Recommended books about MacOS

Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows.

Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby.

AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand.

AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.

This is an exhaustive reference manual for AppleScript, a scripting language included with all Macintoshes. It is not a tutorial, but if you have some programming experience of any kind you will be able to use this manual to construct AppleScripts. The book was published in January 2006 and is up-to-date through Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). It includes a little coverage of Automator. There is some description of other helpful tools such as Script Debugger, a third-party replacement for Apple's Script Editor that provides a lot of additional capability.

I did some work in AppleScript about ten years ago to automate a nightly build process. AppleScript was the right tool for the job, but getting it to work was a lot of aggravation and I didn't look at AppleScript again. Recently I was asked to prepare some AppleScript demos for my local computer user group, and I got this book as a reference. AppleScript is still as aggravating as ever, but I was able to answer all my questions and complete the demos by using this book and its wonderful index.

AppleScript has evolved a lot in the past ten years, in particular by adding a number of object-oriented ideas and by increasing its interoperability with other programming systems (for example, Python, JavaScript, Perl, Ruby, Carbon and Cocoa based applications). Neuburg does a good job of explaining all these features, and he is particularly good on strategy issues. AppleScript can be used by itself but hardly ever is; you should always be thinking of combining it with existing applications and systems to solve your problem.

The major challenge in AppleScript was and remains figuring out the data types and operations supported by a particular application. Neuburg is honest about this, and recommends extensive experimentation and test scripts to figure out how the applications work.

Is AppleScript worth knowing? Neuburg doesn't really make a strong case for this, although his Chapter 1 is a good try. He works through an impressive example in Appendix A, including all the roadblocks and wrong turns. But the example is to clean up a book manuscript prepared in FrameMaker to meet the publisher's standards before turning it in. I think this is a good job for AppleScript, but how many people would need to do this job? I think AppleScript is still a niche language, but if you work in that niche this is an excellent reference.

We wouldn't know something, especially certain technology very well until we know its limitations (or exceptions).

The extensive explorations in this book chart out the boundaries of AppleScript.

If one needs to consult "dictionaries" to acquire AppleScript vocabulary, this book is definitely the grammar book for speaking the language correct-ly.

No, don't start with "AppleScript: The Definitive Guide." Although I was highly motivated, diligent, and intelligent (if I may say so), Neuburg's exigent, articulate, and idiosyncratic "guide" defeated me, and I had to buy and work all the exercises in another book (Kochan's "Beginning Applescript") to obtain the background needed to appreciate this one.
The highly praised chapter in the first edition about conquering FrameMaker has been moved to an Appendix in the 2nd Edition, but since Neuberg sends the reader there on page 75, it is still useful and timely. It would have been more useful had he chosen a scriptable application that is on every Macintosh, or one, at least, that is shipped with Tiger, so that readers could follow his adventure rather than simply read about it. The worst that would have happened is that a newer modification of the application might have come out, in which case, as with FrameMaker, the reader could read about, but not experience, the process.
'Introductory' books in the liberal arts ("The Discarded Image" by C.S. Lewis comes to mind) are larded with quotations in Greek, Latin, French, and German, not to mention others. In exactly the same spirit, Neuburg shifts shamelessly from AppleScript to Perl, especially, but also to Unix, Objective-C, Python, and JavaScript, not to mention others. If you can't follow such examples -- he tells you that is all right -- you get the point that AppleScript is compatible with these and more, and he has the chutzpah to mention his own JavaScript book if that is your deficiency.
The effectiveness of good programming books diminishes as you move away from the computer. Programming is learnt at the keyboard, not in the lecture hall. That said, this book has an astonishing amount to offer to someone perusing it in an easy chair and mulling things over, rather than trying a succession of incorrect guesses at the keyboard. Kochan's book taught me, quickly and easily, how to move a Finder window around the screen, but when I decided that the window I wanted to move was the one holding the AppleScript program, Kochan left me without a clue. The "Oh, yeah" that finally got it moving occurred to me over a sausage biscuit in a fast food place with Neuburg's book in front of me. He didn't tell me what to do, but his dictionary exposition got me to where I could figure it out for myself.
As other reviewers have pointed out, Neuburg's emphases are upon the obscure, the contradictory, and the difficult. To explain these, he has not bothered with the obvious, the consistent, and the easy. They do not interest him, and he pays us the high (too high) compliment of implying that the obvious, the easy, and the consistent need not be explained at all.
If you wish to learn AppleScript and must learn it on your own, begin with a book (Kochan's, for example) that will make you reasonably competent in a hurry (three months, in my case). Then, when you have discovered that AppleScript is not as easy as you thought, you are ready for Neuburg to confirm your worst suspicions about its intricacies, devastate your casual assumptions about obvious solutions, and give you pride in beginning to learn AppleScript.
If you buy this book, you must read it several times, or you will not learn much of what it has to say.

Matt Neuburg's AppleScript book is an excellent overview of AppleScript. Alas, it is limited, as all such books are, by AppleScript's peculiar nature.

The problem is that AppleScript is primarily useful when it interacts with scriptable Applications; this means that many important commands one may think of as belonging to AppleScript belong to Applications instead [2]. If you working to extend an existing script, and decide to research a command in the excellent book index Matt built himself [1], you'll often be frustrated. The command, you see, belongs to the Application, not to AppleScript.

On the other hand, there's a good chance Matt used in the command in one or more examples. In the absence of a companion book entitled "AppleScript for Applications" [3] you'd like to find those examples. Alas, that's where you want a full text search engine.

The good news is, there are two. The even better news is that O'Reilly could make their engine much more visible and useful, with advantages for everyone.

Consider the case of the 'Duplicate' command, which is supported by iTunes (among others) and the Finder (in slightly different ways, no doubt). When I tried Amazon's "search within the book" I discovered several illuminating references. Similarly, O'Reilly allows one to search within the book as a promotion for its Safari eBook library.

The Safari search works well, but they don't want to give away too much for free. You can only read a snippet of information in the search results. A snippet that doesn't, currently, include the page or section number. If you click further you get to the 'buy safari' screen, but you also get to see the section number. Now, you can return to the book and read the information.

O'Reilly could make all of us (and themselves) happy by keeping Safari just as closed as it is today, but merely adding a section reference to the search results they freely expose already.

Here's the win-win for O'Reilly, Matt, Amazon and us:

1. Include the section reference in the initial search results screen.
2. Promote the search facility in every published O'Reilly book and explain how to use it on the O'Reilly book page.
3. If need be, request readers register to obtain this service. O'Reilly doesn't do spam, but they can suggest email subscriptions, RSS feeds, etc during the registration process.

Let us count the wins:

1. Matt's book is suddenly a better book. Readers get more value from it. They use it more. They like it and O'Reilly more.

2. O'Reilly gets ongoing visits from its customers.

3. O'Reilly gets free, regular, promotion of Safari services.

4. Amazon sells more books.

5. O'Reilly does not reduce the value of Safari, they enhance it by introducing users to it without giving it away.

It's a win-win for everyone. I just hope someone at O'Reilly can see the profit in it for them.

john

[1] In my real life I'm a knowledge representation/informatics geek. I have a lot of respect for the unrecognized intellectual labor that goes into producing a truly excellent index. In this case Matt did the work himself!

[2] Many applications may use the same string to refer to somewhat similar functions with slightly different syntax and semantics. This "ontologic dilemma" is a kind of uncontrolled overloading, and it makes AppleScript very challenging to use.

[3] If Matt decides to sell an "AppleScript for Applications" as a Tidbits eBook I'll pay for mine in advance!

It seems like key pieces of information have been left out of this book, which is very atypical for any of the Definitive Guide series from O'Reilly, and of O'Reilly books in general. I picked up this book because it was the most recently published on the topic, and I'm still confused even after reading it. The first three chapters were on very basic subjects such as why you would want to use Applescript in general, where you would want to use it, and basic concepts. Next, part two is all about the syntax of Applescript, piece by piece. This is all very nice, and it probably is complete and correct, but it is like handing someone a maintenance manual on a washing machine who has never seen one before. Now that I know how to fix a broken one, what do I do with the actual machine itself? Part 3, "Applescript in Action", at first looked promising, but actually it just tells you how to fine tune your applications and shows some advanced features without ever really showing you specific problems that Applescript could solve and then solving them using the language. This is probably a good reference for someone who already is an experienced Applescript programmer, but I didn't find it helpful. I've ordered "Beginning Applescript" by Kochan to try to get some more remedial help on the subject. Hopefully, between these two books I can really learn Applescript, rather than just dabbling in it, which is what I've been doing for some time.

