Macintosh Systems Books

This book changed my life, I had no idea that there are people out there, who feel the EXACT same way that I do!! I recommend this book to anyone who is down and needs some inspiration and motivation in their life.

This's good one, for all MIS and can use in the real worl

This book reminds me more of a travelog about many of the sights and sounds you will encounter on your quest to become best friends with your Accounting Information System.

It would make a lot more sense if the authors skipped a lot of the details of where Accounting Information Systems fit in our social experience and get down to dealing with the dirty details of how someone would go about writing a system of their own.

Then they could spend a chapter on how to go about the testing of the system and how and why to do a complete re-write of this masterpiece.

This is one book our professor recommends to all MBAs, IT Auditors and accounting professionals. I think its worth the price.

I found this book to be a very easy to navigate reference for my attempt at learning and using After Effects. I recommend it as an excellent cross-reference resource, especially if you are attending an After Effects classroom. I'm not sure, however, whether a nubie or novice would be able to learn easily just from reading this book alone. Nevertheless, I give this book and the way it is structured, two-thumbs up as far as adding it to anyone's Visual Media Library.

I wasn't expecting anything less and the only reason I got the book was because it was cheaper on amazon then at my college's bookstore. Now what I didn't realize was the fact that Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects volumes 1 and 2 are far superior to any other book out there. So I recommend those instead. This book is just as dull and boring as most informational software books with little explanation about how to do things, little picture representation and only explaining the basics oh in say 700 pages.... if you know how to use adobe illustator or photoshop which u clearly should if you intend on using aftereffects, I suggest whether you are a beginner intermediate or advanced animator to get the creating motion graphics books instead. Ya 10$ more but the learning experience and education you'll get from those books compared to this one is uncomparable.

Overall in 700 pages i really just skimmed through like i do with most books exactly written like this one. not very good at keeping my attention with black and white dull text with boring material.

Adobe is striving mightily to make After Effects the dominant tool for editing animated images, much like Photoshop is the pre-eminent program for editing static images. Bolante shows here why AE has a far more challenging task.

Even leaving aside competing tools, AE must handle video editing and audio editing. Here, it needs to synchronise two such tracks, in such ways as the ending of one triggering the start of another.

The audio editing is somewhat rudimentary. Other programs that specialise in this have more sophisticated options. But, unsurprisingly,the video editing forms the major part of AE. Several chapters are devoted to it. Many video special effects come right out of the box. Like texturing surfaces, or applying a gradient wipe.

Of course, many films will need text to be shown in the video. As expected, you get a panoply of font families to choose from. Along with effects like showing text along a contour that you define. Quite familiar to Photoshop users. But now redone in a broader context.

To be sure, this is not a simple book. The complexity of film editing necessitates this. But you should find that most tasks described here are straightforward to do. Though realistically, if you're trying a technique for the first time, many iterations may be needed before you're satisfied.

It says the books in the Visual QuickPro series are similar to the Visual QuickStart series, but QuickPro is for more advanced users. After Effects is, by its very nature, a more advanced application for creating video than, say iMovie. That's because After Effects is a "motion graphics" program with far more features than basic video editing. I think of it as Photoshop with motion and a timeline.

However, if you are a beginner at After Effects, this book can still work for you if you start with the early chapters first.

Bolante does a good job of giving you an overview of After Effects' interface, palettes, and the workflow. He moves on to how to create, open and close projects, including how to choose your settings and change them.

Next is importing files, how to import still images, image sequences, files with alpha channels, footage, etc. He also tells you how to loop footage and remove film pulldown. If you don't know what that is, look at page 60 for a few pages of good explanation.

The chapter on Managing Footage does a nice job of helping you organize your footage and understand how to view it. (Do you know about action-safe and title-safe areas?)

Like Photoshop, After Effects works in layers (with the addition of audio layers), and Bolante gives you the skinny on creating, naming, hiding, showing and rasterizing them. Editing is all about manipulating the layers by trimming, moving, sequencing, overlapping, splitting, changing the layer's speed, etc.

Motion Graphics is all about adding images, motion, changes in size, transparency, blending modes and more. Most of it is done with keyframes. Chapter 7 gives the ins and outs of keyframing. There is a big chapter on masking. Like Photoshop, you use masks to bled various images together. But, you begin, end, rotate, change, scale, show and hide them over time. He covers it all.

