Customer Reviews

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Peachpit Learning Series

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent guide to using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and its applications. Its topics are well illustrated and presented clearly so, like the Mac, they just work.

The topics range from getting to know the Finder Window and using the Dock to Trouble Shooting Your Internet Connection. The applications that come with Snow Leopard are included. iLife and iWork applications are not included.

I enjoyed the great many little features such as control-click an item in the Trash to get an action menu including "Put Back" to restore the item to its last location, and Command-double click any folder in any view to open it in a new separate window. And, try this one yourself, Control-click on any word in TextEdit, or in Pages, for a contextual menu to search for it in Google.

There is excellent coverage of the integration of features in Snow Leopard. As and example the end of a section on Mail lists how it is integrated with Parental Controls, Address Book, iChat, iCal, MobileMeSync, TextEdit, Safari, and Dashboard.

There are instructions for using new Snow Leopard features such as Shared Files, and for retrieving old versions of files using Spotlight in Time Machine.

I was impressed by "Robin and John's Personal Troubleshooting." It provides a description of steps to take in a logical order to resolve most computer problems, except, it says, when you hear your hard disk make a noise and it is time to get to your repair shop.

If you want a quick reference guide to mastering snow leopard that covers most interests, I believe this is one mighty good choice.

Good information for a novice user. Organized as a tutorial, with lesson in each chapter. Not much advanced stuff here.

Since "The Mac Is Not a Typewriter", Robins Williams writes the most reader/user friendly books about how to deal with computers particularly the Macintosh. If she writes the book, I buy it.Amazon has the best prices and delivery system
Jim Feil

Robin Williams never ceases to amaze. As a Mac user for many, many years, it's always wonderful to pick up her latest and see what the new Mac brings. The format is easy to follow and if I need to find how to do something quickly, it's easy to do. Kudos to Ms. Williams and Mr. Tollett.

Oops, she did it again. Not really oops, but Robin Williams is the muse that inspires you to learn more about your Mac and how to use it more effectively and this book continues to deliver.

OS X Lion is a significant change in the way you interact with your Mac and for previous Mac users these changes can be a bit intimidating. This book assumes basic knowledge of Macs and computers. No hand holding about how to turn it on or how to use the mouse. You should already be experienced with computing, but not necessarily a Mac. This should be a "switchers" bible, although it doesn't make direct reference to PC to Mac transition, it does tell you how to do typical tasks such as email, browsing and file management on he Mac platform.

The book takes the reader through the key aspects of Lion such as the Finder, iCal, Address Book and the slew of other programs that come with it such as TextEdit, Preview and iChat and incorporates how new features such as Gestures, Resume, and Mission Control changes the Mac experience for the better.

Rounding out the end of the book are chapters about how to use system wide features such as data detectors and pdf as well as some great guides to troubleshooting and personalizing your Mac and most important, Time Machine backups.

Typical of anything Robin Williams is involved in, this book has a vivid, elegant and simple layout that makes for an enjoyable read. Too often tech books are either terribly text heavy or have so many screen shots that you feel like you are reading a comic book. Mac OS X Lion dances that line between the two quite well. Excellent examples with detailed textual descriptions.

I won't belabor the point: I find the Robin Williams Peachpit Learning Series books on Mac OS X 10, all of them, extremely helpful. They are not books for advanced computer users, nor do they claim to be. They present necessary information in a clear and logical way. I always learn something helpful from these books.

Very informative book. Our office recently went "all mac" and the book has answered a lot of questions for myself and my team.

I wasn't thrilled with it. I found that, even as a new Mac user, this book is too basic as far as it goes concerning Snow Leopard itself. Any user of a PC would know most of the stuff contained in here concerning basics just by fooling around for a couple days. True, the book gives direction and so one would waste less time, and the book does contain chapters on using specific features, but I was hoping for more info on how to perform basic tasks like unistalling applications, drivers and so on. Along with other maintenance tasks I'm used to doing in Windows XP Pro.

Course I can't say a lot for Snow Leopard in general as a very stable platform. Mine has not been since I purchased a Mac Pro with Snow Leopard. There've been chronic problems with it, and problems with Safari as well. XP is a better platform overall, though I'm still glad to get away from PCs, frought with their own host of problems/issues. (I have Windows installed in Bootcamp as a matter of necessity in a business world that uses only Windows.)

To be fair (and giving it 3 stars), I'm sure the book is fine for people looking for intros to a number of bundled features, from using I-Tunes to trying to figure out Time Machine (which is no Restore Point, believe me!). But that's not what I expected in a manual that says on the cover: "Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard." I expected a manual on understanding and using the platform itself to solve problems with the platform itself (yes akin to Windows various system tools and so on, which Mac OSes seem to lack in general), not on using the applications bundled with it. The title is a little misleading.

If your thing is playing with all the mini-applications, then go for it. If you work on computers in a more professional capacity, look for a different book.

I gave this book as a gift and haven't had any feed back from the "receiver". I leafed through it and it looks like it had bunches of good information for this new Mac program.

great vegetable, one that we should always consider on a regular basis. the book is good as well, but not as tasty as the asparagus.