Customer Reviews

Mac Toys: 12 Cool Projects for Home, Office, and Entertainment (ExtremeTech)

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Not only does this book tell you a dozen different cool things you can do with your Mac (control appliances, broadcast Internet radio, emulate arcade games, etc.), it goes into detail explaining the nitty-gritty of _how_ to pull off these projects. Mac Toys is full of practical information with specific product recommendations and step-by-step software instructions anyone can follow. I also appreciate the handy references to useful freeware and shareware that might otherwise escape your notice, as well as the coverage of obscure hardware products that are off the radar of most Mac stores. The book is a little pricey, but worth every penny.

I've been a fan of Scott's work for a long time, and was looking forward to this book. I'm not disappointed. For each project is a clear description of what the goals of the project are (like why you'd want to automate your house with X10, or why you'd want an electronic picture frame), a description of the best pieces of hardware and software out there (both free and for-pay), and then step-by-step on how to do the project. The writing is fun and easy-going, and the projects are really cool.

Frankly, I'm not too impressed by most of the Mac OS X-centric books out there, and when I bought this, I wasn't sure that my mindset would change. Was I ever wrong... Thanks to the knowledge acquired from this book, my Macs now do far more than what Windows could ever hope to do. Don't get me wrong, for I earn my living with Windows, but thanks to this book, the Macs prove how uniquely strong they are. This is a fantastic book. Keep 'em coming.

I am not a hard core Mac guy. I just have an old iMac I bought on eBay for fun, running Mac OS 9, so i didnt really know if any of these would work. I bought the PC Toys and Linux Toys books from this same series (yes, I know I have too many old machines laying around,) and really liked them so I thought I might see what I could do with my little Mac in the basement.

Turns out many of the projects will work out fine on my OS 9 machine, although those of you serious Mac users with OS X will be able to do do them all without any problems.

I went straight for the "Classic Video Game Mac" project and am busily assembling a makeshift cabinet for my new MacMAME machine.

Sure beats having that machine sit powered down on a desk in the basement, huh?

A friend gave me this book and I was surprised by how different it was. I had no idea my Mac could do such cool things. The directions are not that hard to follow. The best part is you can show it to your PC friends and they are jealous!

Want to have a TV on your Mac?...Buy an external Video Card!! How smart. Talks about the Ipod, but the 2nd and 3rd generation, no Ipod photo, video, nano, etc. This book is completely out of date. Would not recommend it to anyone. Save your money.