The Bluffer's Guide to Computers

A snappy little book containing facts, jargon, and inside information--all that readers need to know to hold their own among the experts.

The co-authors of this book met while working for ground-breaking computer magazines. Once at the cutting edge, they have long been superseded by younger rivals. The authors that is. Most of the magazines are still going strong.

Alexander Rae is a world-weary Glaswegian ex-journalist, with a wife and two violent teenagers. His age is 29, but only in hex. After years as a PR executive for a multinational industrial conglomerate, he now bluffs professionally in his own computer training, public relations and freelance writing business (he has a very short concentration span).

Rob Ainsley version 1 was a mathematics package which Oxford's tutors found never worked properly. Ainsley 2, from the mid-1980s, was a utility for teaching English in Japan, but was prone to crashing, usually in karaoke bars after being bought beer all night. In 1987 version 3 appeared, a suite of editing facilities. This went through v3.1 (8000 Plus), v3.2 (New Computer Express) and v3.3 (Classic CD, a music monthly) and had the advantage of being cheap.

In 1995 came a new on-line incarnation, Rob 4.0, handling web sites for classical music and his home town of Bath. Like Microsoft Word, the newer versions of Rob have proved expensive and overloaded with impressive but useless features. Version 5 is promised to put all these problems right, but like all new software, the release date keeps being moved back.