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The fifth, Leopard edition of the widely-acclaimed Mac book to have if you're only having one has received its most extensive makeover yet, not only with the new Mac OS 10.5 Leopard and Boot Camp content, but with its cover motif, replacing the classic missing manuals and blue and white theme with new green and black livery.
I had been a bit concerned after the fifth and sixth editions of J.D Biersdorfer's iPod: The Missing Manual arrived with substantially reduced page counts to go with the new appearance. One of the things I've treasured about the Mac OS X Missing Manual series is David Pogue's inimitable combination of technical depth, wit, and conversational reader- friendliness, and I didn't see how that could be successfully compressed.
I needn't have worried. The Leopard Edition is the thickest Mac OS X Missing Manual yet, just shy of a Tolstoyesque 900 pages. That's up from the Tiger Edition's already hefty 849 pages. Indeed, Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, has grown steadily with each successive release, the OS 10.3 Panther, OS 10.2 Jaguar, and OS 10.1 editions weighing in at 763, 713, and 583 pages respectively.
What's great about Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (any edition), aside from the good writing, is its comprehensiveness. Whatever aspect of working with the operating system and the dozens of programs that come bundled with it, you're almost certain to find it addressed in the pages of this book - all packaged to accommodate the needs and computer skill levels of Mac users from first-time newbies to power users, an objective that has happily been accomplished without descending into dumbed-down blandness. Instead, the primary text is written at a technical level ranging from an advanced beginner to intermediate, which covers the preponderance of the Mac-using community, and which should prove neither totally inaccessible to rank amateurs, nor boringly tedious for the power user cohort. However, the specific needs and interests of the latter two categories are addressed with sidebars that appear frequently entitled "Up To Speed" and "Power Users' Clinic" respectively, and which have been expanded in this edition.
One of the presumed reasons for the reduced page count in the last two iPod: The Missing Manual editions has been a switch to all color illustrations, and that trend has, wisely in my estimation, been resisted with the OS X book, which is still copiously illustrated with screenshots, but rendered in traditional (and much cheaper) grayscale rather than color. Good call.
The book's price has bumped up by another five bucks to $34.95 for US readers, which seems justifiable given the nearly 50 extra pages of content, but the price has actually dropped by seven dollars for from the Tiger Edition for Canadian buyers from $41.95 to taa daa!: $34.95 as well - the first book I've encountered that officially acknowledges parity of the Canadian Loonie with the US Greenback. Actually, the Canadian buck hit US$1.10 back in November, when this book went to press, but has since fallen back to the US 97-cent - $1.00 range, and the fair deal of parity is much appreciated by us Canucks. The book sells for £21.99 in the U.K.
Okay. Sit back and take a deep breath. There is a vast amount of information in this book, and, incidentally, an awful lot of new stuff in Mac OS 10 Leopard I hadn't been previously aware of. For example, in my first half-hour skimming its pages, I learned that Leopard Text Edit can now open and save Microsoft Word formatted documents, and that Preview now has some fairly advanced image editing features like cropping, photo enhancement, and correction tools, can scale images, and even cut people or objects out of photo backgrounds with the resulting pulled image preserved with an alpha-channel that will be recognized as a layer but advanced graphic programs like Photoshop or PIxelmator. Who knew?
And of course the substantially enhanced Leopard feature set is why there are 50 or so extra pages compared with the Tiger Edition. For example, while there is of course no sign, not even a vestige of reference to Mac OS Classic mode, which is not supported by Leopard, there is a whole chapter on using Windows on a Mac thanks to Boot Camp emulation which is built into OS 10.5. It's a funny Old World.
As with the previous additions, Mac OS X: TMM Leopard Edition is organized into six parts.
Part One, The Mac OS Desktop, covers what you see on the screen when you start up a Mac running Tiger: the Desktop, the Dock, the Sidebar, Spotlight, the Dashboard, Exposé, Cover Flow View. Quick Look, icons, windows, menus, scroll bars, the Trash, the Apple Menu, and so forth. This section would usually be of primary interest to new Mac OS X users, but this time around even veterans will want to check out the Spotlight section especially.
Part Two, Programs In Mac OS X, focuses on the software that the operating system supports, such as email clients, Web browsers, word processors, graphics programs, Dashboard, the new Spaces and Time Machine features and Windows on the Macintosh. The chapters in this section describe and explain how to work with applications in OS X to get the best advantage from them, as well as controlling and streamlining repetitive tasks using AppleScript and the new Automator automation tool.
