Customer Reviews

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Peachpit Learning Series

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Peahcpit learning series:

This book is part of the Peachpit learning series and has seventeen lessons that walk you through all of the installation options, how to configure your MAC, personalizing your MAC environment, sharing your MAC files, installing peripherals and navigating through the MAC environment. It also covers some of the new features like Spotlight used for finding anything based on your search criteria, Dashboard used to house application widgets which are shortcuts main features of applications like iTunes, iSync, iChat calculator and weather in your area application with out having to launch the application. The book also covers .Mac, Safari RSS for internet feeds and Automator lessons (used to automate repetitive processes).

The book does a good job in it's use of screenshots in each lesson so that you can have a visual reference of where you should be if you are working through the lessons.

This book is by no means a technical manual, it is meant to show you the user interfaces of OS X and different applications that come with OS X.

I would consider myself an intermediate MAC user and I have used this book couple times to look at the Dashboard and Automator lessons.

For the beginner user this book is probably 5 stars, for the intermediate user it is probably 3 stars, for the advanced user it is probably a 2 star book but clearly this book is geared to (and it's stated audience is) the beginner to intermediate user so I give it 4 stars.

Robin Williams usually does a superb job - she's fun to read, has a perspective which is easy for the reader to understand and puts information clearly while not talking down to readers.

Not this time. If you want a book which tells you more than the very simplest of info about Tiger, don't buy this one. I'm an intermediate level user and I found that there are many glaring gaps in her lessons. I ran into many snags in getting used to switching over from System 9 and she didn't address any of the problems. Nor was her basic information about how Tiger operates useful in helping me trouble shoot the problems.

I wouldn't recommend the book to a new user either, because it was so superficial.

A minor irritant is that the editor (or somebody) did a very poor job of proofing it. There were a significant number of typos throughout the book.

* This is written for a true beginner
* I'm new to Mac, but have much PC experience. The lack of real content was a disappointment. This is a very light overview.
* As a new Mac user, I was looking forward to learning how Mac installs and removes programs. This topic was NOT discussed.
* The information that was chosen for inclusion was clearly communicated and the pictures & pages were high quality.

The best I can say about this book is that the author seems to mean well and writes with a light, fun style. If you're a VERY brand new Mac user AND if you're intimidated by more advanced technical information, this book may be for you. Otherwise, save your money and you'll get better info from the various 'help' screeens on the Mac itself.

It's probably too basic and not technical enough for the real "geeks" out there, but for someone who just wants to use their Mac and run applications on it, the book is more than adequate. Very easy to read and it makes a great reference book. Diagrams and color illustrations are excellent.

I like Robins ways of teaching, and her book is great. For me it is a bit confusing as I have to keek refering back to other sections. Otherwise great.

It is excellent as far as it goes. I wish it was somewhat easier to use by being more complete.