Mac OS X LEOPARD
ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE For Dummies

by Susan McLane, Kachemacs

Author: Mark L. Chambers
Publisher: Wiley
Publisher URL: www.wiley.com
List Price: $29.99

This reference book is quite large (713) pages and took me a while to work through. I recently bought a new IMAC which came with Leopard 10.a5. Before that I had an older IMAC with Tiger OS X.4 so that is why I chose to review it.

The book is divided into 5 sections. As I am not an expert user on my MAC, I found Book 1, 11, and V the most useful for me. I’m sure as I progress Book V1 and V11 will become more of a resource. What I use the most on my computer is iTunes and iPhoto so those parts of Book 111 I know. The other parts may prove to be a good reference in the future.

The best aspects of the book for me (as I would guess for many) are the short Warnings and Tips that appear frequently throughout the book. They are a great time saver but more important a great , “Wow, I didn’t know that!” They have helped me a lot.

Although Book 1 was an introduction to OS X, I found several useful items in it such as Chap. 5: Fun with Photo Booth and Front Row. I didn’t have these items on my other computer and hadn’t used them on this computer until I received this book. I found the explanations for how to use the camera and remote control to be succinct and clear. I particularly like the graphs and diagrams used. Also, Chapter 7: The Joys of Maintenance was helpful to me. I learned how to partition my hard drive and some good tips on uninstalling applications.

In Book 11, I found Chapter 3 an excellent reference for me. It provided a quite complete overview of the system preferences as well and other preferences, and how to change them and more important, why. It also discussed basic security for your machine.

Book V has some very useful technical information such as setting up Apple Talk, keeping your Wireless Network Secure, and ways of sharing your internet connection. The best part for me is all the illustrations. I am a visual learner so the drawings in this section were invaluable in helping me understand all the technical jargon.

There were a few aspects of this reference book I didn’t like. I’m not familiar with other “Dummy” guides so maybe it’s just me but I found the incessant humor tiring. I would be reading, thinking I was getting some information and it was a paragraph of nonsense supposed to be funny. I was really annoyed that I had spent time reading it. It’s okay once in a while but why so much?

Also, often the book has tried to jam so much into it that it seems to lack detail in some of its descriptions. It would have been nice if it had listed the internet email sites such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail as being able to be used with the Apple Mail program. Also, I’ve had several problems with the Keychain application that that chapter doesn’t address. And finally there is very little discussion of the Time Machine.

Over all, however, this is a good reference book and I would recommend it to others with a new Mac.