Microsoft Terms Explained and Easy to Look Up
What I love about the "nutshell" books is how easy retrieval of information is made because they are indexed, alphabetized and categorized in their organization and presentation.
This, in and of itself, is instructive as it takes the blank slate Microsoft leaves you with regarding their products and gives it a structure and shape relating the parts together and making some sense of it all.
I can never quite understand how a company can sell a product with so much complexity and cost and not follow through with their obligation to provide a workable road map through their basics or even a dictionary of what all the terminology means.
Kudos to O'Reilly publishers for picking up the "dropped stitches" and returning some sanity to my XP experience!
The really cool thing that they do is to use the menu words, and terminology the computer "spits out" at you, and use it to give you a workable definition you can make sense of.
They walk you through it with baby steps and enough information to give a definition you can relate to with understanding. They don't go to the depths, but then again, it is a nutshell, right?
They give examples knowing the readers are likely approaching this computer with a big, "Duh, what does that mean??!"
It is a great reference for the more advanced users, too. It makes looking up stuff quick. I like well made and clear things. This book is that for me.