Special effects are the "magic" part of After Effects, so Bolante devotes a couple of chapters to their intricacies. There are also chapters on creating and animating text, painting on layers, keyframe interpolation (advanced layer techniques), integrating 3D layers, managing complex projects, and, of course, outputting your movies. All-in-all, it is a very thorough book for both Mac and PC users.

An easy read, I read through this reference guide over the course of 2 days. When complete I dove into Compressor and am now considered our production company's expert in it. It actually saved us over $1000 when I discovered through reading the book that Compressor can handle Reverse Telecine, making renting a HDCam deck for a specific job unnecessary. I highly recommend this book. I first heard about it when I saw the author on the MacBreak TV podcast.

The Apple Pro Training Series Books i'm familiar with (FCP, Motion, Desktop, etc) are 500+ pages and have a content DVD. This book is around 200 pages and does not have a content DVD.

A great resource regardless.

It's not particularly useful and too expensive given how short it is. A book that calls itself a "quick reference guide" should be able to deliver the basics to get you up and running, as well as the most important trouble-shooting issues. This does not deliver. Save your money and read the manual, it's just as useful and it's free.

Very disappointing, I own several of the Peachpit Apple Pro Training series and they are all much better than this.

All those nagging encoding questions about what GOP structure to use, what's the difference between "best" and "better" motion estimation, etc are answered here once and for all. This is an excellent resource well worth the 25.00 price of admission. It will pay for itself with increased production quality and productivity. Thank you Brian Gary!

but I found this book to be one of the most difficult tutorial references I've ever used.

Firstly, it appears that there was a second release of the DVD that accompanies the book and some of the file references don't match what's in print (e.g., you are told to look for a file called "filename_unfinished", but that file isn't on the DVD). Secondly, some of the lessons either omit steps or don't include all of the information you need to thoroughly understand it. The author will say "Don't worry about setting the target for this button - we'll do that later" and then you never do that so when you run your simulation, your project doesn't do what it's supposed to (unless you figure it out for yourself). I've been through most of the chapters at this point and I did learn a lot (thanks to already being an advanced user) - but I have to say it wasn't easy and that's not because the software is difficult to learn, but because this book is really not well written or organized.

Thirdly - my biggest pet peeve - the author loves tangents into lessons involving other software and it sometimes feels like this book was really just designed to sell you about 6 other programs. I do realize the value of all of those programs because I already own and use most of them - but if you didn't, you would simply find this book too frustrating to deal with because of all the constant sidetracking. The examples that involve forays into Final Cut would require you to have at least intermediate skills in the program to be able to finish the lesson. Ditto for those that involve Photoshop and After Effects. To add insult to injury, in those lessons, the explanations for using the other program are either skeletal or non-existent (barring one example in iMovie for creating a slideshow, which for some odd reason walks you through ever single step). In a nutshell, this book assumes you already know a lot.

Also - the scripting information is almost useless. I struggled with the second lesson (which I'm convinced has an incorrect figure in it), learned a few minor things, and afterwards went online and found at least four tutorials that were leaps and bounds better and easier to understand.

Don't get me wrong - this book can teach you something, if you're persistent enough. I spent four evenings with it and I've already authored one great project. But I'm an advanced user with some video/audio background already and I still found the book frustrating at times.

If you're really interested in learning DVD Studio Pro 3 in an organized and logical manner, save yourself some hair follicles and find a different tutorial.

The Apple DVD Studio Pro is a popular but very complex tool for authoring DVDs. This book shows why it is popular, and also offers an improvement on the Apple documentation. The program has immense ability to record audio and video and to merge these in as intricate a fashion as you desire. There is a panoply of editing functions. For such things as adding subtitles to video tracks. Or supporting several languages using the audio tracks. Or to have a multistory project.

Where ever possible, the book shows how Studio Pro has automated the steps in each of these tasks. There are many colour screen captures revealing the menus you invoke, and the results they generate.

Plus, in today's Web oriented world, Studio Pro lets you insert hyperlinks using DVD@ccess. These links can go into menus, markers and slides. So that the user can reach out into the Web (or local files). In this way, you can use the DVD and Web to complement each other. Imagine producing a game DVD with links to your website. So that a gamer can easily engage in a multiplayer scenario, or download the latest 3 dimensional world. In this way, you can offer more fresh material to the gamer. Increases the value of your website, and helps you get paid.

This book breaks new ground for O'Reilly. I'm used to finding great technical content in their books--that's what they're famous for--but media tools like DVD Studio Pro require a more visual approach for explanation, and Marc delivers this extremely effectively.

