Customer Reviews

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Bible

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is great!

It has all you need to get up to speed on Snow Leopard and how to exploit all of the features of the Mac OS and the enhancements in the new version. I would recommend this book for the Mac newbies and veterans alike. In addition to the standard instruction of basic functionality there are plenty of inside tips and tricks to help you get your Mac humming along.

The Layout of this book makes it easy to read, and find, the information you are looking for. It is written in a straight forward no-nonsense style that focuses on exactly what you need to use the new, and existing features of Mac OS-X. I have had this book for a couple of weeks now, and as a Mac veteran, I am surprised by how much new information is in this edition of the book.

Galen Gruman and Mark Hattersley have transformed this book over previous editions, for me this has become the essential must-have reference for OS-X. Even though Apple make OS-X fast simple and easy to use. This book will help you uncover the real potential of OS-X, and makes it even easier to use.

I ordered this book at the same time as "Snow Leopard - The Missing Manual" by David Pogue. I highly recommend buying both books if you can. A few things I haven't found in this book, I find in the other, and vice versa. Or maybe a more complete explanation in one about something, than the other. Being brand new to the Mac, I feel like both books together give me the complete picture, and so far I have found everything I need to know, between the two books.

After reviewing almost all the new Snow Leopard books in bookstores and libraries, I found this ultimate reference. Everything you need to know! Although the "visualized" series of OS books are more appropriate and easier to follow for the beginner, this book is a superb tool for computer enthusiasts who want to analyze everything that's "under the hood."

I'm really astounded that the reviews of this book are so good...so far, every time I've looked something up, I've been thoroughly disappointed with the lack of usable information...maybe it's the way I use it as opposed to the others...I want to use it as a reference when I'm stuck...I'm pretty computer savvy overall, but as a new Mac user, I'm still on a significant learning curve...I especially found the mobileme information to be woefully lacking...

For my new experience with the Mac OSX I wanted the best book available.
I've read all the reviews available online about Mac OS books, I needed something that could support me from the very beginning to an advanced knowledge of the OS.
This book has been more than I could expect, it helped me in the installation and took me deep into the most important things to know in order to be considered a real Mac user. The explanations were smooth and deep at the same time, and the 800 pages just flew in a couple of weeks.
I've read the book twice and learned many thing I just couldn't imagine an OS could do.

I definitely consider this book the best Mac OSX Snow Leopard guide.

It is for novice users as well as for pro users. For pro users it will be a good quick reference book. For novice users like me it is fantastic. Worth buying.

I have had several of these Wiley computer "Bible" books for Windows 95 thru XP and they went slowly downhill but were still pretty good. I have to say that I will not buy any more if they are all as uninformative as this for Mac OS X.

It's essentially between the "Bible" and David Pogue's "Missing Manual" for a tome that's sufficiently comprehensive to serve as a resource, or reference, manual for what has been characterized by some professional reviewers and "expert" users of Mac OS as more of a "tweaking" of the preceding Leopard OS than an overhaul demanding extensive study. In fact, were it not for the example of numerous "naive" Mac users who function perfectly well without manuals (not even the free Mac tutorials), or who don't see any difference between "Spotlight" and "Finder," I would be inclined to support a Luddite position. Not that there isn't a difference (between Spotlight and Finder, for example--an enormous one), but with Macs you'll often do just as well knowing less than more. Simply don't load up your machine with all sorts of downloads, apps, widgets and extensions, and try not to share your personal computer with numerous users (I frequently wish Mac systems did not have so many provisions for families, communes, etc., using the same machine via individual accounts, the elimination of which, it seems to me, would simplify things considerably, obviating the need for so many accesses--the "Home Folder," for example--to the same programs.) Just don't let any one kid you about these machines or OSX and its 6 generations. The Mac OS is infinitely complex and adaptable, more so with each new version, each upgrade. Downloading the wrong programs, trashing the wrong ones, even attempting to delete a few unwanted folders, files and programs can absorb the greater part of a day and eventually a life-time. (I often sense things were much easier, more logical, cut and dry back in the days of OS 9.)

Of the two titles, Pogue still takes the prize. He may not provide as much technical, "inside" terminology as the "Bible," but the information is still all there, along with a certain empathy for the average reader's anxiety about computers and yet another new operating system.

All the same, neither of these is a book to attempt using as a bedside companion or, for that matter, to read cover to cover (any more so than the Holy Bible, which is not to say either is not a good book). I suspect that, like me, many who elect to pick up either "The Missing Manual" or the Mac "Bible" will soon be trying to decide on a smaller complementary text that will be more convenient, more basic and simplified, more likely to actually be read. There are fine candidates by Williams, Carlson, the Mac Basics Superguide, and the Rough Guide. And since all of these publications become worthless the instant a new OS is announced, there are already good prices to be found for second-hand copies.

In the meantime, I'm looking for a Mac text that takes a simple, straightforward, even Fascist approach. Forget about all of the aliases, mouse options, pretty colors and "cool" shapes and flying objects. Simply give me my marching orders (along with some stern prohibitions) to make the means to the end as quick and painless as possible. Despite the undeniable quality, Macintosh products are rife with time-consuming gadgetry, bells and whistles, all aimed at seducing a constituency of young users for whom time is, as yet, not of the essence, or not so precious that a computer's momentary delay (in providing an interactive journey into some never-never land or into a fantasy world too "virtual" to be anything less than real) is anything more than a minor, negligible inconvenience. But for some of the rest of us, the sight of one more spinning wheel (the equivalent of having your valuable, finite life put "on hold") is an offense, an outrage, a reason to throw the machine (along with the technological myths it has fostered) out the window (preferably, from the 3rd story on to hard concrete, if only to ensure that the next generation doesn't waste time in the same manner). Put more plainly, it's time for Apple (or any company capable of filling the breach) to bring to market a dependable, practical machine, an "everyman's" (and woman's) computer (isn't that what an Apple computer is supposed to be?) that does not require 500-1000 page manuals to ensure efficient and effective performance. (Nor should it be forgotten than the encyclopedic-sized "how to" books in question concern only a single aspect of the machine--its operating system. From here we could just as easily move to the comparably-sized manual for Safari, and Word, and iLife, and iWorks, and iPhoto, and iMovie, and iDVD, and . . . (at this moment I'm climbing up one story to the attic with iMac in hand. Below is a hard-cement driveway...)

In general I like and recommend this book. However the marketing blurb on the Amazon site is misleading in the sense that it suggests this book will cover Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL. In point of fact the book merely mentions in passing that these exist, there is nothing about how to use these features or even any truly meaningful discussion of what they are. You'll need to look elsewhere for that information. With regard to OpenCL I recommend starting at [...]

I just recently got a mac and needed a good reference book that would help me when I had a question. This book was perfect! It has all the simple and complex answers.