Customer Reviews

Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies

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

 

 

Review by Ronald Schoedel

Once again, the "for Dummies" series has come to the rescue of newbies and others who just want to learn more about their Macs. I am not a newbie. I've owned Macs for well over a decade. Even so, "Tiger for Dummies" had some great tidbits of knowledge that I was reading and learning for the first time. I always enjoy reading articles and books by "Dr. Mac" Bob Levitus, too. His style is easy-going and helpful, and he doesn't assume you know more than you likely do.

The true test of a "Dummies" book, however, is how much it helps someone unfamiliar with the Mac become a more efficient and better-informed user. The book is broken down into a number of tasks, and then walks the reader through a task step by step. Playful icons guide the reader through the task, warn of potential pitfalls, clarify matters, and direct the reader to additional software or resources that may be helpful.

"Mac OS X Tiger for Dummies" will help you configure a printer, get on the internet, use cool new internet services, get the most out of the included software on your Mac, and navigate the system preferences, explaining in detail (but not too much detail to bore you) many of the customization options your Mac has available. You will learn about Spotlight and how to find anything on your Mac exceptionally quickly. You will learn about downloading and installing Widgets to complement the ones Apple provides in the default Dashboard. Dr. Mac will also explain to you the Finder and the metaphors common to the Macintosh experience (concepts such as documents, the desktop, folders, windows, icons and menus). You will get a good education on removable media, disk images, downloading things from the internet, backing up your files, and even a couple chapters on networking.

In reviewing this book, I loaned it to a couple brand new Mac users; they now own their own copies, which they purchased after enjoying my copy for a brief time. They said that "Tiger for Dummies" is a great book and helps them acclimate to the Mac, especially helping them overcome some common hang-ups or sources of confusion encountered by switchers from Windows.

My only gripe: too many bad jokes. Not enough to dock it any moose in the 5 out of 5 moose rating that I am giving it, but suffice it to say that after 400 pages, the jokes wear thin. Less jokes, more content, would be my desire for the next version. I enjoy Dr. Mac's humor, generally, but like anything else, it's best taken in moderation.

I recommend "Tiger for Dummies" to any Mac user, but especially to new users or as a gift for new Mac users in your life. Pick up a couple copies for the Mac users on your gift list!

Pros: Easy to read, well-illustrated, another fine Dummies book
Cons: Too many bad jokes.

"Dr. Mac" has been a fixture in the Macintosh world for about as long as Macs have been around. He certainly knows his stuff. The problem is that when he shares his knowledge with us he tries to be a standup comic. I know, an appreciation of humor is totally subjective. I actually appreciate LeVitus' Dr. Mac columns, but a style that works well in 500 word articles really wears in a 400 page book.

Geek humor aside, the book rambles. Explanations get filled with asides and interjections making this a kind of shaggy dog story of a computer manual. It does get to the point eventually but sometimes loses me along the way.

This may sound like I hate the book. I don't I'm just mildly irritated. The basic Mac information is all there. Explanations are okay. If you are given the book keep it. It's a decent book, better than some. It's just that there are some excellent Tiger books out there. The Mac OS X Tiger Book by Andy Ihnatko is one I'd recommend first. Close behind is David Pogue's Missing Manual. For an absolute beginner Maria Langer's Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger : Visual QuickStart Guide is a gentle and well conceived manual.

The Mac has a new operating system, the fourth in the kitty cat series, this time called Tiger. You could say that this is version 10.4, but that'd make you sound like a geek or something. As nearly everybody knows by now, OS X (that's X as in Roman Numerals or 10 in Arabic, pronounced ten not X) is the Mac GUI (Graphical User Interface) on top of Unix.

Why, you might be asking, do you need a book if the Mac interface is so easy to use. Because if you just start using it, and using the help screens you don't get a solid overview. You tend to learn what you need for right now and never get around to all the things that you can do if you just realized that you wanted to do them.

Having written a whole bunch of previous books for dummies, this one has benefitted from all the comments made about the previous editions. Dr. Mac doesn't think you're really dumb. He would have liked to name this book Mac OS X Tiger For People Smart Enough to Know They Need Help With It. But alas, there's a publisher who is writting the check to make this book possible, and "... For Dummies" it is.

This review is written in my poor attempt at the sarcash, clever wordplay, shortcuts, awesome techniques, bad puns that the book uses. But I'm not as good a writer as he is, so I'm going to stop now.

It's sad to see that so many computer users seem to have no sense of humor. I, for one, appreciate a book that approaches such a dry subject with a smirk and lightens the weighty technical jargon with an occasional witty aside.
When I first came to computers, I did start on a Mac and my first technical book was Bob's System 7.5 for Dummies. Were it not for that book- which I chuckled through - I might not be the expert I am today. Quite frankly, had I approached any other witless book, I might have thrown my hands up and said, "to heck with it."
This book is no different. It is peppered throughout with Bob's sense of humor and it makes for a delightful read. I care to not take it so seriously and find cause to ENJOY the experience. To those with no sense of humor, I say, "lighten up."
If you need a good OSX primer that won't bore you to death, this is the book for you.

