When you look at the guides over MakeUseOf you will notice that they are all straight and up to the point. Available right now are more than 50 guides about general and specialized tech related topics. Guides that sparked my interest include the Microsoft Office 2010 Ultimate Guide, the Windows on Speed guide and the Facebook marketing guide. I have put other tech guides on my to-read list, including the guide to PC Security, How to create professional reports and docs on word or the ultimate guide to Gmail.

You find a listing of all guides on the official download page. All guides are displayed on the page with their title, book cover and the download count.

Here is a list of all guides currently available for free download:

50 Cool Uses for Live CDs
An Android Guide : These Are The Droids You’re Looking For
An Easy Guide to Build Your Own WordPress Site
An Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop
Bam! Your Guide To Cool Online Comic Books
Best of the Web, Delivered: The Reddit Manual
Computer In Your Computer: How To Use VirtualBox
Go Google: Free Email and More On Your Domain
HackerProof: Your Guide To PC Security
Hard Drive Of The Future: 101 Guide To Solid State Drives
How The Internet Works
How To Build a Gaming PC
How To Build A Great Media Center PC
How To Create Professional Reports & Docs on Word
Learn to Speak “Internet”: Your Guide To xHTML
Lockdown: Secure Your Files with TrueCrypt
MakeUseOf’s Smart Productivity Guide
Microsoft Office 2010: Ultimate Tips & Tricks
New Life: Bring Old PC To Life With Ubuntu [PDF]
Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux
Open Book: Managing Your eBooks With Calibre
Operation Cleanup: Complete Malware Removal Guide
Picture Perfect: Set Up Your Own Photoblog
Set Up Your Blog With WordPress: The Ultimate Guide
Step-By-Step Guide To Using GarageBand
Stuff Happens: The Backup & Restore Guide
The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide
The Awesome Automation Guide for Mac Users
The BIG Book Of iTunes for FREE
The Complete Beginners Guide To Joomla
The Complete Guide To Twitter
The Easy Guide To Computer Networks
The Essential Guide To Digital Photography
The First Unofficial Guide To Dropbox
The Five-Star Guide For Your iPad
The FREE A-Z Torrent Guide
The FREE Mac Manual
The Idiot’s Ultimate Guide to Build Your Own PC
The Internet Guide to the Movie Addict
The Internet Music Guide For The Audiophile
The Laptop Buying Guide 2011
The MakeUseOf Guide to File Sharing Networks
The MakeUseOf Guide To Internet Searching
The MakeUseOf Online Shopping Guide
The MakeUseOf Windows Mobile Guide
The Office Worker’s 101 Guide to a USB Thumb Drive
The Ubuntu Karmic Koala Bible
The Ultimate Guide To Gmail
The Ultimate Windows 7 Guide
The Underground Guide To The iPhone
Virtual Currency: The MakeUseOf BitCoin Manual
Watch The Web: AWESOME Media Center Guide 2011
Windows on Speed: Ultimate PC Acceleration Manual
You Like This: The Facebook Marketing Guide
Your PC, Inside and Out [Part 1]
Your PC, Inside And Out [Part 2]

A click on the Download Now button opens a page with a short description, links to similar ebooks and a download now button that is protected by a password. Normally you would have to subscribe to the MakeUseOf newsletter to get the password or you would need to share the link on a social networking site.

The guys over at MakeUseOf where nice enough to hand out a password for all guide downloads on their site. Just enter makeuseof (who would have thought that) into the password form to enable the download right away.

Each guide comes with bookmarks and a menu to quickly load a specific chapter. The overall design is well done and includes screenshots, headings and links.

The guides are packed with information and contain no advertisement whatsoever (apart from linking to the Makeuseof website that is).

Have you had the chance to read one of the guides yet? If so, which one did you read and what’s your overall opinion?

All components are chosen from the online store Newegg to be able to compare them with previous months. I will use a best-price-finder before I buy the computer to find the best prices and shops for the components.