The Definitive UNIX Resource--Fully Updated

Get cutting-edge coverage of the newest releases of UNIX--including Solaris 10, all Linux distributions, HP-UX, AIX, and FreeBSD--from this thoroughly revised, one-stop resource for users at all experience levels. Written by UNIX experts with many years of experience starting with Bell Laboratories, UNIX: The Complete Reference, Second Edition provides step-by-step instructions on how to use UNIX and take advantage of its powerful tools and utilities.

Get up-and-running on UNIX quickly, use the command shell and desktop, and access the Internet and e-mail. You'll also learn to administer systems and networks, develop applications, and secure your UNIX environment. Up-to-date chapters on UNIX desktops, Samba, Python, Java Apache, and UNIX Web development are included.

• Install, configure, and maintain UNIX on your PC or workstation
• Work with files, directories, commands, and the UNIX shell
• Create and modify text files using powerful text editors
• Use UNIX desktops, including GNOME, CDE, and KDE, as an end user or system administrator
• Use and manage e-mail, TCP/IP networking, and Internet services
• Protect and maintain the security of your UNIX system and network
• Share devices, printers, and files between Windows and UNIX systems
• Use powerful UNIX tools, including awk, sed, and grep
• Develop your own shell, Python, and Perl scripts, and Java, C, and C++ programs under UNIX
• Set up Apache Web servers and develop browser-independent Web sites and applications

Anyone who plugs in a Mac whether it's the proud owner of the very latest version or someone still tapping away on yesterday's model usually finds these machines to be an immensely popular and beneficial tool. Unfortunately, they can also be a royal pain in the neck. Any way you slice it, Macs still have a tendency to induce minor headaches at the most inopportune times. Mac Annoyances feels your pain. Developed precisely for the individual who can't live without a Mac yet can't deal with its fickle temperament Mac Annoyances provides solutions to scores of common problems faced by Mac owners. Contained within its pages are hidden (plus well-documented) tips, tricks, and workarounds designed to drastically improve specific problem-solving capabilities. The result: a significant enhancement of the overall user experience and a tremendous savings of time no matter which version you own. What does Mac Annoyances cover? What doesn't it cover is the more appropriate question. Hassles associated with Mac OS X, iLife, Mac hardware, and Microsoft Office (the mother of all annoyances) are all addressed in sharp detail. Also tackled: how to overcome problems related to specific applications such as iTunes, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Apple's Mail program. Having trouble browsing the Web or searching with Google? Want to make your Mac a bit faster? Keyboard causing you trouble? These and dozens more annoyances like them are all dissected as well. Truth is, if you've experienced it, Mac Annoyances addresses it. Written by top-flight author and renowned Mac expert, John Rizzo, this book is a follow-up to the bestselling PC Annoyances. In keeping with the spirit of O'Reilly's Annoyances series, Rizzo adopts a sympathetic tone throughout the book that quickly ingratiates itself to readers. Rather than blaming Mac owners for possessing minimal technical savvy, Mac Annoyances takes them along for a fun-filled ride as they join forces and outsmart the system together.

It wasn't made clear in the listing that this is essentially out of date -- Panther was an interim OS and this book is written from a Panther perspective. Tiger has been with us for more than a year, and the listing for this book should make it clear that this is out of date. A waste of my $$.

This review was created for the University of Wisconsin Mac User's Group: http://wiscmug.org/

Let me start with an overview of my expectations of this book (based on books of this type), and then I'll get into my reactions to the book itself.

Target Audience:

I always have two reservations concerning books like this one. The first is the target audience. Who is this book actually for? I'd break up the Mac user base (and probably the PC user base as well) into four categories: beginner, advanced beginner, serious user, and advanced user/programmer.

Beginners aren't just people who started using the Mac yesterday. I'd consider my parents to be beginners. They've been using a Mac for several years now, but they still don't know how to move files around or what the key combination for, well, just about anything is. My dad has to use two fingers to click and drag on his iBook's trackpad, and when I recently told him to copy and paste an e-mail message into a web browser window, he didn't even try to copy and paste, he just retyped it.

