Windows XP has its own built in help files of course. In fact it even has two lots of animated tutorials. But somehow, these thick and comforting reference manuals are far more reassuring.
If you're new to XP, David Pogue's latest manual starts off very sensibly by giving you useful tips to the interface - such as the fact that there are usually two or three different ways to do things or get somewhere. He also emphasises the power of the right mouse button, through which you can find out the properties of any object. The first part of the book deals with the XP interface - how to organise and customise your stuff.
Then comes an explanation of all the new, free software that is part of XP - games, pictures, media editing, movie maker, and CD recording.
I was just in the process of upgrading from XP Home to the Pro edition when this book came my way, so I welcomed the guidance on what's new in the Professional edition of XP
The next part covers Internet access, Web chat, video conferencing, and the latest version of the Outlook Express email program. XP tries to make all the settings and configuration of these programs as simple as possible, but if anything goes wrong you can always opt to restore your earlier system settings.
There are lots of options for configuring your system for keyboard shortcuts, speech recognition, and how to adjust Internet Explorer to make browsing a more pleasant experience. The other thing I found useful was how to turn off Microsoft Messenger, which creates those annoying pop-ups and pop-under message announcements.
There are also some interesting tips on how to set up multiple printers.
XP also has built-in CD copying, which I used only today. It's very, very simple. And as a bonus, XP also automatically updates itself.
The really good thing about these books is that they don't just tell you how things work, they show you. There are screen shots of all the important features demonstrating what you will see. And at price-per page, they're amazingly good value.
