Five-Star Apps
by Glenn Fleishman
Peachpit Press
204 pages
$19.99 US $23.99 CAN
You are now the proud owner of an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad. First order of business is to fill it with apps: reading, music, games, video. How do you know which apps are a hit, and which apps are better left alone?
Combing through the iTunes App Store can be quite an intimidating experience. Luckily for us, author Glenn Fleishman did the leg work of sorting and testing thousands of apps, choosing what he feels are the almost 200 “must-have” apps published in his latest book, Five-Star Apps.
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Automator For Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
by Ben Waldie
Peachpit Press
www.peachpit.com
ISBN: 978-0-321-53935-9
US $29.999 CN $32.99 UK £21.99
I’ve written in the past two years at least three separate how-to articles (here here and here about Apple’s automation creation program, Automator. Since the program was introduced with Tiger, I’ve always looked for ways it can help me automate certain mundane tasks on my computer. Each morning, for example, I can come to my computer with five of my most frequented Web site feeds opened and ready for me to peruse. Thanks to an Automator workflow initiated by a daily iCal launch, I don’t have to individually pull up those same Web sites each day in order to view them. Automator and iCal do the work for me. I have about eight other workflows like this that I use on a consistent basis.
Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3
by John Carucci
Peachpit Press
http://www.peachpit.com
ISBN-13: 978032150354-1
ISBN-10: 032150354-6
230 pages, paper, full color
US: $49.99, CAN: $56.99, UK: £35.99
John Carucci’s Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3 covers those aspects of Photoshop CS3 that would be particularly valuable to photographers desiring to make nighttime photos. Examples of the types of nighttime photography addressed include subjects such as city lights, automobile traffic, architecture, concerts, theatrical productions, sporting events, people, and urban street scenes.
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Visual Quickproject Guide
Retouching Photos in Photoshop Elements 3
Nolan Hester
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-32118-9
US $12.99 CA $17.99
Visual Quickproject Guide
Creating a Photo Book and Slideshow with iPhoto 5
Elizabeth Castro
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-35752-3
US $12.99 CA $17.99
I’ve never been a big fan of Peachpit’s Visual Quickstart Guide series. I prefer a more traditional manual instead of Visual Quickstart’s emphasis on screen shots and short captions. So, when the recent box filled with Peachpit titles for review arrived, I sorted out the titles I wanted to read, and planned to send the the two books called Visual Somethingorother to fellow reviewer John Nemerovksi, as his psyche appreciates them more than do I.
But before packing them off to Nemo, I took just a few minutes to flip through both Creating a Photo Book and Slideshow with iPhoto 5, and Retouching Photos in Photoshop Elements 3. Wow! I came away favorably impressed. Later, I took the time to read both titles from cover to cover, and was even more impressed.
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The Little iTunes Book, Second Edition
Author: Bob LeVitus
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-16886-0
202 pages
US $19.99 CA $31.99
The Little iTunes Book Second Edition (LiTB for short) is a slim volume, and needs only a slim review. Bob LeVitus, also known as Dr. Mac, has penned a worthwhile book for those who need to know the ins-and-outs of iTunes 3, Apple’s free audio player.
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Adobe Photoshop 7 One Click Wow
by Jack Davis and Linnea Dayton
Peachpit Press
90 pages, all in color
CD included with supporting files and samples
ISBN 0-321-12531-2
$29.99 US, $46.99 CN, £22.99 UK
Review by: Wynne Stevens
One Click Wow is one of those books we struggling want-to-be computer artists see in bookstores and fall in love with at first sight. The accompanying CD alone contains a smorgasbord of Photoshop styles, actions, and other effects that can make anyone look good with virtually no effort at all. Obviously true artists and Photoshop experts may look upon this with some disdain but there’s no denying that One Click Wow exemplifies software automation and productivity to the delight of the unskilled such as myself.
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Real Basic for Macintosh Visual Quickstart Guide
Author: Michael Swaine
PeachPit Press
ISBN 0-201-78122-0
US 21.99, CAN 34.99
I had heard how easy programming with REALbasic was, I decided I wanted to program something using REALbasic. To that end I downloaded REALbasic and signed up for the e-mail list. I fired up REALbasic every week or so (I suppose I was hoping that programming would suddenly seem easy) and couldn’t figure out how to do a damn thing. The net result of my REALbasic interlude was a whole bunch of press release e-mails from Lorin Rivers (REALbasic PR guy). Reflecting on my failure at becoming a programmer (other failed ambitions include: cartoonist, scientist, writer, engineer, director, pro surfer, magician, comedian, and pimp daddy) I wondered “is it me or is REALbasic just a little too unintuitive?” The answer has been revealed to me thanks to REALbasic for Macintosh.
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Mac OS X (10.2) Visual QuickStart Guide
Author: Maria Langer
Publisher: Peachpit Press
ISBN: 0-321-15801-6
Price: US $21.99
So you’ve run out and purchased OS X Jaguar or your new Mac just arrived and you tear the wrappings off, start up the computer and… where’s the manual? Not sure what to do next or how to get started?
Well, with Maria Langer’s newest book, (book number 50, by the way!) Mac OS X (10.2), you’ll be up and running in no time at all. The nice thing about the Visual QuickStart series is that they provide you with enough visual aids and the right amount of well-written text to get you started in whatever topic the book is covering.
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QuarkXPress Power Shortcuts
David Blatner
PeachPit Press
ISBN: 0-7897-2433-2
Price: $21.99 US
Someone must think my last name is Nemorovski or something, what with all the book I have been getting via UPS the last few weeks. Fortunately, I am a fast reader, and I enjoy reading computer books, so writing reviews of free books is a small price to pay for to learn new things. And that is what this book, QuarkXPress Power Shortcuts, is all about. Learning new ways to use QuarkXPress, specifically many of the keyboard shortcuts to use while using QuarkXPress.
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