A military brat, Biersdorfer has lived in eight U.S. states, including such diverse locales as a nuclear-missile base in North Dakota; Washington, D.C.; and rural Indiana. A member of the newsroom technology staff at "The New York Times," she was heavily involved with the recent conversion of the Sunday Times Magazine to a desktop publishing system. Coming from a non-technical background herself, Biersdorfer is dedicated to finding the most efficient ways of explaining computers to new and bewildered users in the simplest language possible. Biersdorfer is the author of 'The Missing Manuals' for the ipad and ipod.