Product Description

"RELENTLESSLY FUNNY . . . BARRY SHINES."
--People

A self-professed computer geek who actually does Windows 95, bestselling humorist Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious hard drive via the information superhighway--and into the very heart of cyberspace, asking the provocative question: If God had wanted us to be concise, why give us so many fonts?

Inside you'll find juicy bytes on

• How to Buy and Set Up a Computer; Step One: Get Valium
  
• Nerdstock in the Desert; Or: Bill Gates Is Elvis
  
• Software: Making Your Computer Come Alive So It Can Attack You
  
• Word Processing: How to Press an Enormous Number of Keys Without Ever Actually Writing Anything
  
• Selected Web Sites, including Cursing in Swedish, Deformed Frog Pictures, and The Toilets of Melbourne, Australia
  
• And much, much more!
  

"VERY FUNNY . . . After a day spent staring at a computer monitor, think of the book as a kind of screen saver for your brain."
--New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135246 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-23
• Released on: 1997-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.com Review
Trust Dave Barry, middle-class America's chronicler of the absurdities and inanities of daily life, to provide the authoritative funnyman's guide to life with computers. Barry is sometimes insightful, as when he notes the ridiculous number of keystrokes needed to actually write something, often hilarious, as in his sendup of technological support hotlines, and occasionally genuinely indignant. This book is the perfect gift for anyone who, like many of us, can't live with computers and can't live without them.

From Publishers Weekly
Whether you're a computer whiz or a computer nerd, this tongue-in-cheek guide to computing by bestselling humorist Barry (Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, etc.) has enough byte to keep you entertained. Designed to look like a user's manual, complete with section tabs and a mock glossary, it offers a wryly skeptical tour of the digital world with outrageously irreverent commentary on word-processing applications, software installation and use, Windows 95, Comdex trade shows, technical support services and much more. Computerphobes will instantly relate to Barry's spoof, which taps into the residual anxieties lurking even in computer sophisticates. (How to buy and set up a computer? "Step One: Get Valium.") Along with a brief history of computing from cave walls to virtual reality, Barry chats on the Internet, eavesdrops on a cybersex session and visits selected weird World Wide Web sites ("Proof that civilization is doomed.") Barry's nonstop humor is, perhaps necessarily, hit and miss, but he never loses sight of his big target and lets loose with enough volleys to remind us that, despite all the hype, a computer is just a machine "that operates on simple principles that can be easily understood by anybody with some common sense, a little imagination, and an IQ of 750." Major ad/promo. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
HUMOR This latest spoof by a best-selling author and popular syndicated humor columnist is a welcome antidote to the recent influx of technical jargon regarding computers and the Internet. In typical style, Barry pokes fun at everything imaginable: "Picture this scenario. ...Your 12-year-old child suddenly remembers that he has a report...due tomorrow. He needs to do some research, but the library is closed....Your cyber-savvy youngster simply...logs onto the Internet...and, in a matter of minutes, is exchanging pictures of naked women with youngsters all over North America." Although readers of Barry's past collections will often see the punchlines before they arrive, there is enough hilariously imaginative material here?particularly a chart depicting emoticons, those annoying keyboard symbols that chat group users employ to suggest emotion?to justify purchase in most public libraries.?Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

Not Dave's funniest -- but still great.
Let me start by saying that I love Dave Barry's work -- I've been reading everything he's written since the early-'80's, always with great anticipation. With that said, I regret to report that this book is merely OKAY. Of course it was funny (how could Dave Barry not be?!), but I only found maybe two or three rolling-on-the-ground-laughing parts. So, if you're a fan of his, or if you have an interest in computers, you should definitely read it. Just don't expect as much side-splitting as other reviewers have claimed. For laugh-out-loud-til-you-wet-yourself Dave Barry humor, I recommend any collection of his weekly columns, and also *Dave Barry Slept Here*.

ROTFL :---)
This book is rip-roaring, side-splitting, and downright howlarious! Oh my god. I read it cover to cover as though I were taking the bar exam except that every other minute I was literally rolling on the carpet howling as though someone was performing the "Tunisian Tickle Torture" on me. And I'm not even exaggerating.

The first few chapters are incredibly funny, and as you get accustomed to his kind of humor you start to want more and more of it and you eventually start laughing in preparation for his jokes!

Coming to the actual content of this book - it is an extremely comically cynical look at computers and how they affect everyone everyday. The guffaws begin with his description of evidence of computer usage in the stone ages, continue through to his tips on selecting a computer to buy, persist with his description of software and its purpose and culminate with a tongue-in-cheek description of the "information superhighway", internet and chat rooms. My personal favorite is his definition of "electricity" - it should appear in all physics text books.

Somewhere towards the end, there is also a somewhat touching story about a couple that meet in a chat room. I wonder if it landed up in this book as a mistaken cut-and-paste operation. Nice to read all the same.

All in all, if you are ever bored, forget TV and everything else - pick up this book and do yourself a favor. You never thought you could laugh so much.

Revenge of the sub-nerds
What other author could sum up Jerry Pournelle in one sentence, make jokes about the Radio Shack TRS-80, tell an enticing tale about a cyber romance, and still manage to work the word "booger" in at least once per chapter? Updike couldn't do it. Mailer certainly couldn't do it. Only Dave Barry can do it.