Book excerpt: This "Everyone" book attempts to the guide the reader through the more essential steps of understanding the basic principles or elements that constitute the daily work of investigators in fields relating to computing and electrical loss. The chapter's are meant to set a foundation for people who may want to enter the field of investigations, or are at the beginning of a career in the area, or are seasoned investigators looking to delve into more contemporary areas of investigations, or for persons that are just interested in reading about matters or topics that are currently revealed in differing forms of media, such as in the successful TV drama series "CSI." The book is formatted sequentially so that the reader can review important legal matters that are a part of most investigations and then go on to peruse the elements of basic electrical principles as they apply to certain types of fire and fault losses. These beginning chapters set a broad stage for the various areas of computing that follow. The book does not necessarily have to be read in the order that it was written. In a sense, the reader may choose to use the book as a reference book. The chapters were written, for the most part, to be able to stand alone, as monographs. There are many chapters that review a broad range of more common topics and there are chapters concerned with more esoteric areas of computing and electronics. Some of these chapters discuss the high-tech methods that are sometimes deployed by thieves, terrorists, pedophiles, stalkers, etc. All of the co-authors reflect their experience as individuals that work closely with the criminal justice and civil institutions.