Book Review: How To Do Everything With Mac OS X Panther


How To Do Everything With Mac OS X Panther
By Kirk McElhearn
McGraw Hill / Osborne
ISBN 0-07-225322-X
US $24.99



Kirk McElhearn, of Macworld and TidBITS fame, has written a reasonable beginner's level book about Mac OS X Panther. What is unreasonable about the book is that awful 'Everything' word. Ignore it, because it ain't gonna happen here. What you will find is a collection of very readable, concise and efficient chapters covering most of Panther's features. This book also features a great idea, known as 'Voices From The Community', including an 8 page section on writers and how they use their Macs. For the reader who wants everything, this is a slim and spotty book. But if you are an average Mac user who is new to Panther, this book is very helpful. Any reader who wants hand holding should consider Robin William's Mac OS X Book, Panther Edition, and pay the extra $5.

Having given you a summary of my opinion of the book, the best I can further offer are some points where I would like to see the book improve in its next edition. Overall, I ached for detail, but was consistently sent to the Apple's Help for answers to my questions. Considering the concise nature of this book, I can understand this situation. But at the very least, help out readers but putting the chapter about using Apple's near the front of the book, not in the back. One great item to keep at the back is the Keyboard Shortcuts page. But please expand and proofread it. The Find command is listed twice, while the Make New Folder command and all Exposé commands are missing.

An odd feature of the book's layout was the marking of its illustrations. I have previously seen books with no Figure numbering, where the idea is to simply keep the illustrations with the accompanying text. I rather like this approach, and it is done here. But then Figure marked illustrations are thrown in as if the text had been written in two different drafts, one with and one without figures. I don't like the result as I found it very confusing, especially on the level of a beginning reader who has better things on their mind to consider. Frequently the book is also wanting in illustrations where text will describe interface elements but either won't identify their location or simply won't illustrate them. For me a beginner level book should err on the side of too many illustrations.

An under-emphasized aspect of the book was the use of documents. High end word processors were mentioned, but there was nearly no coverage of Apple's own TextEdit. In a similar omission, the discussion about backups required a better review of what a beginner should actually back up. At the top of the list should be the Documents folder, where beginners should be told to keep all their important text editing files.

Perhaps Kirk was wise in keeping the discussion of administrator duties to a minimum. However, we all know that Mac OS X is prone to create defective files that are impossible to trash. At the very least there should be a mention of Trash assistant freeware, such as BatCHmod, that can solve this pesky problem.

There were also a few fundamental things that were not covered very well. The fact that one can take screenshots is mentioned, but no method is provided. The coverage of many of the Preference Panes was particularly disappointing. Happily Kirk provided the secret for changing one's default mail application, but he left out any secret method for changing the default web browser and news reader. (Hint: 'More Internet.' A Bronx cheer to Apple for making this an issue in the first place).

There is a persistent error in the text where Chapter 22 is mentioned as the place to find more about Software Update. After frustration, and reading through the book I found that actually Chapter 21 contains that information. There is also a confusing sort of dumping of the 8 page section about Mac writers into the middle of Chapter 12. I'd rather have seen it placed at the end of an added chapter specifically about documents.

The Index could also use a bit of fortification. I found critical terms such as MP3 and AAC were missing. The coverage of Classic was also wanting. Most books I have read devote an entire chapter to Classic as is so different from working in Mac OS X, a sure place to stump and confuse any beginner. Here Kirk only gives it a few pages of coverage, mainly about how to get it running.

For a beginner's book I was most happy to find Kirk provided tips and tricks along the way. The list is by no means long, but it is enough to provide some useful information and to give the reader curiosity to find out more on their own, such as through the several websites and magazines mentioned in the text. Hopefully Kirk will follow up this book with another edition. And it would be great if he could break free of the 'Everything' marketing tag. To fit the bill requires at least doubling the size of this volume and heading into the realm of advanced users. How about 'Everything A Beginner Needs To Work With Mac OS X Panther.' That title is more closely fits the book at hand.