The examples are numerous, on target, and very thorough. They walk you through the process of learning and achieving anything you might need to produce a compelling, professional DVD experience. And what really struck me is how unbelievably good the book looks. Every page is beautiful, glossy color with a clean, easy-to-follow layout, and huge numbers of screen shots and visuals.

If you have a chance to flip through this book in person you'll realize how much you need it when you're starting to create DVDs. Or you can order it sight unseen and be pleasantly surprised.

If ever Apple made an application that could use some usability work it's DVD Studio Pro. It's a comprehensive and powerful application that has a user interface that only a mother could love. That's why I found this book so critical. It's an end-to-end guide from the very basics of DVD construction through to using templates and building custom transitions. There are also pitstops along the way into building DVD games and creating easter eggs.

As with O'Reilly's other book on DVD construction, Adobe Encore DVD, one of the other benefits of the book is the content ideas that it gives you. Though I found the examples in this book slightly less appealing than those in the Encore book.

Very well written with appropriate, not overwhelming, use of screenshots and illustrations. This is a must have for DVD Studio Pro users.

As the author, I wrote this book as an introduction for
someone who wanted to learn to use this design language. It is
not particulary suitable as a reference guide, but instead
is organized to help you grasp the fundamental relationships
and organization of the VHDL language. Even for experienced
programmers some of the concepts are a bit hard at first.
We try also to include the motivations and uses for various
features. There are a number of simple examples included.
I hope you enjoy and use this book.
stan mazor

I just borrowed the book from the library and I am reading through it to understand VHDL. It is good for my background: I know more than ten programming languages, know digital logic design, and is familiar with Verilog. I had read a few other VHDL books, but was kind of confused by their writing styles.

I like this book because it tells the rationals behind the VHDL design. It is focused on the design of the language itself. The other books I read tried to cover many things like microprocessor design or DSP design, but didn't clarify why VHDL uses concepts like entity, architecture, process, etc. For a professional, it is fast to learn VHDL from this book.

But this book is possibly not a good book for a student because of its focus. It lacks detail (not a good reference book) and doesn't have many examples.

My major complaint against this book is that it is not useful as a reference. The index of only six pages is hopelessly devoid of useful information. Nearly all keywords listed in the index merely point to a table of keywords, with no explanation or further reference. Not in the index: "<=" (which has two meanings), "explicit literal", "aggregate", and "assignment statement", for example. Index often references wrong page. Typos ("discreet", "scaler") abound.

If you want to build a solid foundation in VHDL, this is the book to buy. I absolutely loved it.

I am taking a series of courses on the Adobe CS3 design programs. These books are the required texts.

I am extremely pleased with the content and support they provide for me to learn the programs.

They are a mix between "techbook" and "textbook" - they are NOT as dry as other technical manuals, yet cover "just enough" material to help out in a tight spot.

There may be other books that other reviewers prefer, however I wish to point out that they are titled "QUICK START" guides, not "every single thing you need to know about this piece of software" guide.

If you are trying to learn the software on your own, might I suggest the Adobe Press "Classroom in a Book" series. Also the Adobe Press "Real World" book series gives insights into the software that these quick start guides do not. If you are learning with a teacher, these books fit the bill.

I am learning illustrator for the first time and found this book to extremely helpful. If you are struggling with illustrator, you need to buy this book!!

This manual provides someone just getting started using Illustrator with clear explanations for each menu option, tool, and function, along with step-by-step instructions on how to use them. All the other manuals inevitably assume that the reader is familiar with earlier versions of Illustrator and take too much for granted. The tool-by-tool organization and step-by-step instructions of this manual are refreshingly clear and specific, and tell the reader exactly how to use this powerful software.

I buy books to use for the online and classroom classes that I teach. I have used a number of the Visual Quickstart Guide books because my students love them and they really cover the material well. I purchased this book for versions CS, CS2 and CS3 and as I started to develop the class I realized that there were no example files with the book. Usually the author tells you where you can download the examples from. Since many of their examples start from content that is already created, it makes it very hard for a student who like to use hands-on to follow along in the book to do so. I tried contacting the publisher to see if there was any way to get the files but I have yet to receive a reponse.

It's a good reference, but I don't recommend it as an aid to learning the application.

Might not have much for experienced power users. .Mac is easy to use and most things you can figure out by yourself. I bought this book before signing up for .MAC ... if I would have known how easy it is to use and how good the apple online documentation is, I probably would not have bought it. But it gave me a good overview of what is possible with .MAC and convinced me further in signing up for .MAC.

For one new to getting started and becoming confident in using .MAC, this is a must have resource.

