Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition – The ‘Book Mystique Review

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New York Times tech columnist and prolific computer book author David Pogue is one of the most pleasurable and entertaining writers in the field. If you’re only having one OS X get-you-up-to-speed book, the one I almost always recommend is David Pogue’s Mac OS X: The Missing Manual — a hard-to-beat general resource on all things OS X for its comprehensiveness and easy-reading accessibility to users across the spectrum of computer skill levels. It’s definitely the Mac OS X reference I turn to first and most often myself. I rarely have to dig farther.

However, Mac OS X: TMM was originally written to address the needs of Classic Mac OS users migrating to OS X, with more recent editions of the book having been refocused to accommodate the considerably different requirements of users with no hands-on memory of the Classic Mac era, and increasing numbers of Windows users switching to the Mac on the coattails of the iPod/iPhone/iPad/iOS phenomenon, having discovered that Apple products can be very cool, Consequently, there is a risk of casting too broad a net from the flagship Mac OS X: TMM, and definitely room for a more specific Missing Manual solution for new-to-the-Mac users switching from Windows.

Hence another Missing Manuals book series: Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual – Tiger Edition, co-authored by David Pogue with GoldfishSoft ( http://www.goldfishsoft.com ) founder Adam Goldstein. As the authors note in the book’s introduction, “Switching to the Mac is not all sunshine and bunnies. The Macintosh is a different machine, running a different operating system, and built by a company with a different philosophy – a fanatical perfectionist/artistic zeal. When it comes to their issues and ideals, Apple and Microsoft have about as much in common as a melon and a shoehorn.”

“Who ever thought, in the days when Mac owners were an oppressed minority, that Macs would represent 20 percent of the world’s new-computer sales?” asks Pogue, the weekly personal-technology columnist for the Times and an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News. “An incredible number of these people are refugees from the Windows world who could use a hand crossing the great divide into the Mac world. This book is for them: the oppressed majority.”

The original Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual edition published in 2003 and featuring OS X 10.2 Jaguar, had 435 pages and included a section on using OS X Classic Mode And even booting directly into OS 9, as well as use of America Online, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Eudora Pro, connecting to the Internet with a dial–up modem, and other software and technology that has fallen by the wayside, showing how far we’ve come in nine years. The iPod gets but four page references in the index, and of course the iPhone and iPad didn’t exist yet.

Two years later, the OS X 10.4 Tiger edition of Switching to the Mac: TMM had grown to 508 pages, still had sections on Mac OS Classic programs and Classic Mode, as well as dial-up modem instructions.

Flash forward to the latest OS X 10.7 Lion edition, which is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs, and we’re up to 691 pages. OS X Classic Mode is long gone, but David Pogue, God bless him, still includes a four–paragraph instructional on using dial-up Internet, as well as posting a free appendix entitled “Setting Up A Dial–Up Modem Connection” on the missingmanuals.com website. The iPod is down to a single index page reference, but the Lion edition is saturated with iPad and IOS references, along with new Lion features like iCloud, gestures, Mission Control, the Launchpad, AirDrop, AutoSave, and the Mac App Store, along with much discussion of the transplantation of iPad techniques to the Mac in LIon.

Since you’re reading this review on MacPrices.net, there’s a likelihood that you’re not in the main target market for this book (but if you’re a recent or prospective switcher looking for information, you’ve come to the right place – welcome). However, chances are that you know somebody who is.

Anyway, the author assumes only a cursory level of Mac knowledge on the part of the typical reader, so the book’s introduction concentrates on explaining basic Mac concepts and the many advantages the Mac has over Windows such as system stability, no copy-protection nagging, superior software, low-hassle software installs (and uninstalls), and simpler everything.

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual Lion Edition is organized into five parts of several chapters each, and the author acknowledges up-front that some of the material in Switching to the Mac: TMM is adapted from Mac OS X: TMM, which is certainly no bad thing.

Part 1, Welcome To Macintosh, covers Mac essentials, and is a crash course in everything you see on screen when you turn on the machine: including the Dock, the Sidebar, icons, windows, menus, scrollbars, the Trash, aliases, the App Menu, and so on.

Part 2, Making The Move, is dedicated to the actual process of importing your software, settings, and even peripherals like printers and monitors from a PC to the Mac. Transferring your stuff — moving files from a PC to a Mac by cable, network, or disk is the easy part. More challenging is figuring out how to extract your email, address book, calendar, Web bookmarks, buddy list, desktop pictures, and MP3 files. Tis book tells you how and walks you through the processes. also offer tips on recreating your software suite on the Mac. This book identifies the Mac equivalents of your favorite Windows programs. Also covered are the steps for running Windows on your Mac.

Part 3, Making Connections, walks you through the process of setting up an Internet connection on your Mac. It also covers Apple’s Internet software suite: Mail, Address Book, Safari, and iChat.

Part 4, Putting Down Roots, moves along to more advanced topics, mastery of which will transform you into a Macintosh power user. Topics covered include tutorials on how to set up private accounts for people who share a Mac, creating a network for file sharing and screen sharing, navigating the system preferences program (the Mac equivalent of the Windows control panel), and using the 50 odd free bonus programs that come bundled with Mac OS X.

Part 5, Appendices, contains four of them. The first two cover installation and troubleshooting of Mac OS X. The third appendix is the “Where’d It Go?”, Dictionary — an essential resource for anyone who occasionally (or frequently) flounders to find some familiar control in the new alien Macintosh environment. The last appendix is a master keyboard shortcut list for the entire Mac OS X universe.

As one has come to expect with Missing Manuals books, there is an excellent Index, and the book is illustrated with many screenshots. Selling at the modest price of $29.99 (Can$31.99) for a 691 page book, Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual is a must-have for anyone making the Windows to Mac transition. It will smooth the way by omitting needless confusion and potential frustration, and also prove a treat for Windows users who may not be familiar with best-selling Mac author David Pogue’s delightfully witty and conversational prose style.

For more information about the book, including table of contents, author bios, and cover graphic, see:
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920015925.do

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
By David Pogue
Print ISBN: 9781449398538
Pages: 691
Print Price: $29.99
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

For more information, visit:
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