Most people get past this stage and begin to really use their Mac. They become curious about what their Mac can do. They experiment, start trying out new software, and generally have many, many questions. I'd call these people advanced beginners. (Incidentally, I think that the reason why people like my parents never get out of the beginner stage is because they are afraid to experiment. The computer is pretty unique in that, quite often, you can undo what you just did. Try that in your kitchen.)

Asking lots of questions is good, since the answers allow people to advance to the third stage, a serious user. Once a person knows enough about their Mac to seriously integrate it into their daily life, they can get real work done and be efficient about it. This is really the whole point about using your Mac, or any computer or tool, for that matter.

Some people of course go even beyond this stage, understanding how to control their Mac from the terminal in OS X, programming their Mac and writing their own software. Advanced users don't feel constrained by the software or the user interface(s) (or sometimes even the hardware) that's out there.

So who is this book's target audience? I expected it to fall around the advanced beginner to serious user (and I think that it does). As beginners, this book would be way above my parent's heads. Even books in the "Missing Manual" series are a little tough for them (and this book is not laid out as a step by step guide to using particular programs as those books are). Advanced users may get something out it, although they may already know most of it (depending upon which apps they use on a regular basis). However, no matter how much you know about the Mac, there are seemingly always a few more little tidbits hidden in the woodwork, so probably everyone could learn something from this book.

Books and obsolescence:

But this brings me to my second point: obsolescence. Books that deal with the features of any computer program are usually outdated by the time they hit your local bookstore (or even by the time the ink hits the page). "Mac Annoyances" is written for Mac OS X 10.3, iLife '04, and about two revisions of iPod back. I'm writing this in July 2005, and the book had it's first print run in November 2004. Already the book is one iteration of updates behind, and with new hardware and software updates always on the horizon (thank you Apple and the developer community!), it won't be long until it is multiple iterations behind.

While many of the tips and tricks are still kicking around in newer versions of software (and not everyone updates the software on their Mac right away, if at all), some of the bugs will have been squashed, and some things are simply going to work differently as time goes on.

For example, the iTunes 4.9 update includes the ability to subscribe and listen to podcasts. Very cool, and definitely a feature to mention in a book like this (especially how to subscribe to podcasts from places other than iTMS and why you might want to). Unfortunately, the associated iPod updaters, while enabling podcast support, broke the ability for the iPod to automatically update smart playlists without having to resync to iTunes. Annoying? Yes. But by the time any book or magazine will have had this flaw noted in print, Apple will have fixed it by then. (Apple, you listening?) [UPDATE: Apparently not. While Apple has posted a tech note on their web site about the problem, since writing this review in August, Apple has release two new iPods, two new iPod updaters, and two new verisons of iTunes, and no fix for this problem. Apparently, the new iPod nano and new iPod with video do not suffer from this problem. Does Apple expect me to buy a new iPod just to get back functionality that my old iPod used to have?]

Another example would be the inability of Dashboard widgets to be deleted through the Dashboard user interface in Mac OS 10.4. This was eventually fixed in 10.4.2, but other Dashboard weirdness still exists that I hope will be fixed in future 10.4 updates.

So, presenting the information in this form (as a book) presents certain problems. We now have better ways of presenting the most up-to-date information (namely, the internet). Books have fantastic data stability, but horrible search and update functionality. In addition, because the book takes a Q & A approach to solving specific problems, some information that really should go together winds up being scattered across multiple pages or even sections. The author does realize this and tries to mention associated information whenever possible, but not always.

Thus, this book isn't specifically at fault on the second point as much as the entire genre is. John Rizzo keeps a blog to address this issue; however, it is more focused on Windows annoyances than Mac ones (I'm not sure if that's a commentary on the state of affairs, but I'll just assume so).


Hits and misses of the book:

Now that that's all out of the way, what's actually in "Mac Annoyances"? The book is divided up into sections: Mac OS X, various e-mail programs, using the internet (including iChat), Microsoft Office, iLife, iPod, and some basics about hardware. That covers a lot of territory, while restricting itself to applications that a majority of users probably use.

