Jim Aspinwall is the coauthor and author of four books about computers and networking. His writing spans not only books but feature articles and how-to columns for a handful of PC magazines and web sites, including Computer User, PC World, and CNET.com. His journey into the digital world began at a humble grass roots, learning the nuances of bits and bytes as a communications system and field service engineer when raw logic was truly raw logic in the 70s and the 8008 processor was programmed with paper tape and Teletype machines. From cross-country, arm-lengthening toolbox-toting he moved to more desktop- and keyboard-bound roles in support engineering helping transition minicomputer and microcomputer systems from research labs through production to customers. Acquiring his first "turbo XT" PC in 1986 and totally baffled by a blank DOS prompt, he sought out the mentoring of a good friend to lead him gently into the PC abyss from where he has yet to surface. That mentoring led to his first collaborative work about PCs published in 1990, to his first COMDEX experience, and to his first real job working with PCs full-time for DiagSoft: supporting, testing, and marketing PC diagnostic software.
Jim's experiences (and writing about them) with the PC have been nonstop ever since: from the low-level workings of PC guts and how components, vendors, and software work together (or not), to supporting corporate clients. Jim was much of the "PC sense" behind Quarterdeck's TuneUp.com, Computer Support Technologies' RescueMe, and Aveo's Attune online PC support tools. Today he still bears the torch of trying to re-create TuneUp.com so all PC users can get expert help and tools. Jim lives in Silicon Valley, California, with his wife, Kathy, who is also working in high-tech (in fact they met through a request she made of their company help desk for remote access support to the company network). When he's not at the keyboard or hammering together some mini-remodeling project you will probably find him climbing any one of several Bay Area radio towers, installing and repairing amateur radio systems for public service/disaster communications.
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