Mac OS X: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition: Amazon.ca: David Pogue: Books

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Widely esteemed Mac authority David Pogue weighs in on the latest offering from Cupertino with Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. It's a fact-packed romp through the operating system and the extras that come with it, made resoundingly more readable by the depth of Pogue's knowledge, his familiarity with Mac history, and his eagerness to engage novices as members of the Mac user community. Unlike most books about Mac OS X, this one explores its Unix-like underpinnings (the Apple implementation is called Darwin) pretty thoroughly. However, on the logic that if you wanted to use Unix, you would, Pogue emphasises the traditional, graphical Mac interface over the Terminal window.

Pogue, who's written about Macs for years writes about Macs at the user level with clarity. He's also quite good at dealing with the numerous options and variations that apply to Mac procedures, and makes very good use of sidebars for clarifying details. In a section on printing, for example, Pogue explains why there's no longer an option to turn off background printing (true multitasking has rendered the option obsolete). There's also good coverage of the online iTools, tailored to people unfamiliar with integrating remote resources into their personal computing environments. --David Wall

Topics covered: Apple Mac OS X for people who will use the operating system, either on a standalone computer with Internet access or on a computer that is part of a home or organisational network. Running applications (in Classic mode as well as in native Mac OS X mode), printing, networking, multimedia, security (including Keychain), and utilities are all covered. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An indispensable guide for Mac users that ought to come with every new Macintosh." Computer Shopper, July (4 stars)

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111 Reviews

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4.5 out of 5 stars (111 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Missing No Longer, Aug 3 2002

By

Emma Story (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

I finally picked up _Mac OS X: The Missing Manual_. I've been meaning to grab it since I first heard that David Pogue wrote a book on OS X; I've been a fan of his for a while. I remember reading his stuff in Macworld - on System 7, even - when someone gave me a subscription (many) years ago, and his New York Times columns have generally been pretty good as well.

_Mac OS X: The Missing Manual_ is exactly what you'd expect if you've read any of Pogue's other books or columns - it's clear and straightforward without seeming dumbed down. His writing tends to be fairly light and often funny, making for particularly readable technical books. That's not to say it's without substance, though - within the first chunk of this book (which is pushing six hundred pages) I'd already had a dozen of my exisiting questions answered as well as plenty I hadn't even thought to wonder about.

It seems pretty definitely directed at people who've been using Mac OS for a long time and are switching to OS X; given that OS X contains nothing at all from the previous versons of the operating system it's not surprising that it takes some getting used to, despite vaguely _looking_ like Mac OS. If you've never used OS 8 or 9 and don't have any existing Mac habits to unlearn, you might not even need a book like this - but I suspect it would still be pretty useful. As the title implies, Apple documentation tends to be slim to non-existent, and this is by far the most thorough OS X book I've seen yet. Definitely recommended.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pogue hits another homerun!, Feb 8 2002

By

Scott Rose "Computer Geek" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

David Pogue is one of the best technical authors of our time, and once again he hits a homerun!

I've been using Mac OS X as my primary operating system for the last month, and I've had absolutely no trouble learning Mac OS X in record time. It's such a great operating system... so elegant, so user-friendly, so intuitive, so crash-resistant.

And so I wondered, "Okay... do I really need to purchase David Pogue's manual on Mac OS X? I mean, I have a really firm grasp on the OS to begin with!"

And as I started reading the book, the answer became a resounding YES! Before I had even finished the first chapter, I had already learned dozens of new tips, tricks, secrets, explanations, and reasonings that I did not know! Stuff that I didn't REALIZE I wanted to know until I read them in Pogue's book.

And as always, Pogue's breezy, friendly, & cheerful writing style makes this manual read like a gripping novel. You can read this from cover-to-cover without ever losing interest.

This book is a must read. It should come bundled with every copy of Mac OS X.

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5.0 out of 5 stars THE Manual for OS X, Jun 27 2004

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Willard S. Cushman (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

I'm a long, long time user of Macintosh computers that finally migrated from OS 9 to OS X (10.2.6) about a year ago. A great OS, stable, feature-filled, and visually attractive but oh so different from the old Mac operating systems! This manual has paid for itself many times over in the last year that I've used it. It's sheer size is daunting but Pogue writes so clearly and the book is so well organized that it is a great resource for both beginners and experienced users. I tried the more basic guides first but they seemed "too cute" or too abbreviated for my taste. I recommend this manual without reservation.

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