However, I think they still miss some apps that lots of people use (or should be using). I'd like to have seen more of the standard applications that ship with OS X featured, such as iCal, Font Book, iSync, and the utilities. (Of course, the newest features of Tiger, like Spotlight and Dashboard and, my personal favorite, Dictionary, aren't featured either.) There are also a whole set of media player apps that people use, like RealPlayer and Quicktime Player, that have plentiful, if obscure, features. And some sections feel like they barely scratch the surface of interesting features or questions about the interface. Some of this may be a result of phrasing all of the questions as "annoyances" in order to match the title, but the sections covering the iApps and iPod left me wanting more.

Of course, if you don't use a particular app (for example, I've never had a Mac with a SuperDrive, so I've never ever opened iDVD), the suggestions in the book aren't going to be of much worth to you. On the other extreme, if you use an application extensively, you may already be familiar with all of the ins and outs that are presented.

I would classify myself as a serious user, although I do dabble in a little programming here and there. I was pleasantly surprised to find out some stuff I didn't know about my Mac, and some solutions to annoying little problems that I hadn't bothered to take care of. So here are three detailed examples of things I found useful in the book, and one example of something I didn't.

Spellchecking:

I've pondered upgrading Mail.app's spell checker for a while, since it isn't that smart, but I didn't know how to do it and it wasn't so bothersome that I felt obligated to do something about it. The book recommends an OS X version of a standard Unix spellchecker, a good (read: free) suggestion. But it actually didn't get to the root of my problem with Mail.app's spellchecker.

Spellchecking in general could have been an entire sub-section of the book, because it is something that has to be (or should be) used a lot. But this would violate how the book is set up to some extent. So the suggestion of installing a separate spellchecker for the entire system to use was put in the web browser section.

One of the main reasons I use Microsoft Word is because of its AutoCorrect spellcheck feature, something which I didn't know (although it totally makes sense) is duplicated in third-party spellchecking software. So I may actually buy SpellCatcher X, what the book suggests, although I'd like to find out more about how OS 10.4's new, standard Oxford English dictionary has affected the playing field of spellchecking before plunking down $40.

Web browsers:

I think this book gives a very good comparison of the browsers that are out there for the Mac. It isn't exhaustive in the number of browsers (it includes Safari, Firefox/Camino/Mozilla, OmniWeb, even IE, but ignores Opera and iCab) or their features, but is certainly more detailed than what you might find in a MacWorld article on the same topic. It also, as mentioned earlier, suffers from the fact that all of the browsers have been updated since the book was published (some browser development groups even offer nightly builds if you really want to surf on the bleeding edge).

But it does cover the main points: bookmarks, pop-ups and ad blocking, flash, cookies, searching, and printing. There were even some things about browsers that I didn't know about, such as using a browser to see what's on your iPod (or any hard drive). Windows forced this file browser metaphor on it's users, and I think that there are a lot of disadvantages with that, but it can be useful in certain situations, so it's nice to know you can do this in some browsers written for Mac OS X.

It also gives some suggestions for web browser add-ons, such as PithHelmet for ad blocking and Sogudi to add functionality to the Google search field in Safari. I wish that it had listed more of these, or at least more places to look for these (I don't remember even running across a mention of Version Tracker). One of my favorites is Pimp My Safari (www.PimpMySafari.com).

Microsoft Word:

This was actually the most useful section I found from the book, and it makes me want to check out some more books about Word/Office, like those in the "Missing Manual" or "Dummies" series. Page after page I kept reading and thinking to myself "Oh, so that's what you need to do in order to do (fill in simple, obvious thing here that drives you a little nuts about Word/Office)". Included tips covered tracking changes, hyperlinks, several suggestions on spellchecking, the work menu, office assistant, keyboard commands, formatting, selecting non-continuous sections of text, and working with tables of contents and large documents.

Some of the tips provided overviews of the different functionalities of different versions of Word for the Mac (and now I'm even considering upgrading to Office 2004, something that the Microsoft marketing juggernaut couldn't get me to do).

This section made me realize that I am no where near a serious user of Word, because there are tons of features in there that I had no clue about. Of course, this is one of the oft-mentioned problems of the Office suite: feature bloat. But for every, say, ten useless features that I don't know about (and hopefully never will), it sounds like there might be one feature that's buried but would be useful.

