Maintenance

But let's hit the highlights first, shall we?

The testing software is as close as it gets to sitting down in that tiny room at Sylvan and choosing answers; the only thing missing is the sweaty guy next to you, muttering nervously as he fails. The questions are extremely well written, and about what you can expect to see on the exam. The precise writing neatly avoids the usual pitfalls that plague bad testing software--you won't find any nebulous "could be this, could be that" questions, no major technological gaffes, no mislabeled answers where the correct "answer" differs from the choices actually given to you.

The topics tested are broad enough to challenge your knowledge of software and hardware at the A+ level without descending into minutiae. There are about a dozen unaccountably softball questions ("What kind of device is a mouse?"), and one or two bizarre ones that seem to have emigrated here from another test ("What does the specification for 60-pound bond paper mean?"), but generally they're solid. The only major qualm about the questions is that there are no Exhibit questions--and given that motherboard diagrams show up on the A+ with astounding frequency, this could punch a grade-draining hole straight through your knowledge.

The testing software covers almost all the bases, running the gamut from four fixed-length tests to the more brutal (and thankfully, close-to-extinct) adaptive exams. One problem is that although the range of tests is varied, there is no way to split your testing into Core exams and DOS/Windows--take an adaptive or a random exam, and you get both at once.

The post-game analysis is extremely strong; a lot of testing software gives you a grade and perhaps a slim paragraph of explanation, and that's it. A+ Personal Trainer allows you to check your answers item by item using an interface that's a dream, gives verbose and comprehensive explanations to your questions, and allows you to save your scores. And--in a move that's a sure shot to attract corporations looking for mass training--it's all user- and password-based, so several people can use this software at once.

You may note that so far there's been no mention of the personal training software. That's because basically it's a book onscreen with some minor hyperlinking capability and the occasional multimedia shot. The "training" consists of clicking through many screens filled with writing that is taken in part from the bundled A+ Exam Cram book. There are few illustrations--and when you're trying to sort out the various types of cards, sockets, and DB connectors for the exam you need illustrations--and aside from brief bursts of audio that replay what's on screen, there is little of value here--it's like reading a well-formatted Word document. And as stated, the hyperlinking is sporadic; you'll only find hotlinks in the table of contents, not the actual content itself. While there're some nice features (the ability to print screens and put personalized notes wherever you want them), it's not nearly as easy to get through as a book.

Fortunately, the bundled book is fairly decent. While not quite up to the stellar heights of most Exam Crams, the A+ Exam Cram is sufficient to get you started and through the crown jewel in CompTIA's certification collection. Most Crams are noted for their brief, to-the-point writing, only concerned with the facts necessary to pass the exam; this one diverges needlessly, dwelling on dead technology to tell you how current technology came to be as well as how it currently works. While this approach can work in certain books, it's a drawback here. But the writing is lively enough, and you'll get the ideas quite nicely from it. The only truly glaring error is that the DOS and Windows chapters are unaccountably huge; it's a bit of a bummer to slog your way through a 50-page chapter on 16-bit Windows, only to get a measly five test questions at the end of it. These could have been divided into smaller sections on, say, memory management and computer bootstrapping.

In short, this is a great piece of testing software backed with a lot of content. You could certainly pass the exam with what you find here, but it might be easier to find a good book and use this as a truly kick-butt supplement. --William Steinmetz

As a designer of gardens that are faithful to the natural world and don't require too much pruning or artificial control, Lovejoy invents her own terms. Her style resembles English gardening, except she warns against the nostalgic impulse many gardeners fall into, determined to create gardens from another era or another country. Lovejoy's an advocate of "gardening where you live," not forcing a dream of another place onto the landscape. She emphasizes native plants, designing around slopes or flaws, working with shade or sunlight as they appear. Perhaps most instructive are her "five senses" of the garden: the sense of welcome, enclosure, and entry, flow, and place. "Rather than physical attributes," she writes, "these are more subtle aspects that give each garden its own flavor and character." --Emily White