Part Three, The Components Of OS X, consists of an item-by -item description of the elements of OS X 10.5 - the System Preferences panels and the many bundled programs you will find in your default Applications and Utilities folders, plus CDs DVDs and iTunes.
Part Four, The Technologies Of OS X, deals with a more advanced topics like networking, remote access when you're on the road, setting up multiple user accounts, and OS X's prodigious multimedia, graphics, desktop publishing, and handwriting recognition capabilities, as well as tutorial content on the robust and powerful Unix OS that underlies Tiger's user-friendly interface with an outline covering 20 UNIX utilities that may be of interest to Mac users, and a new chapter on hacking OS X.
Part Five, Mac OS X Online, walks you through all of the special Internet-related features of Mac OS X, including the OS X Mail email client and the Safari browser, the iChat instant message client, iSync that helps you keep your phone book and Address Book synchronized across Macs, cell phones, iPods, and Palm Pilots. Also addressed are Web sharing, Internet sharing, Apple's online .Mac services, and even information on using Unix on the Internet.
Part 6, Appendices, contains four of them: Installing Mac OS X 10.5; Troubleshooting; the Windows to Mac Dictionary; Where to go From Here, plus a Master Mac OS X Secret Keystroke List.
There is also a 24-page Index.
As with previous editions of Mac OS X TMM, inside the back cover is a graphic of the Missing CD-ROM that doesn't come with this book, thus saving you $5.00. Instead you can go to http://missingmanuals.com/cds/macxleopardmm/ and voila! - there: are contents of what would have been on the CD if there were one there for you to download. See the Appendix below for a list of the Missing CD contents.
Was there anything I disliked about Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual? Not really. I love this book! Oh, to get nitpicky, I did find at least one plain obvious typo - see if you can spot it on page 337.
Anyway, if you have upgraded to OS X 10.5 Leopard or are contemplating doing so, and wondering if you should also upgrade your copy of OS X: TMM to the fifth edition, the answer is "of course." The new Leopard features are reason enough. For the vast majority of OS X users, it's really tough to beat OS X: The Missing Manual for its eponymous purpose. It really is "the book that should have been in the box," and still the Mac OS X book to have if you're only having one.
Price U.S./Canada
$34.99
U.K. proce
£21.99
Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
By David Pogue
First Edition December 2007
Pages: 912
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN 10: 0-596-52952-X | ISBN 13:9780596529529
For more information, visit:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529529/?CMP=ILC-MMh0me
Appendix
Missing CD-ROM Contents
Chapter 2: Organizing Your Stuff
A Better Finder Rename
Print Window
StuffIt Expander
Chapter 4: Dock, Desktop, and Toolbars
Quay
Chapter 5: Documents, Programs, and Spaces
StuffIt Expander
Amnesty Widget Browser
Chapter 6: Time Machine, Syncing, and Moving Data
PDF Appendix: “.Mac Backup”
Chapter 7: Automator and AppleScript
Automator Workflow Examples
PDF Appendix: “Bonus AppleScript Appendix”
Chapter 8: Windows on Macintosh
Apple Mouse Utility
Chapter 9: System Preferences
Delocalizer
Chapter 10: The Free Programs
PDF Appendix: “iLife ’08 Crash Course Appendix” (3.5MB PDF)
Snapz Pro X
Chapter 13: Networking, File Sharing, and Screen Sharing
Chicken of the VNC
Chapter 14: Printing, Faxing, Fonts, and Graphics
Bonjour for Windows
Chapter 15: Sound, Movies, and Speech
AppleScripts for iPod
PDF Appendix: “Ink Handwriting Recognition”
Chapter 16: The Unix Crash Course
Man Open
*nix Manual Widget
PDF Appendix: “Access Control Lists”
PDF Appendix: “Enabling the Root Account”
Chapter 17: Hacking Mac OS X
TinkerTool
Chapter 18: Internet Setup
PDF Appendix: “.Mac Backup”
Chapter 19: Mail and Address Book
emitSMS Dashboard Widget
Chapter 20: Safari
TinkerTool
RCDefaultApp
Chapter 21: iChat
iChat Autopilot script
RCDefaultApp
Chapter 22: SSH, FTP, VPN, and Web Sharing
Rbrowser
MacSSH
NiftyTelnet SSH
SuperGetInfo
Appendix A: Installing Mac OS X 10.5
Pacifist
Charles W. Moore
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