Is it time for a second edition of this book?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I've been giving some thought to PC Technician Street Smarts: A Real World Guide to CompTIA A+ Skills lately. The book is almost 2 years old and I wrote it right before the current version of the A+ exams were released (I was working from the then confidential domain information related to Sybex by CompTIA). My question is for those of you who have read the book and used it to study from. Do you think it's time to do a second, more expanded edition?

If so, what areas of the book do you think need to be "beefed" up? What kinds of labs would have better prepared you for the exam? Please do not violate your NDAs in responding to this thread. You could say something like "Needs more labs about CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA systems" then maybe give some examples of what you'd like to see in a lab or labs regarding the technology.

To some degree, I'm obviously looking to "butter my bread" a little, but this seems to be the sort of book that you could upgrade and otherwise tinker with for a long time, especially as the A+ exam matures, even without a new edition being released.

Anyway, let me know. This is a rare opportunity to give the author of a book on a topic of broad interest (at least as far as IT certs are concerned) some feedback and maybe provide input on the next edition of the book (I haven't approached my agent or Sybex about any of this yet). Let me know. Thanks.

-Trip

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I would like to add some feedback if I may.

When it comes to the sections relating to Windows like the Tweaking Windows chapter etc the screenshots are great but there are no pictures when it comes to sections like Installing a CPU or power supply.

Although I have done those myself and know what a CPU and PSU look like and where they go, the complete noob may not so I feel some pictures to help a new user indentify components and where they go would help.

I realise this would probably increase the number of pages in the book but I feel it would make the book even better than it already is. If I didn't think it was good I wouldn't have bought a second copy after my dog eat the first one.

Your writing style is easy to follow and doesn't confuse like some other books do, so its just the picture thing for me I can't see anything else that needs changing.

Unless your going to add Vista in there but I don't see the need in that yet.

 

I didn't have a digital camera when I wrote the book, so I couldn't show actual photos of working with hardware. As far as I know, there aren't even very many XP questions, let alone Vista (the exam is still Windows 2000-centric), so no Vista updates (thankfully).

 

All the OS qustions I had were XP related, I had no Windows 2000 questions. I would still buy a copy if you did an updated version of the book.

 

flippin heck Trip ive only just bought the 1st one

have to agree with gblee about the piccies for hardware sections though m8. I think it would make it a better book all round. Apart from that I love it.

 

I would think that you should update the book when the A+ exam is updated. Shouldn't be too far away from now... but probably longer than your wallet would like! If you decide to do it earlier than that, you'll *really* have to work on Sybex to convince them that it's worth it for them to update... they won't want to pay again to have it redone so soon.

I'd have to skim through the book again to see if there's any brand-spanking-new technology that isn't covered, but should be.

 

If you put step by step piccies of hardware upgrades - processor, RAM and so on - it'd be like a Bootcamp in a Book. Great!

 

Seems like the prevailing opinion is to wait a bit for the next edition. Oh well, it was a thought. Thanks for the feedback, gang.

 

I thought there wouldn't be an upgrade until 2009, not that it matters to me but that will make it difiicult for people going for the exam if they change much of it as they will need newer books.