Macs for Dummies

David Pogue has a genius for making the seemingly-complex simple enough for the average person to understand. This is the perfect gift for a writer writing about the Macintosh system; once you get over your intimidation about computers by following Pogue's straightforward and sometimes humorous examples, the user-friendliness of the Mac makes itself obvious, and you're on your way. An excellent, useful book for beginner and seasoned user alike!

I read this book a few years ago when I bought a used Mac Plus at a garage sale. Mr. Pogue put me on track with my old computer in a very short time. After a few few months, my relatives and friends were calling me for advice. In many cases I was able to help using what I learned in this book.One extra with this book. David pogue is one funny writer. I really enjoyed the humor that went along with all the training. I soon upgraded my computer. I Emailed the author to thank him and ask for some musical software advice. True to his word he took time to answer my questions. This impresses me that in today's world an author will make a commitment to help his readers past the point of sale of his book. Thanks Mr. Pogue! Great book!

The reason I bought this book was that I had been away from Macs since I unplugged my Mac IIcx and put it away. I recognized back then that unless I intended to work exclusively with Mac people, the PC competence was THE one I needed most. Here in my small town, in the last few months I've had a number of requests for help from Mac people. The local Mac guy isn't getting rave reviews at the moment -- possibly because he has too much work -- so the requests for help that I've referred to him have been bouncing back to me. Before I took any of these people's money, I wanted to make sure that (1) a computer is still a computer and (2) Macs had not totally morphed into something unrecognizable since I last used one. The book convinced me that the answer to (1) is "yes" and the answer to (2) is "no" (but OS X may change that). This book was a VERY fast read, and gave me those answers.For me the most valuable part of this book were the two chapters on troubleshooting. They were well written, and certainly covered the range of Mac problems I remember from the IIcx. Time will tell if they cover the range of problems the Mac users here are having right now.I'm trying to decide which book to read next: the O'Reilley book on Macs for PC people/PCs for Mac people, or the Dummies series book on upgrading and fixing Macs. Obviously one (maybe both) will eventually be necessary. For the person just starting out with a Mac -- or starting out with computers who is thinking about a Mac -- I think this book would be absolutely first rate. And the book seems to have done the job I required of it just about as painlessly as possible!It gets five stars from me!!

I have owned several PCs, I recently bought an iMac, and pretty much for the most part knew what to do, but I always knew Macs could do more, and be more friendly to use. This book helped perfectly with some basic problems I faced as well as answer some more higher end questions I had. This book will help the computer literate person who need a quick reference for any questions you have, or if you are buying your first computer, this book will make using it easier and more enjoyable.

This book is by far the best book for beginner Mac users or anyone for that fact. I have had years of experience with Macs and bought the book for my mother. I told her I would read it to see if any of it would help her. I read the whole thing the first day and couldn't put it down. The humor and simplicity of the book made it very easy to read. I would suggest it to anyone even if you already know everything and anything about Macs.