Cool Mac Gear

My review copy of Dan Frakes' new Mac OS X Power Tools arrived yesterday.

As its title indicates, this book is intended to help proficient users become power users; to show you how to do things you already know how to do -- but faster, better, and more efficiently; as well as how to do things you always wished you could do, but didn't know how. In other words, this book is designed to help proficient Mac OS users become power users.

If you're a Mac OS beginner, this is probably not the book to start with. Get a copy of Todd Stauffer's "Mastering Mac OS X," or David Pogue's OS X: The Missing Manual."

A full review of Mac OS X Power Tools will be forthcoming in Moore's Views & Reviews, but I'm already liking this book a lot after an initial skim-through. Dan Frakes approach appeals:

How to use this book

1. Open book to desired page
2. Read
3. Buy more RAM

You're getting the picture already.

This book takes you step-by-step through tips, shortcuts, and solutions on setup, installations, the Finder, the Dock, applications, networking, security, sharing, Unix, and much more.

Mac OS X Power Tools' approach to the "tips and tricks" genre shows you both how to do things, and why they work. Each chapter includes background information on the hows and whys of the OS, and then shows you how to get the most out of it through specific examples. When appropriate, third-party software that provides additional or enhanced functionality is presented.

Mac OS X Power Tools acknowledges different levels of users and OS X user accounts. Before each exercise or example, you're told whether a change or procedure can be performed by any user of your computer, or if it is restricted to administrative users. You're also told whether or not you'll need to use Terminal in order to perform the actions to be discussed. Finally, you're told whether what you're about to do will affect just your own user account, or if it will affect all users of your computer.

The publisher of Mac OS X Power Tools (Sybex) has made a sample chapter and the book's index available as free PDF downloads from the Website URL below. An online supplement to Chapter 5 is also available; however, it is truly a supplement, so it won't make much sense unless you've first read Chapter 5.

Mac OS X Power Tools should soon be available at most of the larger retail stores that carry computer-related books, such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Fry's, CompUSA, and local Apple Stores, as well as online resellers like, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buy.com, and BookPool.

For more information, visit:
http://www.macosxpowertools.com/
and
http://homepage.mac.com/frakes/iBlog/BookBlog/index.html

Software modems

From Chris Chow

Hi Charles;

I have a 700MHz iBook. I don't use it as my internet machine but your article is helpful to know.

BTW I sympathize with your marathon 9.5 hours download of OS X updates.

Best wishes,
Chris Chow

iBook Modems, Software modems

From M,

Hi,

In answer to Ken who wrote about custom modem scripts, he can use:

OS X: (third party)

Classic: (from Apple)

and this one

I never used the OS X application. The one from Apple I used many times. Both are bare bones.

Regarding your suggestion to read the developer notes (http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/hardware/hardware2.html) I did not find a reference in the modem page whether it is a 'real' or software modem.

Best regards
M.

Thanks for the links M. Another sourse of alternate modem scripts is of course Tracy Turner's comprehensive Mac Modem Magic demoware collection, which is available here: http://macntosh.com/macara405.html

I did read through the iBook developer notes some time ago, and didnlt recall any mention of whether it is a software modem or not, but I'm pretty sure it is. I know that my venerable old GlobalFax software, which works great in OS 9 on my Pismo, will not recognize the modem in the iBook.

Charles

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore