"Dummies" books (was Re: New 6.0 Features - Sell what you got fellas)

[Bill Vermillion]

press any key to reboot  -oops- Fairlight said on Tue, Oct 26 12:53  

> The Dummies books don't generally teach you how things work,
> in any event. They teach you a few tricks and how to do a few
> things, but none of the "why's" that would let you extrapolate
> beyond what's presented to tackle other situations. Of course,
> if someone is the kind of person that needs the Dummies books
> anyway, you don't want to put too much of a strain on them, I
> suppose. They're doomed forever to a life of rote regurgitation
> of poor and incomplete techniques. As Bill Vermillion would
> day, there's a difference between being taught and being
> educated. The Dummies books fall into the "taught" category--at
> best--IMNSHO.

> (Someone PLEASE tell me there's not a UNIX for Dummies out there already.
> That would frighten me so much.  It would -explain- a lot of the things
> I've seen people do, but it would still scare the hell out of me.)

Scaning the 297 'for Dummies' entries at www.bookpool.com I see
among other things:

Linux for Dummies
Red Hat Linux 9 for Dummies
Oracle for Dummies
DNS for Dummies
TCP/IP for Dummies
Networking for Dummies
Cicso Networking for Dummies
Ham Radio for Dummies
Solaris 9 for Dummies
Unix for Dummies [5th edition yet!]
Linux Time Saving Techniques for Dummies
Red Hat Linux Fedora All-in-one Desk Reference for Dummies
Linux Programming for Dummies
PHP5 for Dummies
Professional Networking for Dummies
Computer Viruses for Dummies

'for Dummies' is truly a great concept for selling books.

And Bookpool specializes in just technical books. [I recommend
them for fast service and prices almost always better than most]

Amazon shows 35401 matches on a search of 'for Dummies'.
But Amazon searches for most than just title in the standard
search.

I don't find Brain Surgery for Dummies, but I did find
Brain Surgery for Beginners. [subtitle is a Scalpel Free guide to
your insides].



-- Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com