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A review of Mac OSX
reference books
by Jack Carter.
While I was in Sydney recently, I
bought another Apple Mac OSX book. ( I now must have a
fairly comprehensive set of seven text books on this
subject.)
- The last one purchased is
entitled Mastering Mac OSX by Todd Stauffer and published
by SYBEX, 811 pages , costing A$ 72.00 ( A$ 90 less 20 %
) This had a write up on Mail and filled in some areas
other books were deficient on. So I recently decided to
move over into the OSX side of this G4 Mac and work in
OSX for a while.
The other OSX books I have
bought in the order of my purchasing are:
-
- Visual Quick Start Guide MAC
OSX by Maria Langer , published by Peachpit Press, NZ $
50 . This probably was the first Mac OSX book out. It has
a lot in it:, but some needed bits not in it. Some times
I have found it to be the only book with a helpful point
on a particular problem. But it is not as comprehensive
as her other OS9 visual basics book, as it lacks the
visual setting up pictures in chapter 1.This could be
because the new book was written before OSX was available
to the public..
However the book publishers
mention on the back cover marketing section, that Maria
writes for Mac Addict.; and when she is not writing, she
iis out on her horse, or terrorizing the skies of Arizona
in her helicopter .
I have read some silly articles
in Mac Addict among the many good ones . Also I think it
is unfortunate that the author's financial success from
writing computer books is flaunted by mentioning that she
has her own helicopter. In hindsight it is even more
stupid to say she is terrorizing the Arizona skies with
her helicopter.
- MAC OSX for DUMMIES by Bob
Levitus and Shelly Lisbin, published by Dummies Press. NZ
$ 30
This book is spoilt by the way
that the book has been spiced up with dummies drivel. The
idea is presumably to make the book appeal to people who
think they need a simple introductory book that will give
them sufficient information to use OSX at a basic
level.
However the authors do more
than just this,( and in some of the remoter pages of the
book away from the embelishing drivel, they provided some
very useful information, at a time when there was a
complete lack of Mac OSX information on some
aspects.
- MAC OSX Web server Hand book
by David l. Hunt , published by Prentice Hill. NZ $
105
This is a very specialized book
and a small part of this book relates to the OSX file
sharing system in the OSX system There is much in this
book of great interest to an advanced
user.
- Mac OSX , The Complete
Reference by Jesse Feiller 766 pages, published by
Osborne McGraw-Hill. NZ 95
This is a comprehensive book of
a similar quality to 1 above.
- Mac OSX Little Black Book 468
pages Concise Problem Solver, publidshed by Corolis
Publishers. NZ $ 70
This book is quite advanced and
goes into several areas more deeply than reference
2
It has some 20 chapters, most
have a a introductory part that examines options ; and
this is followed by practical sections on Immediate
Solutions.
- The Complete Idiots Guide to
Mac OSX by Kate Binder 367 pages, published by Alpha
(Idiots) Publishing. NZ$ 50 .
This has a very useful tearout
shortcuts page next to the front cover. Also at the end
there is a useful section on web sites. In between it has
hundreds of little sections with hundreds of little
graphics that says a little bit about every thing. Apart
from that I have not had the need yet, or time to read
it. But I expect it will eventually say some thing that
the others don't cover. Obviously it meets a
need.
Summary
I value SYBEX 1, and OSBORNE 5
equally, followed by CORIOLIS 6 Little Black Book; then
PEACHPIT 2 V.B. Lastly Prentice Hall 4 on OSX servers is
good specialist book.
Book 2 needs to be made into a
second edition and all the missing Visual Basic pictures put
into a revised chapter 1. If you are a beginner and can only
have one book choose between 2 and 6. Better still buy
both.
If you want an advanced book and
cannot decide between 1 and 5 above, I would have to add
that over the past week I have found that Osborne 5 is a
very good book, particularly Chapter 22 on programming Mac
OSX,
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