For 7 years I had been using the Windows operating system. At a certain point, after Windows had crashed several times resulting in the loss of important data, after Windows had become boring with its minute amount of accessories/applications, after Windows had accomplished to infect my computer with dozens of viruses, after Windows, after Windows... where was I? Oh yes. At a certian point down the line, I came to the realization that the Windows operating system was unstable, unreliable, unsafe and uniinteresting.

That's when I made the decision to jump to the mac, right before college. I thought it would be a good change of air. But all of my friends had told me that with the macintosh operating system I wold be limited and isolated from the computer world. They also told me that figuring out how a mac works is really hard. Well, as it turns out, the first thing they told me was not true but the latter was kind of true. However, thanks to "Mac OS X Tiger for Dummies" I have not encountered any problems thus far. Mr. LeVitus makes his book entertaining and interesting. To put it simply, he makes the reader want to read the book. And through his style he presents an immense amount of information, ranging from the basics of the desktop to useful contacts to seek for extra help (which I don't even think you'll need after reading this book).

I strongly advise anyone making the transition from windows (or any other operating system) to mac to take a look at this book. Even previous mac users will find it hopeful. And even if you already know this stuff, at least you'll have a good laugh with the author's jokes!

I was terribly disappointed by this book. Instead of giving straightforward information on using Mac's new OS X, Tiger, LeVitus spends too much time making bad jokes and inserting useless comments. I'm aware that the "Dummies" series is supposed to be user friendly, and these comments might be designed to ease the reader into the very different environment of the UNIX based Macintosh, but LeVitus's witless wordplay--wasted space that could be better spent explaining Tiger and how to use it--becomes cloying and ultimately annoying. If you are utterly new to computers and have started with a Mac (and in this Microsoft dominated world, that's a little hard to imagine), this book will offer you bare bones info, but little else. While attempting to use his instructions for burning backups, which he calls, using an inappropriate metaphor, the "brute force" method (he simply means clicking and dragging files to a burn folder for disk burning backups--there's no "brute force" involved, just a "Select All" command and dragging everything to the burner folder, the "Select All" option, by the way, never being mentioned in that particular chapter), I found his instructions all but useless except for the explanation of the Burn Folder. Learning of that, I used his "brute force" method, that is, I clicked "Select All" from my documents and dropped them into the burn folder, then clicked "Burn." (Of course, the proper media has to be inserted, but chosing the right kind of disk is left for another chapter, not in this one where it needs to be, or at least reiterated for "dummies." And LeVitus doesn't mention the "Select All" option here, either.) The process took about 10 minutes, most of which was time spent letting the Mac burn the disk. LeVitus spends a lot of time advising you to buy new stuff (like backup software) and technical assistance websites, which charge fees (like the site LeVitus operates) without mentioning, for example, the utterly free (although they take donations) www.MAXOSX.COM site. (An excellent site that often gives you answers often within an hour.) He also disparages the use of CRT screens on the eMac. Try looking at a LCD screen from the side, and see how clear the image is--it doesn't compare to the eMac's CRT screen. As someone who is visually impaired, and briefly owned a iMac Notebook, the screen display is what made me return the machine in exchange for the eMac. Like big screens, and separate speakers cluttering your desk? Enjoy eyestrain? Don't care that LCDs use mercury, making them environmentally dangerous when the time comes to trash the Mac? Then follow LeVitus's advice. But if you're not a computer geek and use a Mac for business and occasional pleasure, the 12 inch footprint of the eMac (assuming you're using the amazingly easy to position monitor stand), and the built in stereo speakers are fine, providing you don't want the raw power of a full-blown stereo system and a giant screen. While we're at it, approach LeVitus's comments about keyboards, mice (he encourages you to buy different keyboards and the like, like the reader is made of money), and other peripherals with caution: go to a Mac store and try out the supposedly inadequate peripherals before taking LeVitus's clearly one-sided advice. Is there another agenda going on in the printing of this book? Pushing other merchandise, for instance?
To sum up: Use this book if you only need a jump start on the Mac Tiger OS. A lot you'll discover by trial and error. Or better still, try the new "Missing Manual, Tiger edition," now in print. I'm awaiting my copy, and it has to be better than the "Dummies" book. Remember also you get 90 days free tech support from Mac, more if you purchase the extended ApplePlan. Meanwhile, I'm shipping this book back to Amazon.

Highly recommended. I just bought a new iMAC and had zero experience with Tiger or Apple software. I like the way the author keeps your interest with sometimes dull materiel. Hard to put it down.

"Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies" is for real dummies, but not for novices who want to learn how to use the Mac. Detailed technical information is interspersed with goofy blather making the book difficult to read, annoying to experienced users and novices alike.

Bought my parents their first mac this christmas. And while they are very smart people they were having some issues on the basics. As I live to far to give actual hands on help.bought this book for them and they seem to have been able to pick up on what they needed help with.

Really basic stuff. If you're a complete newcomer to computers AND to Mac OS X, then this should fit fine. If you're already familiar with Windows, other books are probably better. I don't regret the purchase, but I'd hoped for a bit more depth.