Nemo’s Book Bytes, with a quickie combo review: “Two Tiger Titles You Probably Haven’t Seen Yet”
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Two Tiger titles having the same number of pages and same price — which one should you buy, read, and keep for handy reference?
Leo Laporte’s Guide to Mac OS X Tiger
by Leo Laporte and Todd Stauffer
Que Publishing
ISBN 0-7897-3393-5, 395 pages
$24.99 US, $34.99 CN, £17.99 UK
Any book with Todd Stauffer as co-author has a good chance of being excellent, based on previous Book Bytes evaluations of his award-winning volumes. Leo is the first-person "I" in the text, but we are safe to presume Todd was next to Leo, whispering into his ear on every page. Their book is a thorough introduction (not an in depth commentary) to everything Macintosh for newcomers to Tiger who actually read, and then work through the examples, screen shots and tips.
Every topic covered (there are many) is addressed in brief, concise explanations that will have experienced Macintoshers wanting perhaps a little more depth, and newbies glad this book isn’t three times as long or expensive. Entire books exist on many of the individual content areas, such as iTunes, that come and go fairly rapidly.
Apple’s Mail and Safari applications receive substantial space near the end of Leo Laporte’s Guide to Mac OS X Tiger, before the very best chapters, on "Build a Home or Office Network," followed by troubleshooting and security. Readers who diligently stick with Leo and Todd through the first 300 pages will realize the entire cost of this book in these final units, and for conscientious Macintoshers new and old, this no-nonsense intro is rated at 3.5 out of 5.
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Degunking Your Mac, Tiger Edition
by Joli Ballew
Paraglyph Press
ISBN 978-1-933097-05-3, 396 pages
$24.99 US, $34.99 CN
This book picks up where the one above leaves off. Author Joli KNOWS your Macintosh will benefit from a range of housekeeping chores, and emphasizes this fact on every page, with heading such as:
• You Have Too Many Installed Programs or Fonts
• Your iPod Is a Mess
• You Have Absolutely No Control over Dashboard
and loads more along those lines.
She’s very keen on lists of: questions, tasks, and itemized steps, over and over. Folders, in her lingo, are degunked to eliminate clutter, and then to maintain order. By following her detailed advice you may spend more time doing this maintenance than actually using your Mac, but that’s an extreme prediction.
Do you know about OS X’s night time maintenance schedule, or how to “Find Programs You Don’t Even Know You Have”? Maybe, or maybe not. Degunking Your Mac, Tiger Edition is as much a philosophy as a collection of methods and tips.
Fonts are a black hole of gunk for Joli Ballew, and Chapter Nine covers fonts in depth. Email, including spam, can be worse, and both receive heavy duty treatment. Final chapters address security, backups, data organization, and even more maintenance.
Whew! Degunking Your Mac, Tiger Edition is an exhausting read. If you are a v-e-r-y serious MacHousekeeper, or intend to be one, set time aside today and every day for the basic and/or geeky advice within these pages, and your Mac will be squeaky clean forever. Slobs need not apply.
Rated at 4.5 out of 5 for people who actually will put to use this substantial wealth of information.