Customer Reviews

Mac OS X v. 10.2 Jaguar Killer Tips

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a great book! Scott Kelby has found a way to take the best parts of teaching a complicated subject and put it all in one book. His humor starts on page one and is sprinkled throughout the book.

Scott goes into detail for each iApp (as we know the Apple help sections need more help) and I constantly got the "oh that's how it works" thought. The chapters are clear and makes sense.

I saw this book listed for pre order on Amazon[.com] and contacted 5 of my friends. We each bought a copy and all love it, no sharing necessary. It is a great investment. This is a book I am reading and using, it is not collecting dust in my book library.

This is a must have book for anyone migrating to Jaguar.

There are plenty of little tricks in OS X that seasoned users take for granted: just clever little ways to move windows, adjust icons, speed up common tasks with key-combinations.

If you have come to the Mac as a "switcher" from the world of Windows, OS X can appear a little alien. This is the ideal book to help you feel more at home: don't tell your more experienced Apple buddies you've bought it, and they will be extremely impressed when you demonstrate your new knowledge. And of course you'll be happier that you've adjusted the Dock to work the way you want, found a quick way to open your Home folder and discovered a new way of using iMovie.

Killer Tips is a beautiful looking book, and the price is good too. Definitely worth a peek if you are a new or new-ish Apple user, or want to one-up your Mac mates. It's like several years worth of Mac magazine tips in one glossy book.

This is a terrific book for brand new users of Mac OS X, but if you're a long time user it's value falls a bit. A lot of these tips are keyboard shortcuts and other little things that you pick up just by messing around with the OS. But there are so many hidden corners of OS X that you're bound to miss a few and that's where this book comes in.

The tips cover everything from the iapps, to managing the Finder, the Dock, the Classic enoronment, icons and more. There are so many tips offered, covering so many aspects of your Mac that you're bound to run into a few things that pique your interest. I discovreed the Font Panel because of this book and it has helped me so much, that it alone makes the purchase worthwile. Thats the kind of benefit this book can give. You might have to wade through a bunch of stuff you already know or don't care about but then, you run into someting that makes you jump for joy!

This book unlocks the fun of OS X. I bought three other books which have proven useful (though redundant) but have overlooked virtually all of the "tips" that this book offers. After having worked my way through 3 or 4 of the first of its 13 chapters, I was convinced it was worth the money. I've marked items on nearly every page that I didn't know were "available" until finding these gems. Many are keyboard "shortcuts" that really are not any faster and would be hard to remember. There are many other tips that enhance the system's operation. I wonder how one would find these out as the "traditional" books seem too busy with the mundane aspects of the system. It's major shortcoming is its limited index. This book is for moderately experienced OS X users and would not be as useful for beginners.

"They moved my cheese!!!" I said, after a rather anxiety-riddled move to OS X. After years of productive computing at warp speed in OS 9 and it's predecessors, I found myself suddenly slowed to impulse against my will. That is, until OS X Killer Tips. This book quickly and logically showed me the new way and put my frustrations at ease with little things like how to get my trash back on my desktop where it clearly ought to be, along with tons of other useful tidbits. I'm a very busy person and didn't want to spend the time reading other OS X books that are twice the weight of this little jewel. The unique layout along with great graphic examples got me up to speed in no time. Thanks for helping me find my cheese Scott!

Book Review - Mac OS X Killer Tips (10.2)
Tim Robertson
Publisher/Owner, Columnist, MacRelevant
Monday, 10/28/02

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Mac OS X Killer Tips (10.2)
Author: Scott Kelby
Publisher: New Riders

Hi, my name is Tim Robertson, and somehow I seem to have become the official reviewer of all books Kelby. Scott Kelby that is, author maniac who seems to have a new book published every other month over there at New Rider Publishing. I mean, a Photoshop 7 Killer Tips book, The Naked Truth book, Photo-Retouching book, a Down and Dirty Tricks Photoshop book, and now a Mac OS X Killer Tips book. (I just noticed something. Dirty, Secret, Naked...is Scott Kelby writing for Penthouse on the side as well?)

I think there is something strange going on here. No one can write this many books! I think he has some sort of Evil Word Marco thingie running, churning out these books for him. He simply feeds in the type of book he wants to publish, and the Evil Word Macro does the rest. Screen grabs, paragraphs, you name it. Takes about a week and a half. He then goes through and makes some very minor adjustments, adds a few jokes (an Evil Word Macro has no sense of humor, as we all know) and calls it good.

