User guide

Page 8
REVIEW: Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Missing Manual
By Irv Haas
The Review Guru
I
f you purchased Apple’s latest OS (operating sys-
tem), Snow Leopard (10.6) you would guess that it
has minor updates compared to the previous OS,
Leopard (10.5), especially since Apple is only charg-
ing $29.99. In any event, there are sucient updates
to warrant Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing
Manual by David Pogue ($34.99, O’Reilly, Oct. 2009,
885 pages).
Pogue, the New York Times’ technology columnist
has written this huge volume to answer all of your
questions about Snow Leopard. This is denitely not
bedtime reading material!
With many new features in Snow Leopard (Mac OS X
10.6), it’s hard to keep up with them, but Pogue does
an admirable job. Here is just a highlight of what the
book oers:
üBig-ticket changes: A 64-bit overhaul mak-
ing everything faster. A re-written Finder, MS
Exchange compatibility, and new QuickTime
player.
üSnow Leopard Spots: Demysties the hun-
dreds of smaller enhancements in all 50 pro-
grams that come with the Mac: Safari, Mail,
iChat, Preview, Time Machine, etc.
üShortcuts: Undocumented surprises await
the reader.
üPower Usage: Security, networking, Automa-
tor, macros, le sharing with Windows, and
exploring Unix.
Contents
There are 22 chapters in this book that covers more
parts of Snow Leopard than Apple can provide in
one volume. If it’s not in this book, it’s not in Snow
Leopard—it’s that simple!
Many of the basic topics are listed above, but check
out how thorough the 6-part Appendix is:
¸ Appendix A: Installing Snow Leopard (Basic
kinds of installs and advantages of each)
¸ Appendix B: Troubleshooting (Frozen pro-
grams, renaming icons, startup problems,
etc.)
¸ Appendix C: The Windows-to-Mac Diction-
ary (Direct comparisons of Windows to Mac
features). A big hit for switchers!
¸ Appendix D: Where to Go From Here: Web