The Little Mac Book

I've been a Mac person since 1992 - just bought a MacBookPro and wss chugging along fine...till a couple of applications disappear from the Dock. (If you don't know what a Dock is, you really need this book!) How do I figure this out? I type half a dozen phrases into the help form...no luck. So I look up this book and there it was. I learn all sorts of other things too. Well, sometimes the online manuals just don't go far enough or they're too cumbersome to use. Who wants to spend half an hour tracking down a single phrase? When that happens, this book nicely fills the gap. Easy and fun to read with many clear diagrams and screen shots. A nice companion to your new Mac!

I got this book because I'm taking a software class in a computer lab entirely full of Macintosh computers. I'm a veteran computer user, but I felt clueless. I didn't understand the Mac vocabulary, and I couldn't do basic things like find the power button, rename a file, or see what was on the hard drive. I still don't know how to page up and down using the keyboard. This _Little Mac Book_ was wonderful. It told me the name of the Mac browser (Safari), helped me use the "Dock" (Mac's version of the Taskbar), explained the weird extra keys (the one with the funny symbol works similarly to the Windows Ctrl key), and it gave me the vocabulary to find my way around what to me was an entirely foreign computer. (A Mac "alias" is the same as a Windows "shortcut"). I think this is a great book. Naturally, it's meant as an introduction to Macs, and doesn't go very deep into the details. You'd have to look elsewhere for that. But for an introduction to the Mac computers for newbies, this book is marvelous. I recommend it.

I had to learn how to run a Mac in order to take my Photoshop course. As a PC/Windows user for years, I wasn't looking forward to it. The class ran for only 2 Saturdays but with reading this book inbetween the 2 sessions, I was running the Mac like a champ on the 2nd Saturday and have been using it to create art work in my Photoshop course ever since. This compact book is a real gem and it is rightfully being used with students in beginning Mac courses. You can't miss with buying this baby!

Robin Williams is a goddess when it comes to useful books for beginners, this book and "The Mac Is Not A Typewriter" are the two books I tell all new Mac owners to buy. Apple should just bundle the two of them in the box and hire Robin to write all their documentation.This book is informative, fun, insightful, useful, well written, well designed and everything you'd hope for in a book that is going to sit next to the most amazing computer of all time. (Sorry, was I gushing.) Robin spends a great deal of time explaining the inner workings of your computer in very readable, informative way.Always a good book the rewrite for Mac OS X has just added to its appeal - I've been using a Mac for more than ten years, OS X for more than 6 months and Robin taught me several things about my Mac and the new OS.If you often find yourself recommending the Mac to friends (and I know I do) buy them a copy of this book the moment you hear about their new purchase. It will save them many headaches, ease their path into "The Macintosh Way" and you'll get a lot less phone calls.

I used this book when teaching computer classes for Mac and I have to say it is the perfect introduction to the Macintosh. As another reviewer put it, if you only buy one book on the Mac, make it this one. Part One of the book covers "The Basics" and takes you through concepts such as the desktop and finder, the mouse, menus, windows, icons, folders, and more. Part Two continues with more intermediate information regarding the system folder, control panels, aliases, file sharing, and information about hard disk vs. memory (an often confused concept). Part Three covers the Internet, and Part Four contains information about peripherals, some tips and tricks, and also a very helpful section on troubleshooting.One of my favorite things about the book is the large number of pictures showing you how things look on the screen and also her use of bold type to emphasize important terms. There is a little mini quiz at the end of each chapter that is helpful in reviewing what you learned. The book is very well organized and well written in easy to understand language. If you are a more intermediate or advanced Mac user, this isn't the book for you, but beginners should definitely check this one out.