Scan this book! Or, read it cover-to-cover. Either way, you’ll learn which scanner to purchase to suite your needs, important technical information about pixels and digital images, installation and calibration tips, and plenty of tricks to make scanning easier and more effective. Written for both PC and Mac users.

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Everyone knows how addictive a BlackBerry can be–they don’t call them “crackberries” for nothing! Well, you haven’t seen anything until you try the brand new BlackBerry Pearl. This brand new phone has it all, and it’s small, smart, and stylish too. Not only does it have all the features you expect from a BlackBerry (Phone, Email and Text Messaging, Instant Messaging, Organizer, Browser) but it has some great new “Wow” features including a camera, media player, and BlackBerry Maps. In The BlackBerry Pearl Pocket Guide, trusted gadget teacher and best-selling author Bart G. Farkas reveals the secrets to using this amazing new phone: learn how to take cool pictures and share them with your colleagues, view Web pages, import songs, manage your appointments, communicate with email, text and instant messaging, retrieve maps and detailed driving directions, and even import video. This handy pocket-sized guide also walks readers through the fun lifestyle functions, from playing a new Sudoku game every day to charting your diet and exercise patterns. In this low-priced guide, you’ll find compact-yet-detailed coverage of everything the BlackBerry Pearl can do, as well as all the necessary information on “why” you should use it to be more productive.

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This developer’s guide for designers and programmers of mass-storage devices that use the Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface provides developers with information on how to choose storage media, interface the media to a microcontroller or other CPU, and write device firmware to access the media and perform USB communications. Comparisons of popular storage-media options to help users choose a media type for a project are included, and the types described cover hard drives and flash-memory cards such as the MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD) card, and CompactFlash card. Helpful tips on developing an embedded host that can access USB mass-storage devices are also covered. (more…)

More, better, faster, cheaper, easier, cooler, safer. All of these and more capture our desire to understand and get the most out of the investment we’ve made in our PCs. From making a PC boot faster, to improving its reliability, to using multiple operating systems, to being able to recover quickly when something goes wrong, the PC hacks in this book will improve your PC experience and make you a lot more computer-savvy.The term hacking has a bad reputation in the press. They use it to refer to someone who breaks into systems or wreaks havoc with computers as their weapon. Among people who write code, though, the term hack refers to a “quick-and-dirty” solution to a problem or a clever way to get something done. And the term hacker is taken very much as a compliment, indicating that someone is being creative, having the technical chops to get things done. The Hacks series is an attempt to reclaim the word, document the good ways people are hacking, and pass the hacker ethic of creative participation on to the uninitiated. Seeing how others approach systems and problems is often the quickest way to learn about a new technology.

Since you’ll be hacking your PC, and it probably contains all your data, never more than ever are you most strongly encouraged to follow three basic tenets of PC ownership: back up, Back Up, and BACK UP! While we won’t intentionally lead you through a hack that will harm your system, life with a PC is not a matter of if your system will crash, but when. Backups, system restore points, software and hardware installation disks, and printouts of hard-to-remember or obscure details are very handy to keep safe but close at hand should you need them.
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The Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible provides a background on how things work, puts competing technologies, standards, and products in perspective, and serves as a reference that provides quick answers for common computer and technology questions. It functions as a buying guide, telling not only what to buy, but why. It also lays the foundation for upgrading or repairing a computer, but stops short of the step-by-step mechanics of the process. The chief purpose of the Hardware Bible remains educational. Some new features in this edition include rewritable DVD technology as well as Blu-ray Discs, wireless networking including 802.11a and 802.11b, Bluetooth wireless communications, and extended coverage of digital cameras, scanners, and telecommunications…and much more!

One way is by reading the book you hold in your hand. It’s designed to help you understand all the technologies that underlie the modern personal computer and all its peripherals that help make it useful. Although you won’t be able to design a computer when you’re finished (that is, unless you already knew how to when you started), you will know what it takes to design one, how computers work, and how you can work better with them—and get them to do more for you. It doesn’t matter if you regard a screwdriver as a tool, an instrument of torture, or a new curiosity you’ve never before encountered. Even if you have no technical background whatsoever, this book will guide you to a level of understanding that will let you buy, use, and upgrade your computer with confidence. At the same time, you’ll find all the technical information that you need to do a school report or business presentation on nearly any current computer topic.

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Released to near universal acclaim, Apple’s Aperture is an all-in-one post-production tool for professional photographers. Featuring a RAW-focused workflow, Aperture lets photographers import, edit, catalog, organize, retouch, publish, and archive images more effectively and efficiently than ever before. In this guide, best-selling author Ben Long takes Aperture users to the next level, providing them with a more in-depth understanding of Aperture’s tools, as well as lots of tips and work-arounds to get the most out of the program. In addition, the coverage of fundamental raw theory and practice will help the reader master the program’s high-end editing features. More than just a step-by-step tutorial, this book will help photographers develop a fundamental understanding of the philosophy and approach that underlies Aperture’s design.

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Focusing on the latest research on hardware interfaces used in modern information technology, this reference covers universal external interfaces, peripheral device interfaces, external memory interfaces, expansion buses, wireless interfaces, network interfaces, and auxiliary serial interfaces. Specific technologies covered include LPT, COM, USB, FireWire, SCSI, mouse, monitor, printer, audio and video interfaces, Serial ATA and flash cards, ISA, PCI, EISA, PC/104, AGP, LPC, PCMCIA, CardBus, Bluetooth, SPI, MII, SMI, JTAG, and Ethernet. Also included is information on signal line definitions and signal arrangement on I/O connectors, time diagrams, adapters (ATA and NIC), controllers (DMA, PCI IDE, and FDC AT), interrupts, and multifunction cards.

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The real reason that scanners have enjoyed such a surge in popularity is that more computer owners now recognize just how useful a scanner can be. More applications that ever make use of your scanner, and the Internet makes it easy to share the documents and images you scan through e-mail or your Web site. Many computer owners are even turning to their scanners for handicrafts, such as creating custom printed items!I wrote this book especially for scanner owners who want to find out all about what that marvelous piece of machinery can do. You can start from the basics and work your way to the tips, tricks and technology used by scanner experts.

Each chapter in this book has been written as a reference on a specific topic relating your scanner. Note that you can begin anywhere because each chapter is self-contained. Unless you’ve already had some experience with installing and using scanner, however, I think that you’ll benefit the most from reading from front to back. The book also includes a glossary of computer and scanner terms and an appendix with information about manufacturers of scanning hardware and software

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Palm OS is one of the most popular handheld operating systems on the planet. From the newest Tungstens and Treos all the way down the family tree, Palms are everywhere. Although the Palm OS is simple to learn and use, there is more to it than meets the eye–from new features in the Palm to capabilities you can get with add-on software, the Palm can be made to do quite a lot.

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Vertex and pixel shader programming allows graphics and game developers to create photorealistic graphics on the personal computer for the first time. And with DirectX, programmers have access to an assembly language interface to the transformation and lighting hardware (vertex shaders) and the pixel pipeline (pixel shaders). Direct3D ShaderX begins with an introduction to vertex and pixel shader programming and moves on to a wide array of specialized shader tricks contributed by 27 experts in game and graphics programming. These range from character animation and lighting to photorealistic faces and non-photorealistic rendering. Special effects shaders are also presented, including those for such effects as bubbles, rippling water, animated grass, and particle flows.

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