reconstruction and development" had won over the Afghan population, despite widespread criticism of the meager distribution of aid and failed attempts at "nation building," not to mention the infamous corruption of Kabul's power-hoarding elites.

In March 2006, both Afghan and American officials continued to assert that "the Taliban are no longer able to fight large battles." Unfortunately that theory would soon collapse beneath the weight of a series of particularly ferocious clashes, causing the mood in the American media to turn from one of optimism to one of defeatism and impending catastrophe. Suddenly faced with a very sophisticated and creative form of guerilla warfare, the West found itself at a loss to fight an insurgency that bore little resemblance to its former enemy.

In the first book ever to be published on the neo-Taliban, Antonio Giustozzi provocatively argues that the appearance of the neo-Taliban should in no way have been a surprise. Beginning in 2003, a growing body of evidence began to surface that cast doubt on the official interpretation of the conflict. With the West cutting corners to maintain peace within the country, which included tolerating Afghanistan's burgeoning opium trade, the Taliban was able to regroup and grow in strength, weapons, and recruits. Giustozzi's book poses a bold challenge to contemporary accounts of the invasion and its aftermath and is an important investigation into the rise and dangerous future of the neo-Taliban.

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Price: $15.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

2003 IEEE-USAB Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession and Selected as a Finalist in the category of Computer/Internet in the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) presented by Independent Publisher Magazine

Ben Shneiderman's book dramatically raises computer users' expectations of what they should get from technology. He opens their eyes to new possibilities and invites them to think freshly about future technology. He challenges developers to build products that better support human needs and that are usable at any bandwidth. Shneiderman proposes Leonardo da Vinci as an inspirational muse for the "new computing." He wonders how Leonardo would use a laptop and what applications he would create.

Shneiderman shifts the focus from what computers can do to what users can do. A key transformation is to what he calls "universal usability," enabling participation by young and old, novice and expert, able and disabled. This transformation would empower those yearning for literacy or coping with their limitations. Shneiderman proposes new computing applications in education, medicine, business, and government. He envisions a World Wide Med that delivers secure patient histories in local languages at any emergency room and thriving million-person communities for e-commerce and e-government. Raising larger questions about human relationships and society, he explores the computer's potential to support creativity, consensus-seeking, and conflict resolution. Each chapter ends with a Skeptic's Corner that challenges assumptions about trust, privacy, and digital divides..
Price: $9.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Laptops--call them notebooks, portable computers, or whatever else you like--are tightly engineered items. It's hard to get all the required components to obey stringent performance and power-management requirements, and still fit into a small case. The job usually requires a custom motherboard and other specialized components, and so the laptop owner who wants to upgrade his or her machine faces a much more difficult task than the owner of a desktop machine with a similar wish. One can swap out the hard drive, add more RAM, and make tweaks in software, but almost everything else requires the addition of external components, which kind of defeat the purpose of a laptop. That's the message the reader takes away from Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing Laptops. It's not Mueller's fault that such computers are hard to do much with, and that your best upgrade procedure is often a visit to an auction site.

That said, Mueller does a great job of explaining how laptops work--how the engineers went about cramming all those heat-generating components into those miniature chassis in the first place. He also explains a lot of interesting component theory, such as how magnetic hard drives store data and how various DVD standards differ. The information makes for good reading, and comes in handy when you're shopping. He also demonstrates his skill--long well-reputed among builders and repairers of desktop machines--in teaching diagnostics. He explains, for example, how to test a laptop power supply, and why you should consider it a prime suspect in a malfunctioning computer even if the LEDs come on and the cooling fan spins. A CD-ROM features videos that show disassembly procedures--a strategy that works better than photographs and numbered steps. --David Wall

Topics covered: How portable computers work (and sometimes fail to work), and how to diagnose their woes. Sections address general troubleshooting concepts, system disassembly, and various subsystems such as memory, CPU, storage, and video. Coverage of PCMCIA (PC Card) is particularly good..
Price: $24.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Laptop Repair Workbook includes twelve full page troubleshooting flowcharts for laptop hardware troubleshooting and explanatory text for every decision point. The book begins with an introduction to basic laptop terminology, troubleshooting procedures, and cost decisions. Supplementary illustrated tests and procedures are available on the publisher's website, www.fonerbooks.com. An ebook version is also available direct from the publisher..
Price: $22.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Keep your laptop on top of its game!

Find out how to care for your laptop, what can go wrong, and what you can fix

A laptop is much more than a PC that shrank. It has unique needs, and this book shows you how to meet them. You'll discover how to diagnose and fix common problems, replace parts, add external upgrades, and develop workarounds. You'll even get the lowdown on networks, and find out when to repair and when to replace your laptop.

Discover how to
* Treat your laptop properly
* Identify common problems
* Know when repair may not make economic sense
* Install a new operating system
* Troubleshoot CD and DVD drives
* Add cool peripherals.
Price: $13.21 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Asustek has introduced a single line of ultra-portable computers that could surpass all of Apple's Macintosh sales. Of that total, about 1.6 million units will be equipped not with Windows, but Xandros Linux. The Eee is designed to open up new market segments: In the U.S and other developed nations, it will be targeted largely at school students. Equipped with both "learning" programs as well as office and internet applications, the Eee will provide everything that students need regardless of their grade level. Because it is an ultra-light, highly mobile, yet fully capable computer, it will also appeal to business users and first-time computer buyers. This book will cover everything, from turning the machine on and connecting it to the internet, to how to upgrade, update, and generally get the most from these tiny computers..
Price: $16.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]