Mark Minasi

	"Take George Carlin, make him technical, clean up the language, and you've got Mark Minasi" -- recent attendee	Current Books
		Upcoming Books
		Past Speaking Engagements
		Periodicals
		Media Citations

Mark Minasi is a best-selling author, popular technology columnist, commentator, keynote speaker, and IT consultant.  He first got the chance to play with a computer at a university class in 1973. At that time, he learned two things:

• First, computers are neat. (People still said "neat" back in 1973. Hey, it was back in the 20th Century.)
• Second, many technical people are very nice folks, but they can sure put you to sleep in an instant while explaining technical things.

Mark transformed those two insights into a career making computers and networking easier and more fun to understand. He's done that by writing over a thousand computer columns, several dozen best-selling technical books, and explaining operating system and networking planning, installation, maintenance and repair to crowds from two to two thousand. An independent voice hailed as "Favorite Technical Author" by CertCities four times out of four, Mark has the unusual ability to take even the most technical topics, filter out the hype and explain them in plain English. Perhaps that's why when TechTarget hired him to deliver a webcast on PC tuning, he drew three times as many attendees as any of their previous webcasts, crashing Yahoo's servers, and why he's been hired to deliver keynote addresses at hundreds of techie conferences around the world.

Mark is probably best known for his Mastering Windows Server and Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide books, both of which have seen more than 12 editions and sold over a million copies. An audience member at a recent talk remarked that he believed that Mark could "do a talk on watching paint dry that would be so good that people would be motivated to go home and paint a wall just to experience the joy of drying paint." While this has led to many very tempting offers from the likes of Sherwin-Williams and Behr, he's decided to stay with his first love... technology.

Mark's humorous, provocative and yet informative style makes him a favorite of audiences around the world.  Mark's firm, MR&D, is based in Pungo, a town in Virginia's Tidewater area which is distinguished by having one and only one traffic light.

PUBLICATIONS

Mark has authored best-selling books, videos, and widely-read magazine articles.

Books

Mark has authored books on networking, microcomputer operating systems, and PC hardware maintenance. His books on operating systems include coverage of Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 95 and 98, OS/2 2.x and 1.x (both users bought the 1.x book, so he figured that it was a success), Windows 3.x, and MS-DOS 6.x.

• Windows Server 2008 Networking Foundations, Sybex (2008)
• Mastering Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, Sybex (2007)
• Administering Windows Vista Security: The Big Surprises, Sybex (2007)
• Mastering Windows Server 2003 Upgrade Edition for R2 and SP1, Sybex (2006)
• Mastering Windows Server 2003, Sybex (2003)
• Linux for Windows Administrators, Sybex (2002)
• Mastering Windows 2000 Server, 4th Edition,  Sybex (2002)
• Mastering Windows XP Professional, 2nd Edition, Sybex (2002)
• Linux for NT/2000 Administrators:  the Secret Decoder Ring
• Mastering Windows 2000 Professional, 2nd Edition, Sybex (2000)
• The Software Conspiracy: Why Software Companies Put Out Faulty Products, How They Can Hurt You, and What You Can Do About It, McGraw-Hill (2000)
• Mastering Windows NT Server 4.0, 7th Ed., Sybex (1998)
• The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, 10th Ed., Sybex (1998)
• The Expert Guide to Windows 98, Sybex (1998)
• The Complete Network Upgrade and Maintenance Guide (with Blaney and Brenton), Sybex (1998)
• Mastering Local Area Networks (Anderson and Minasi), Sybex (1998)
• Mastering TCP/IP for NT Server (with Lammle and Lammle), Sybex (1997)
• Mastering Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Sybex (1996)
• Expert Guide to Windows 95, Sybex (1996)
• Mastering Windows NT Server 3.51 (with Anderson and Creegan), Sybex. (1996)
• Inside OS/2 Warp, New Riders Publishing. (1995)
• Mastering Windows NT Server 3.5 (with Anderson and Creegan), Sybex. (1994)
• Secrets of Effective GUI Design, Sybex. (1994)
• Inside DOS 6.22, New Riders Publishing. (1993)
• Troubleshooting Windows, Sybex. (1993)
• The Windows Problem Solver, Sybex. (1992)
• Inside OS/2 2.X, New Riders Publishing. (1992)
• Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe, Sybex. (1994)
• The Hard Disk Survival Guide, Sybex. (1991)
• Using OS/2, with Halliday and Goebel, Que Books. (1988)