Just as much and as good information in the Help menu, and it's free. I was most interested in the backup info but it's written for BackUp 2 and the current version is BackUp 3, totally different from BackUp 2. Save your money.

I use the Help quite often and alot of this info can be found in the help menu. BUT, I have had a .Mac account for about 9 months and for the past 2 months it would not sync. I found the solution easily in this book. It was well worth it to have it in print.
well done.
I am a member of the Orlando InDesign User Group.

although I expected to find material for novices only, I was more than surprised to find that Gene Steinberg has provided an in depth review and guide to the latest operating system from Apple.

Although I had to use a computer dictionary at times to decipher "geek" terminology, I found most of the information useful and have since helped others with problems using solutions taken directly out of the MacOS 9: The Complete Reference.

I recommend this Macintosh reference book to novices through more experienced Mac users.

I read Michael R Berry's review and cannot believe he actually read this book. It is filled with information that I never knew before, and I'm far from a Mac beginner. There were pages and pages on cross-platform networking, using Apple's Internet file sharing features, customizing Sherlock 2's search tools, enhancing the look of usefulness of the Mac System 9 Finder, configuring ColorSync and managing e-mail filters. And that was only the beginning.

I learned more about the Mac and the programs you can get for it from this book than almost any other I have read. I heartily recommend that you buy this terrific book; it's all that it promises to be and much more.

I bought a copy of Mac OS 9 from The Apple Store, but was afraid to install it, because it contained just a bare bones manual. Instead, I bought a copy of Gene Steinberg's "Mac OS 9: The Complete Reference."

This book is what Apple should have supplied with its operating system. Mr. Steinberg's book is a wonderful way to learn the ins and outs of Mac OS 9. It starts with detailed instructions on installation, including the dreaded clean install. Then it goes on to explain, step by step, how you set it up for best performance.

The book also includes an extensive overview of popular Mac programs and how to get the most out of your Internet access.

I learned many things I never know about Macs from this book, and my experience with Mac OS 9 has been excellent. This book is highly recommended.

Sorry to say, I was not impressed. With this book being so new, and so large, I expected more. I can't really say I learned anything that I didn't already know, and I don't consider myself a Macintosh expert. I felt that each of the many topics (the book does cover many topics) was only touched on. I was looking for more depth into each. I am sorry I bought it.

The purists amongst you may wince at the title. The "X" refers to "10", so the title has redundancy. Oh well...

Steinberg has produced a straightforward, understandable book on the latest Mac operating system, Panther. He starts out by putting this in the context of its predecessors - the Classic version 9 and the earlier versions 10. This is useful to those of you still using these versions and pondering why you should upgrade. He tries to induce you to do so with an introductory chapter highlighting the best of Panther.

While Panther may be software, it is actually optimal for only the latest hardware. So Steinberg also devotes space to explaining why. Obviously, Apple would prefer that you get Panther on a new Mac from them, rather than try to install Panther on your existing hardware. But Moore's Law still holds and if you are upgrading, you should seriously consider going whole hog and get a new Mac.

Panther now supports a variety of browsers, instead of just Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was true of some earlier Mac operating systems. Given the importance of a browser to many users, there is a chapter on the choices now available. These include Netscape, Mozilla, Opera ... Which will surely be well received by some.

Gene Steinberg has written many books about the OS X operating system for Macintosh computers, including Mac OS X (2000), Upgrading and Troubleshooting Your Mac: Mac OS X Edition (2001), Mac OS X Version 10.2 Jaquar Little Black Book (2002), Moving to the OS X Painlessly (2003), and now a new edition of his Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Little Black Book (Paraglyph Press, 2004). He knows the operating system.

The Panther Little Black Book recognizes the attractions of OS 10.3 -- more stability and more features. The book focuses on the new features, but not the iLife features. The 22 chapters cover what's hot, upgrading to Panther, user preferences, the Finder, desktop management, setup for multiple users, search feature, networking, AppleScript, installing programs, setting up hardware and peripherals, laptop tools, OS X applications, using older programs with Panther, font management, backups, security, troubleshooting, the Unix environment, surfing the net, email software, and hub applications. As the back cover states, this book is a guide for using, troubleshooting, and customizing the Panther operating system. It is a how-to book, albeit a technical manual.