But here's the thing. Each and every one of his books are really, really good. The Naked Truth was fantastic. His Down and Dirty Photoshop 7 book is a must have for users of that program. And his latest, the focus of this review, is Mac OS X Killer Tips, seems to be on par or above all his others.

Laden with humor and (for the most part) worthwhile tips, Mac OS X Killer Tips is a great addition to any Mac OS X users library of titles. This edition covers OS X 10.2 (Jaguar for those in the know) very well. It includes a screen capture image of what Scott is describing in almost every instance.

The book is full color, with razor-sharp imagery. Coming in at 267 pages, it may seem a small book, but it is packed with enough relevant information to satisfy almost anyone using Apple's latest operating system.

I very much enjoyed reading this book. I liked the layout a great deal, as well as the words on the page. Scott Kelby is quickly becoming an author in whom I find the need to get his latest book, a position for a computer and technology writer reserved only for David Pogue on my desk up to now. Scott writes with a sense of humor I find very appealing, as well as a great technical grasp of his subject material. He really seems to put a lot of himself in the books he writers, and makes no apologies for being a die-hard Mac head.

Mac OS X Killer Tips is thirteen chapters long. It covers everything from iDVD tips to troubleshooting. From Stickies tricks to annoying pranks you can play on another Mac user. (If you can get your hands on their computer while they are away.) Sherlock 3 is covered here, as is Mail, all the "i" applications, Address Book, and much more. I found the Finder tips to be the most fun, though, and took quite a few ideas away from this book that I have instituted in my own daily computer life. (No small feat there, as I am a Power User to the bone.)

A really, really good read. Well worth the asking price. You will find yourself going back to it often to learn or refresh yourself on some of the tips you will learn in its pages.

MacMice Rating: 5 out of 5

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Tim Robertson

Scott Kelby has written a book that is beautifully typeset and in fact does contain a useful tip or two, but the majority of the content feels to me as "stating the obvious".

It might be a good guide for those among us who do not adventurously explore their new environment once they made the leap from MacOS 9 (or even Windows) to MacOS X, but I really doubt if this book gets used as a reference manual after the first read.

In my opinion "Killer Tips" is not a good title for this book; it's more like another "MacOS X, the Missing Manual" type of book.

This book may deserve recognition for its artwork, design, and typography, but the writing is unfortunately quite weak and sophomoric in tone. Kelby spends far too much time self-consciously riffing and jesting that he loses focus and overwhelms the presumed core purpose of the book.

Jaguar (a.k.a., Mac OS X 10.2) is a major upgrade with a great deal for people to learn -- even longtime Macintosh users; for that reason, it's very important that a guide to using it be cogent and include step-by-step explanations. Instead, readers get an uneven, confusing treatment of the subject.

Kelby isn't entirely unfunny, but I think he could learn much by studying the work of David Pogue, a more polished technology writer whose wit doesn't get in the way of his teaching. Also, some may be put off by the intensely saturated, almost cartoonish visuals in the design of the Kelby volume, though I concede that some others may find it cute.

In the end, those who wish to avoid serious frustration will likely have better luck with OS X: The Missing Manual, 2nd edition, which has been substantially revised to reflect the new aspects of Jaguar.

Some other reader reviewers have pooh-poohed these concerns, saying that the Kelby volume is merely a collection of "killer tips," and as such should be somehow immune from criticism for that reason. I respectfully disagree. It's true that Pogue's tome is more of a reference work than a compendium of tips (though it certainly has plenty of the latter). In the end, if you want completeness and clarity, go with Pogue. If you want a lot of disjointed giggling, go with Kelby.

There are a few reviews out dissing the book for wasting space, having [bad] tips and a few other things. These must be PC users that never read the book OR THE 44 SAMPLE PAGES. I don't undestand why the book's a surprise... It's called Killer Tips! Tips, it's not a freaking novel. If you want to use Jaguar like a pro, go for it. Don't let those bad reviews keep you from looking at the sample pages, it's a great book (I really do have it).

I was very disapointed with this book. I bought Mac OS X The Missing Manual along with this book, but the Missing Manual is by far the superior book (for about the same price).

This book uses full color pages, large type, and large screen captures to waste space. It could easily have been condensed into half the number of pages, or better yet, just put online in the form of a web page where something like this belongs.

The tips are mostly very trivial and obvious ones - I'm not sure I came across a single one I wasn't already familliar with. I *suppose*, if you don't know any of the little keyboard tricks for navigating your mac quickly, this may be useful to you, but I think I'll be selling mine - I consider it a waste of money.