macs

I had recently rec'd the OS 10.2.2 "Visual Quick Start Guide" and BOTH of these books kind of gloss over the real meat of the OS.

I would have liked to see something on the Windows file connectivity, my office has both mac's and (ugh) PC's that need to share files, and NEITHER of these books even touched on that subject.

If you are reading this, then you are incredibly wise, and either, a Mac loyalist or a recent PC convert to Mac, and have reached a point where you have installed (or are about to install) Mac OS 10.2. The current Mac OS 10.2 is wonderful, stable and fun (which is probably the main reason why you are using Mac in the first place). The problem facing us all, is that when we open the box containing the OS 10.2, the manual is missing! As if it were stolen by aliens! The truth is, there are three reasons why Apple didn't give us a manual. They are: 1-It costs money to make, 2-It costs money to make, and 3-they take that saved money and put it into R&D so that we have many new exciting goodies from them in the future. So, what do we do about the missing manual; We buy one or two of the newest books out on OS 10.2 to guide us along in Mac Land. We all got our Macs because they were visually exciting and image based (as opposed to the boring PC OS coding). So, doesn't it stand to reason that a decent MAC OS manual would employ this same philosophy. Happily, there is one that does! "Teach Yourself Visually:Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar"is in living color and presented in a visual step-by-step illustrated approach that is very enlightening and fun to use.It simplifies the concepts of Mac OS 10.2 while speeding you through its paces. It is so good, that you will be soon showing off this book to your die-hard PC friends in order to show them the true path to computer nirvana. Another great companion book is "MAC OSX Killer Tips" by Scott Kelby. Scott lives in Mac Heaven, is publisher and editor of several Mac-based publications, and is very, very smart and very funny besides. "Killer Tips" is also in living color and will save you even more time and make you even more clever than you already are. "Tips"
is filled with those wonderfully simple, slightly more advanced
"Aha" tricks that the Mac team has given us all as a reward for being intelligent enough to want to use Macs in the first place.
Get both books if you want to know the new OS and have a lot of fun in the process.

Teach Yourself Visually: Mac OSX v.10.2 Jaguar; Maran, Ruth; Illustrations by Russ Marini & Steven Schaerer; Screen Artist and Illustrator Darryl Grossi; Copyright 2003; Maran Graphics. Publ Wiley Publishing, Inc. NY, NY; Softback; ISBN 0-7645-1802-X

This book of slightly more than 300 pages is visually very attractive. It would make a nice gift. The author recognizes that some people do much better when instructed with visual images. Toward this end she has created a well illustrated book that takes the beginner by the eye and introduces operating a computer equipped with Mac OSX v.10.2.

This book will definitely get a neophyte started and probably productive using OSX at the beginner level. Basic operations and concepts are illustrated and explained. Included applications are explained. The author has taken simplification too far perhaps though. There is no hint that there are alternate ways to achieve the results mentioned in the book. This approach can be misleading unfortunately. One example of the pitfalls of over simplification is on page 182 where the author states "You need to ... have a .Mac membership to publish photos to the web." As you know, there are several alternates to this approach.

The most glaring oversimplification is the assumption that the computer will always function properly and will not need disk or file maintenance. "Troubleshooting" and "Maintenance" are not indexed terms. There is no guidance for malfunction, no mention of caution around renaming or moving files and folders, etc.

This book is clearly for the person who is new and simply wants to get going. Toward this simple end the book is excellent. The user will be in need of another text or a knowledgeable friend to assist the first time a program hangs, crashes or there is any need for an application outside the suite provided with MacOSX. "Classic" is another term completely absent from the index.

Pros: Excellent introductory book for someone who is both a computer novice and primarily a visual learner.

Cons: Very little information on dealing with the inevitable problems that occur. Simplistic introduction which does not suggest to the reader a path to advanced exploration and learning, nor even that one exists.