About the Author
Jim Aspinwall is the coauthor and author of four books about
computers and networking. His writing spans not only books but
feature articles and how-to columns for a handful of PC magazines and
web sites, including Computer User, PC
World, and CNET.com. His journey into
the digital world began at a humble grass roots, learning the nuances
of bits and bytes as a communications system and field service
engineer when raw logic was truly raw logic in the 70s and the 8008
processor was programmed with paper tape and Teletype machines. From
cross-country, arm-lengthening toolbox-toting he moved to more
desktop- and keyboard-bound roles in support engineering helping
transition minicomputer and microcomputer systems from research labs
through production to customers. Acquiring his first
"turbo XT" PC in 1986 and totally
baffled by a blank DOS prompt, he sought out the mentoring of a good
friend to lead him gently into the PC abyss from where he has yet to
surface. That mentoring led to his first collaborative work about PCs
published in 1990, to his first COMDEX experience, and to his first
real job working with PCs full-time for DiagSoft: supporting,
testing, and marketing PC diagnostic software.
Jim's experiences (and writing about them) with the
PC have been nonstop ever since: from the low-level workings of PC
guts and how components, vendors, and software work together (or
not), to supporting corporate clients. Jim was much of the
"PC sense" behind
Quarterdeck's TuneUp.com, Computer Support
Technologies' RescueMe, and Aveo's
Attune online PC support tools. Today he still bears the torch of
trying to re-create TuneUp.com so all PC users can get expert help
and tools. Jim lives in Silicon Valley, California, with his wife,
Kathy, who is also working in high-tech (in fact they met through a
request she made of their company help desk for remote access support
to the company network). When he's not at the
keyboard or hammering together some mini-remodeling project you will
probably find him climbing any one of several Bay Area radio towers,
installing and repairing amateur radio systems for public
service/disaster communications.
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