Forthcoming Books

Magazine Articles

Over 300 magazine articles published including:

• Windows IT Pro Magazine Special Update, monthly opinion column, since 1999
• Windows Power Tools (previously This Old Resource Kit), monthly column in Windows and .NET Magazine, since 1996
• Inside Out, a monthly column in Windows NT Magazine - since 1995.
• En Garde, monthly column in Windows NT Magazine 1997-1999
• Eye on the Enterprise, a monthly column in Nikkei Windows NT - 1997-1999.
• Under The Hood, regular contributor in OS/2 Magazine – 1994 - 1996.
• Hardware Clinic, a monthly column featured in Compute Magazine – 1991 - 1994.
• AI Apprentice, a monthly column featured in AI Expert – 1988-1993.
• OS/2 Notebook/Beyond DOS, regular contributor in BYTE Magazine - since 1989.

Learning Audios

Mark has created an ongoing list of educational CDs purchased by thousands.  More information at www.minasi.com/audios.htm. 

Videos

• Many short topics on NT enterprise networking with TEN-TV, since 1997
• Installing Windows NT Server, Data Tech Institute. (1996)
• Memory Management, Data Tech Institute. (1996)
• Troubleshooting & Maintaining IBM PC's and Compatibles, Data Tech Institute. (1996)
• Advanced Troubleshooting & Upgrading, Data Tech Institute. (1996)
• Your PC...Inside-Out, Data Tech Institute. (1996)
• Understanding TCP\IP, Data Tech Institute. (1994)
• Understanding Data Communications, Data Tech Institute. (1994)
• Inside Your Hard Disk, Data Tech Institute. (1991)

Speaking Engagements

Mark is a regular speaker and seminar leader at technical conferences around the world. Some engagements include:

• Eight sessions at Microsoft TechEd US 2008, three of which were the in the top ten attendee ratings out of 400+ sessions and one of which was one of the three sessions with the highest number of attendees ("Windows Logons Revealed")
• Eight sessions at Microsoft TechEd Europe 2008, of which six appeared in the top ten attendee ratings out of 200+ sessions
• Regular keynote sessions at Windows Connections twice annually since 1998
• Regular keynote sessions at 101 Communication's TechMentor conference twice annually since 1999
• Fall Comdex sessions to groups over 2000 people in Comdex's last three years
• Keynote at Gartner's Windows conference several years ago

Media Citations

When the media need someone who can explain the technical issues behind today’s high-tech news, they turn to Mark.

Television

• CNN, Moneyline - New York, NY
• ITN, Evening News - UK
• Others...

Radio

• WTVN, Columbus Ohio, regular computer commentator
• WHRV, Norfolk, VA, guest on Hear/Say
• TalkAmerica – syndicated around the U.S.
• US AM-Business News Network
• Money Radio - Los Angeles, CA
• ABC News Radio - New York, NY
• The Derek McGinty Show, WAMU-FM - Washington, DC
• The Marc Steiner Show, WJHU, Baltimore Public Radio - Baltimore, MD
• many others...

Print

Mark is regularly interviewed and quoted by print media sources.   Recent interviews include USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, The Virginian Pilot, The Chicago Tribune, and The San Diego Union-Tribune. 

Degrees and Certifications

You want certifications?  He's got 'em.  BA Economics from SUNY Stony Brook, MPh Economics from George Washington University, MS in Public Management and Policy Analysis from SUNY Stony Brook.   He's an MCSE 2000/2003 and holds an A7 computer expert classification.