Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Mac OS X Tiger

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I`ve owned Apple computers now since 2000, theres no turning back. However, like most first users I was surprised that there was no manual when I purchased my G4 in 2000. So I went out and got the Missing Manuals, the Macs for Dummies and so on. These books are all great. When I got the G5 with the new OS X, I was drooling. This machine was beauty and with the little knowledge I did acquire from my wanderings on my G4, I realized the G5 was even easier to use and so intuitive that I really did not feel the need to get a manual but I did anyway because I knew there were things I was simply unaware of and that I could take this G5 further into my creative endeavors.

Anyway, there are many excellent books out there to get but I try not to stick with one publisher or writer because everyone has their own style and ideas and I try to get as many as possible, not only that but I just feel every book has their own strengths so I seriously sit down and thumb though key sections for me at the book store before purchasing. With the said, I found this book to be the most helpful of the bunch and the easist to read. There are other books that are more colorful but this book gives me the info I need without all the photos and hoopla.

I should add that even though the book can get technical, if you`re into that sort of thing, it also helped me to set up my printer which should be an easy thing to do but this time I was having trouble with my HP. After thumbing through the book, I found what I was looking for and was printing seconds later. So this book can help with the most simple to the most technical aspects of working with your OS.

As Miser explains, there is a lot that you can do with a Mac running OS X. The user interface is beguilingly simple to learn. And this has characterised Macs over their 20 plus years. But you can learn here that under the simple UI is a ton of complex capabilities that you can access.

En route, if you can dedicate yourself to systematically go through this book, you learn a version of Unix. Which by the way, and to good first approximation, is equivalent to learning much about linux. Of course, this is not the primary intent of the book. But it is an unheralded extra virtue.

With regards to Unix, you can learn how to use the command line. While the UI lets you do many common tasks, there is a limit even to the ingenuity of Apple's designers as to what should be enabled at the UI level. The book has a relatively short chapter on the command line. For serious, specialised tasks, you may well end up carefully perusing the chapter.

On more general issues, Miser covers the most common usages of any personal computer. For browsing, the Mac has a default browser called Safari. You may not need to consult the book's notes on it, if you just do standard browsing. Then for email, the book shows how the Mac has an application for easy use.

What adds to the book's heft is its description of higher level, value-added applications that Apple has astutely used to build up the Mac's cachet. As in listening to or managing a music collection with iTunes, or even making music with GarageBand. More elaborately, running iMovie to be your own movie director. While it should be no surprise that Miser gives extensive coverage to the iPod and how its use can be integrated into the use of a Mac.

You can think of these sections of the book as being a useful and detailed adjunct to various skimpier books that describe those applications. Here, Miser's narrative lacks the often vivid multihued illustrations in those books, but makes up for this with more comprehensive details of usage. Though some of you might wince at this turn of phrase, the book elucidates a "Mac lifestyle".