Sherlock:

There's a whole sub-section of the internet chapter of the book devoted to Sherlock. Does anyone use Sherlock anymore? Did anyone ever use Sherlock? I used to use it a little but 1) it was slow, 2) the UI tended to be cumbersome, and 3) the third-party channels kept breaking with version updates (and sometimes simply for no apparent reason). I did use Watson, the third party app that did many of the same things and worked better for whatever reason. But more often than not I just used the web to do the same things that I could do in Sherlock or Watson.

I think we've recently seen an evolution of Sherlock's main design principle, that of information-specific search capabilities, in Dashboard. Plus, some of these search capabilities now (finally) seem ready for prime time. For example, Google maps rocks, and the fact that the API is open, so people have created extensions for Google maps, like Workout Tracker at particletree.com/gmaps/workoutTracker.php, rocks even harder.

Some more helpful tidbits:

I can't help but briefly mention a few more little tidbits in the book that I found to be helpful. One thing everyone should be forced to read before they are ever allowed near a computer are the included tips for writing effective e-mail. Most of the things are common sense, which begs the question why do I still get e-mail that is less fun to read than getting a root canal? I remember having to write boring sample letters in my English class in elementary school - I hope that now they are teaching kids how to write good e-mails (but I wouldn't be surprised if many teachers didn't understand the differences between a good letter and a good e-mail).

The book also lists some useful yet surprisingly obscure keyboard commands. There are also a lot of suggested hacks that rely on the Unix underpinnings of OS X, including changing the "Connect to Server" dialog box to allow you to browse your network, folder modifications/management, and changing the functionality of those little arrows in iTunes.


In conclusion, if you use several of the apps listed above and still have a lot of questions about using those apps on your Mac, this book might help. There are certainly a lot of other tips and tricks out there on several web sites (check the WiscMUG links page for starters), and this book won't have the hottest, newest information (nor will any book). But I did find some very useful pieces of information in here, especially those about spellchecking and using Word. Thus, I think that the question to ask yourself is "Based on the above description, does it sound like this book could answer many of my advanced-beginner questions about the Mac?" and if the answer is "Yes", then it's time to pick up a copy.

I am not a Mac user, so I can't comment much on whether or not I agree that the annoyances addressed in the book are the things I would find annoying.

I can say that, contrary to the hype, I found the Mac to have just as many quirks and annoyances as Windows when I was supporting both operating systems. The annoyances might be different, but the operating system was not as perfect and intuitive as one might be led to believe. Suffice it to say, I believe a book like this will be just as welcome to the Mac audience as similar books in the PC and Windows world.

The title of Mac Annoyances may be a little misleading in some ways. It almost should be called Mac Hacks (O'Reilly does offer Mac OS X Panther Hacks as well) because many of the tips are not so much about an annoyance, but rather provide insight into tweaking or modifying the OS or application to work in a particular way.

Some of the tips or advice are not as helpful as you might hope for. For instance, tips on how to get the Safari web browser to work the way you want or perform certain functions often end with "switch to another browser".

Overall, the book is written fairly well and the tips will make sense to most beginner to intermediate level users.

(...)

Mac Annoyances is full of useful tips. Some really do banish annoying behaviors, such as the Microsoft Office Assistant and Microsoft Word's autocorrect features (and some that are not, in fact, from Microsoft), but others are just useful, such as option-mute-speaker-key bringing up System Preferences and information on how to keep the iTunes library on an external drive. Macs may not be as annoying as PCs, but there are enough non-obvious settings and tricks that a book like this is useful.

The book is aimed at an intermediate level, for people who are competent Mac users but who might not feel comfortable figuring out Terminal commands (there are a few, but it's at a cookbook "cut and paste" level) or using the Developer Tools.

I think it's a good book for intermediate Mac users who want to know some of the hidden tricks that can help make their Mac experience easier.