The book opens with the chapter on what's hot that discusses Darwin, Quartz, Cocoa, Carbon, Aqua - information for programmers, and continues with comments about Classic, Finder, and Dock - information for general users. Despite the opening, a programmer would be disappointed with the book as it is basic how-to manual that covers, for example, the page close, minimize, and maximize buttons on the top left of windows and other such basic steps for using the OS 10.3 system. For users upgrading from OS 9, Steinberg provides a useful chart listing where to find features that have moved or disappeared with OS X (page 41). Comparisons in the text to OS versions older than OS 9 do not help solve a current problem; such information could similarly be compiled in a chart.

Among the book's weaknesses are the illustrations showing the computer screen, which are printed in black and white and in relatively small size so the text is difficult to read. The writing in the book is occasionally awkward; for example (page 12): "The famous Apple desktop isn't left untouched by the Mac OS X. Although on the surface it looks very different, looks can be deceiving." And some of the advice is trivial: "When you're finished working on your PowerBook, simply close the cover and pop it into a drawer. This is a great way to keep a neat desk" (page 371). When looking up screen options, I found myself flipping from section to section in the book in search of information that would enable me to make an informed choice, but usually to no avail.

The Panther Little Black Book is advertised as the "concise problem solver." At 548 pages, it is "concise" when compared to the competition provided by David Pogue's Mac OS X The Missing Manual, Panther Edition (Pogue Press, 2003), which now in its third edition has 728 pages. Comparison is natural in the highly competitive market for user's guides. This reviewer's library has both The Missing Manual and Little Black Book (as well as Jim Heid's Macintosh iLife, an Interactive Guide to iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD, Peachpit Press, 2003). If I had to keep -- or to buy -- one book, it would be The Missing Manual, as it is more comprehensive, more readable, better organized, easier to use, and more applicable to my needs than the Little Black Book.

This book took me from the initial install of Mac OS X 10.3 to getting to know my Mac in and out (in 1 day), setting up the mail feature was a snap. It gives good step by step instruction for every feature of the Mac OS X 10.3, as well as how to maneuver in "Classic". I don't even refer to the other books that I have purchased for the OS X 10.3 Panther.

This is more of a field guide then a book focused on the core elements of the Macintosh operating system. For a book of only four hundred pages it covers a lot of ground, from system setup, to networking, printing, file system management, as well as the fundamentals of all of the standard applications and the iPhoto suite. As you can see, that is a lot to cover in 400 pages, so the coverage is necessarily shallow.

That being said the text is easy to read and the illustrations are well used. The content is up-to-date and their and helpful tips and tricks.

If you want an overall look at Mac OS X then you should have a look at this book. I would recommend figuring out if you are interested in the operating system itself, where I would recommend Mac OS X In a Nutshell, or interested in the iLife application suite, where I would recommend the O'Reilly Missing Manual book that corresponds to the application you are interested in.

Dear Amazon,

I purchased this book a month ago...

I have been a Computer Graphic Designer for 2 yrs. But have worked in the field for 8 yrs...

I wished I had this book when I was first learning.

I learned more from this book, than just Fireworks, It has also helped me with my Web designing...I carry it with me...

I plan to buy more of Sandee's books. I can't get enof now.

Thank You,

I am an instructor of Web graphics at a small community/vocational school.

This book is perfect for all my classes.

Not only does it teach Fireworks, but it has lots of background on the Web in general.

I can't think of a better book to buy!

If you have already been using software to produce graphics then this book is for you. It would be a very useful reference to someone who knows what they want to do, but just doesn't know how to do it in Fireworks.

As someone who has no background in graphics I did find some of the introductory material helpful. There is a solid explanation of vectors, bitmaps, gif, jpeg, etc.

The problem is when you pick up the book and actually go to do something, there are large gaps in the basic information provided. To draw an analogy, its like finding out (in detail) how to hammer, saw, plane, sand and drill... and discovering that you still don't know how to build a bird house.

The TIPS are really handy. I have the feeling I'll appreciate this book more when I have more training and can use it as a reference. I just wouldn't start out with it.

The book follows in the footsteps of the other QuickStart books. Fireworks is a nice graphics drawing package. This functionality lends itself easily to a QuickStart approach. The inherent visual nature of Fireworks means that every page can have graphics demonstrating some aspect. (Don't try this with an algorithms book.)

The pages are also usually in a 2 column format, instead of the default single column for books. Presumably, it is meant to be easier to read. Shorter attention span needed and all that. The general tenor is of snappy task descriptions. Maybe for the harried reader who just wants an answer and not an essay on the theory of drawing.

The book seems to be random access. Use the contents and index to find and apply a solution. The two together seem to trace out well the abilities of Fireworks.