PC and network setup howtos

If you’re like me, you often get roped into helping friends and family set up a new PC or troubleshoot their applications and home network. I’ve joked more than once that I’d be glad to help if they’d pay my standard hourly fee…this usually draws a blank stare or a little bit of angst, and unfortunately has never resulted in any consulting fees.

I guess that’s just a personal hazard for techies. Even if it is inevitable, however, I’m still resigned to helping people help themselves as much as possible.

Three great resources I’ve come across recently for helping to teach a man to fish:

• “Make the Most of Your New PC” from PC Magazine walks one through setting up a new system (works best for XP but should be ok with minor mods for earlier versions of Windows, too); sections highlight setup, data and settings migration, security issues, networking, backing up, and maintaining
• Speaking of XP, “Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual” by David Pogue from Pogue’s and O’Reilly’s Missing Manual series (click here for the book’s homepage) should be in the box with each new Win XP sysetm but isn’t; good overviews on how XP Home Service Pack 2 works, what applications are bundled in, and how an end user can get the best bang for their Windoze bucks
• O’Reilly’s recently published “Home Networking Annoyances” by Kathy Ivens details many of the wired and wireless network issues home users face; O’Reilly’s homepage for the book includes a free chapter on File-Sharing Annoyances

Do yourself a favor and have copies of these handy to share the next time someone asks you for free support.