The author covers methods of dealing with a wide assortment of quirks and interesting default settings that the wizards at Apple chose to use in the building of their sophisticated new OS. Some of the annoyances Mr. Rizzo helps the reader fix are fairly basic, but most are for the serious user who will find a small nuisance to be a true headache if they are a heavier user of their machine than I am of mine. There's a note near the beginning of the text that recommends a couple of books for the novice with OS X. I suspect they are a good idea. I found much of Mac Annoyances difficult to follow until I watched the first two discs of the Mac Academy program for OS X.

Mr. Rizzo is very qualified to write this book, and he is phenomenally generous with recommendations of web sites, software, and books that the reader can visit or acquire to solve glitches that aren't just a matter of knowing how to find and change some well-hidden settings. The annoyance fixes that I tried worked as advertised, and so I assume the more technical fixes that I didn't need will work as well. I have to make the same assumption concerning the ones requiring downloads or purchases of additional software. Pleasantly, almost every graphic of the computer screen that accompanied the text of an annoyance was visible without having to turn a page. There are also excellent explanations to accompany the annoyances. Even as a novice, I leaned a great deal from what Mr. Rizzo has to say about various settings and set ups. A great example is why one should have one's e-mail not accept HTML material.

While the material in the book is very thorough, I thought it's physical presentation on the page could be improved on. There didn't seem to be a standard way of listing the steps to correct an annoyance. Typically, you have to read the verbiage carefully and notice what's capitalized and pull the steps out of the text. Other times there were set ups with arrows between the names of icons or tabs or whatever had to be clicked on. At the very least some bold type and/or a different font would allow an easier time seeing and reviewing the steps. Even better might be a box with the steps nestled in the text. Lastly, a light green ink is used to indicate which figures to refer to. My half-century-old eyes have trouble seeing it.

The magic of the Mac is back! Mac OS X is a truly revolutionary operating system that has great flexibility and functionality. Author Gene Steinberg shows readers how to tap techniques of IT professionals to make your Mac run at top efficiency.

Gene Steinberg understands that the new Macintoshes--like all computers--are systems of hardware and software, and that neither may be separated from the other. Upgrading and Troubleshooting Your Mac: Mac OS X Edition is an intimate picture of modern Mac hardware (the Power Mac, PowerBook, iBook, and iMac platforms) and the points at which it interacts with Mac OS 9.1 and Mac OS X. As you'd expect, readers learn how to select and install add-in hardware like SuperDrives and supplementary RAM, but the Mac makes those procedures pretty easy by design. The real value in this book comes in two areas.

First, Steinberg answers all kinds of common, but officially unaddressed, questions. Is it absolutely safe to put your laptop through an airport x-ray machine? How does a G4 behave when a SCSI card is malfunctioning at the hardware level? What happens if you try to make an officially unsupported graphics card work? Do third-party processor upgrades work? He explains most of these matters with stories taken from his experience as a longtime Mac user.

Second, the author knows a ton of tricks for working with the Mac OS itself, and is liberal with his recommendations of utilities for diagnosing, repairing, and adjusting its behavior. His thoughts on how to solve problems by reinstalling your operating system without wiping out your installed programs will save you time in all but the gravest situations. You'll find this book particularly valuable if you do upgrade and repair work on unfamiliar Macs. --David Wall

Topics covered: Changing and adjusting hardware on modern Macintosh computers (PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs, Power Mac G4s, and, to a lesser extent, Power Mac G3s). All the key subsystems get attention: monitors, networks, SCSI chains, FireWire peripherals, and hard drives. Special (and especially valuable) coverage of Windows emulators and video capture hardware appears as well.

Gene Steinberg's Upgrading & Troubleshooting Your Mac: Mac OS X Edition is a hands-on manual that focuses on both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.1 and later. It discusses upgrading, preventive maintenance, and troubleshooting. Filled with case histories to illustrate common problems and repair solutions, this book covers a wide range of important issues -- from survival advice for laptops and organizing SCSI chains to overcoming Ethernet difficulties. 612 pages

At last, a book that's taken away the fear of Mac OS X. Mr. Steinberg's newest book not only tells you how to get the most out of your Mac hardware, he shows you how to make Mac OS X 10.1 play nicely. I was pleased to discover a way to do a clean install of Mac OS X without erasing my drive (something Apple has yet to figure out) and a handy terminal tip that helped me empty the trash when I started getting messages that it was "in use." I highly recommend this book.

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