Andy Rathbone is the author of a number of ...for Dummies books about

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

as well as other computing books.

Biography

Rathbone was born in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. He attended

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

, majoring in comparative literature, and graduated in 1986. He lives with his wife Tina in Ocean Beach, a neighborhood in San Diego, California. The character of Mark "The Rat" Ratner in the movie ''

Fast Times at Ridgemont High ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' is a 1982 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling (in her feature directorial debut), from a screenplay by Cameron Crowe, based on his 1981 book ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story' ...

'' was modeled on Rathbone after writer

Cameron Crowe Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, for wh ...

befriended him during Crowe's research for the original book at San Diego's

Clairemont High School Clairemont High School is a public high school serving grades 9-12. It is located in the community of Clairemont Mesa, San Diego, California, United States. It is part of the San Diego Unified School District. The campus is situated close to the ...

. Rathbone's portrayal in the film was featured in an article titled "Geek God" published in the March 13, 1995, issue of ''

People Weekly ''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People'' had the lar ...

'' magazine.

Career

Before becoming an author, Rathbone was a reporter for the '' La Jolla Light'' newspaper, was an editor at ''

ComputorEdge Magazine ''ComputorEdge Magazine'' was first published on May 16, 1983 as ''The Byte Buyer'' in San Diego, California. It was one of the first local free distribution magazines in the United States devoted to the microcomputer. In 1988, in a dispute with ...

'', and has freelanced for ''PC World'', ''ComputerWorld'' and ''CompuServe''. In 1992, he wrote his first ''For Dummies'' book, ''Windows For Dummies'', which was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. Since then, he has published some 50 computer books. His latest book is ''Windows 11 For Dummies.'' Several of his ''For Dummies'' books have made ''USA Todays bestseller list.Today'' Best-Selling Books Database
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References

External links

Andy Rathbone's official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rathbone, Andy American technology writers Living people Writers from San Diego People in information technology San Diego State University alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people)