Sharon Crawford came to computers in a roundabout way. In the early '80s, she was an electrician repairing subway cars in New York City. Though it seems astonishing that anyone would want to leave such a glamorous job, she did, in order to return home to California.

After arriving in California, she went back to school to study the finer points of electronics, and in 1988, armed with a degree and some ingenious lies, she landed her first technical writing job.

After a couple of years, Sharon was fortunate enough to get a job in the technical department of a computer-book publishing house. After a few months, she convinced a gullible acquisitions editor to give her a shot at writing a book. Since then, Sharon has written about two dozen books, on her own and with collaborators. The most recent include Windows 2000 Server Administrator's Companion (Microsoft Press) with Charlie Russel, ABCs of Windows 98 (Sybex), and Windows 2000 Professional for Dummies (IDG) with Andy Rathbone.