Description: Amazon.com General Computing Editor's Recommended Book, 03/01/98: Once you buy a computer, it loses value faster than an expensive car or almost any other piece of gearhead machinery. But outside of the mainstream superstores and heavily marketed mail-order houses, there are ways to equip yourself with serious computer hardware and software without throwing away large sums of money. Cheapskate's Guide to Bargain Computing is a good place to start hunting down bargains, from free e-mail accounts and cheap upgrades to money-saving shareware programs that may sufficiently replace a more expensive commercially distributed alternative. The presentation is especially appealing because the authors advocate common sense. If you're upgrading a monitor, for example, you may not want to skimp on a system component that is crucial to how you interact with your machine. Each upgrade and part is considered not only for the bottom-line criteria, but also in respect to the practicality of compromise. The guide includes a CD-ROM with a library of programs to get you started and a valuable set of bookmarks to Web sites that support the frugal-minded computer user.

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