Some thoughts. I made several changes to last months components. I changed the memory for instance slightly which added $10 to the costs. The benefit is that the new Dual Channel Kit has a latency of 4 instead of 5.

The video card has been changed as well. This one costs roughly $60 less and is faster than the previous one from Asus. Since most Geforce 8800 GT cards are sold out it remains to be seen which will be available when I make the purchases.

I reduced hard drive capacities from 500 Gigabytes each to 250 again which lowered the price by $100. I have plans to either purchase a third big internal hard drive with a capacity of 1 Terabyte or an external hard drive with at least 500 Gigabytes.

The Solid State Disk is still giving me headaches. I have to make sure that it really lives up to the promise of delivering this incredible speed gain over normal hard drives. The new one that I selected costs almost $700 for 32 Gigabytes. I hope prices are falling fast for those drives and that some magazines or websites will test them so that I have some benchmarks that help me select the right SSD.

The computer will have everything that is needed to run it except for external components such as a monitor, computer mouse or keyboard because I decided to use those components from my old PC.

The Newegg online shop was my choice to be able to compare prices. It most likely would result in a cheaper price if I would research prices on several online shops. The Geforce 8800GT card is sold out in most locations and you have to be really lucky to buy one before christmas.

The major change in this month is the replacement of the Quad Core CPU with a Dual Core CPU from Intel and the replacement of the two 250 Gigabyte Seagate hard drives with two 500 Gigabyte Seagate hard drives.

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory	$94.99 USD
MSI P35 Neo2-FR ATX Intel Motherboard	$119.99 USD
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor	$279.99 USD
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler	$21.99 USD
COOLER MASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03-UK Black Computer Case	$59.99 USD
AeroCool ZERODBA ZERODBA-S500 500W Power Supply	$84.99 USD
Seagate 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive	$239.98 USD
SUPER TALENT FSD32GB25M 2.5″ Internal Solid state disk (SSD)	$499.99 USD
ASUS GeForce 8800GT EN8800GT/G/HTDP/512M Video Card	$299.99 USD

The total price for all components rose from $1,581.90 to $1,701.90 USD which can be largely attributed to the exchange of the two 250 GB hard drives with 500 GB models. The price for the Solid State Disk went up by $70 because I replaced the placeholder from last month with a available one.

Prices will most likely fall in January. Analysts say that SSD, Solid State Disks, will become more affordable in the first quarter of 2008. Lets hope that they are right.

On the pro side there is the ability to handpick the components that you want after carefully reviewing your needs and availability. This can ensure greater performance and definitely ensures that your computer does not come filled with unnecessary applications and the like.

The cons are that there is no operating system installed, you have to buy it yourself. You also have to ensure that the parts that you buy are compatible, nothing is more disturbing than buying an Intel cpu and a motherboard that is for AMD ones.

I would like to keep track on this development until I buy the computer parts and write a monthly, or even bi-weekly article that describes the components that I have chosen, their pricing and availability. This is also a great opportunity to receive some criticism or suggestions.

My limit for this computer is $2000 not including a monitor because I’m going to use my Samsung 19″ TFT. Here we go, I’m using the wish list @ Newegg for this. Other companies might offer lower prices on items.

The price is currently $1,581.90 without shipping and handling. I will definitely buy a Solid State Disk. Supply is not good at the moment, I want a SATA-II one with 16 or 32 Gigabyte for a price around $400.

There is no question about the video card, the 8800GT is currently the best card in the power / money rating. I don’t really care about the manufacturer though and have to do more research on this matter.

The Seagate hard drives have only 250 Gigabytes which is sufficient for me. I could buy hard drives with additional capacities which do not cost that much more.

What do you think of this setup ? Would you change anything ?

After explaining most of the elements of the pc and giving a basic understanding of the connections between those elements the article shifts to an in depth tutorial of the following elements: the case, the motherboard, input and output devices, cooling, putting everything together. All in all it´s a great way to start reading on computer hardware to get a rough first image how a pc works.