A+ Jumpstart: PC Hardware and Operating Systems Basics

It's true, this book will not single-handedly make you pass the A+ exams. It's a beginner book, geared for someone who is just starting out studying computer hardware as a career path. It was great for my students (I teach an A+ class) because the big books were more than they could digest right off the bat. It would not be for everyone though. I'd say if you are already a working PC technician, with a good knowledge of hardware, pick a more advanced book. But if you are just curious about repairing computers, or you don't have a whole lot of experience yet and need to ramp up slowly, definitely go with this one. Someone commented on errors in the book, but I think every book has an error or two in it. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. This book has tons of good information in it, and is at least 99.9% accurate.

This book is a good start toward learning the basics of a PC, but this book will not help you pass the A+ test. Now that is out of the way, it does give a good description of what a motherboard looks like, what buses look like and how they work. The book does give you some good pictures of how to put memory on a motherboard, and it does have some good points in this book. One of them has to do with the new words that most people don't know what they mean, for example, like what TCP/IP does and what it stands for. It also shows you the command lines like what FDISK does, the basic boot process, basic networking, basic troubleshooting, and just about basic problems you will run into a as a technician. The thing I don't like about this book is that it does not deal with the more technicial detail like the Power On Self Test, the FRU, how the IRQ's work, how to troubleshoot advanced problems; hardware and software. The book is short, and it will help you get the basic technicial skills. Not the best since I am a certified PC Technician, but for anyone who wants to learn how a computer works, then get this book. This book is not for the person who has years of experience, and know what they are doing. So to the beginners who want technicial skills, get this book. It will really help you get a good grasp on computers.

The A+ jumpstart professes to be an introduction to the basic info you'll need to know for your A+ exam. If you don't know what the A+ exam is, this book will tell you, and even if you arent interested in getting certified ever, you'll learn a lot of basics about PCs. Those who are serious about getting A+ certitified however should beware and take note that this is NOT an all in one guide. For that I would reffer you to the "All in One A+ Certification Exam Guide" By Michael Meyers. So don't expect to learn it all in this one book. What this book will do is give you a pretty good place to start if you have no idea where to begin on your quest to getting A+ certified. It tries to "jumpstart" you, by giving you the basic run down of many key concepts and facts. Generally it does a pretty good job of this, but in some places it falls short.Where? Well.. it's tough to write a book at this level. In some places the book tells you stuff that is so basic it's almost common sense, and in other instances the book assumes you already know things that many people may not (such as the fact computers use binary numbers to process and store data). It's a bit akward, and some of the more basic computing concepts are ignored, it's difficult to tell whether they were left out by chance, or were left out because the author considered them "advanced" and unnecessary to begin with.The book also has a habit of asking you to remember stuff it never talked about. It will say things like "remember when you learned such and such from chapter 2" when in reality chapter 2 only made a passing comment about what it's reffering to. It almost seems at times as if the book is a chopped down version of an all in one, more coprehensive book. But this doesnt detract too much from the over all experience.I did notice one major typo on page 98... In the paragraph it says "with 16 bit color you get 256 colors"... then in the table right below it, it clearly shows 16 bit color as having 65,536 colors. It's a good thing I already understood color depth enough to notice the mistake and know which was correct (the table). Many introductary tech books dont get enough attention from the editors, and I could just imagine how confusing this may be to someone who didnt already know about color depth. Come on guys, do better editing!Yet still, the book is a pretty good place to start if you're looing into A+ cert and don't know where to begin and want a quick overview or intro. But I would strongly suggest Mike Meyer's book as a second step or to anyone REALLY serious about A+ Cert.***As an update to this review I've come across another MAJOR informational error in this book. The chapter on memory is COMPLETELY WRONG. It claims that to fill a bank of memory the bit width must match that of the CPU's address bus... when this is clearly INCORRECT. In fact, what they mean to say is the EXTERNAL DATA bus (big dif). This isn't a one-time typographical mistake either, but is repeated through the EN

Studying for the A+ Cert Exam? Start with this book definetely. Everything is well written and easy to understand. Wished more books were written like this. Then from here go to the Michael Myers Book. Good luck!!!

This is not the only book you'll need to study for the A+ exams, but it's definitely the first book you should read if you don't have much background in PC hardware yet. It lays out the basics for every exam objective in language that anyone can understand. If you would like to get A+ certified but you find those big 1000-page books intimidating and confusing, try this book first. After you read it, the bigger books will make much more sense.