I write computer books and I get get a lot of reader e-mail. Most people
seem to like the books, but of course I also get a few complaints. Far
too many of the complaints are one of these:

* I'm too busy to read your book, what does it say?

* I have a complicated problem that's only related to your book in that
  I think computers are involved. I need a detailed solution right now.

* Your book wastes valuable pages on systems and software that are not
  exactly identical to whatever happens to be on my computer. Any decent
  book would describe exactly and only the stuff on my computer,
  including step-by-step instructions for whatever task I didn't bother
  to look up in the index.

* When I try to send the web to the wurtelactor my e-mail program says
  "No frizzits in the blurf" or something like that. What am I doing
  wrong? To make your life more interesting and challenging, I won't
  give any hint of what kind of computer I'm using, what programs I'm
  using, nor any details of my setup, nor what a wurtelactor is, nor
  what I mean by "send the web".

* Your book is about the topics suggested by the title and listed on
  its cover, but I expected it to be about something else altogether.
  So it sucks.

-- John Levine, author of "The Internet for Dummies"