Macintosh Books

If you use QuickTime 3, or have it installed on your Macintosh or Windows computer, you'll find that this is an excellent reference for how to get the most out of QuickTime and MoviePlayer 3 Pro. The authors get right to the heart of the matter, covering all of the core QuickTime technology including extensive descriptions of MoviePlayer Pro track features, text, images, sound, 3-D, sprites, QuickTime VR, MIDI, HTML tags, and more. It's an excellent reference, and full of useful QuickTime 3 feature information which is hard to find in online documentation. It's easily worth the under $20 price just to have QuickTime and MoviePlayer Pro 3 documentation in print form. If you have MoviePlayer Pro 3 sitting idly on your machine you'll be inspired to start it up and investigate examples from the book.

The only guide to MoviePlayer lets readers quickly and easily harness the full power of digital editing. QuickTime 3.0 is Apple Computer's industry-leading digital sound and audio format, both on the Internet and elsewhere. This title is keyed toward Internet developers, multimedia developers, and digital audio and video enthusiasts and hobbyists.

Looking forward to their next book!

Running Windows on Your Mac This product is worthwhile if you don't know anything about running windows on a mac. It covers the basics of Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware. I selected VMware based on what I read. It was a good choice for me. However I did have trouble getting my network and printers to run. The book was useless for anything beyond a clean, perfect, up and running installation. It explains almost nothing about virtualization, so you have nothing to go on when things go wrong.

Despite this, it was useful for an initial introduction to using the mac and windows. If you are like me, something to get you off the ground is useful, and the low price makes it a worthwhile purchase.

I took a look at two books that offer plenty of guidance to run Windows as a guest OS on your Intel-based Mac. I have an aging G5 and it is getting time for an upgrade, and I am considering which of the four potential solutions to use when I get a new Mac: the Apple-supplied Boot Camp (requires 10.5 OS), Parallels, VMware Fusion, and Sun's Virtual Box. The two books that are worthy of purchasing are:

Dwight Silverman's book from Peachpit press ($35), which doesn't cover Virtual Box but does a great job showing you the tradeoffs and settings for the other three solutions. He goes into lots of details for new Mac 10.5 users, which is very helpful. He also does a better job about describing how to run Vista as the secondary OS.

Joe Kissell's Take Control book ($10 eBook download, paper $22), which includes the free open-source Virtual Box. He goes into more details about how to protect your Windows sessions from exploits (some of which are briefly mentioned in Dwight's book), and more details on the various Boot Camp options.

Both have step-by-step installation and lots of tweaking tips to get the most out of your mixed mode Mac. Some things that I learned include:

Fusion supports dual-core CPUs and has less load, making it more attractive for processing-intensive Windows apps
Neither Parallels or Fusion support Firewire connections, and not all USB ones either.
Parallels comes with a free install of Kaspersky Anti-virus and has a nifty P2V utility to make virtual copies of running Windows configurations
Boot Camp is better for Windows gamers, since it isn't running in a VM session
Both books are excellent resources, written by people who have experimented with the products and know what they are talking about, and filled with copious screen shots and practical advice.

Apple Computer's switch to the Intel processor allows its Macintoshes to run other operating systems besides its native OS X and now many users are finding good reasons to run Windows on the Mac. There are some specialized applications for which there are no Apple counterparts, like certain professional tax preparation applications and business and scientific programs. Some PC switchers want to continue to use some of their favorite PC programs after the switch to the Macintosh hardware, and many gamers want to use their Macs to play games which are not compatible with Mac OS X; inpatient sorts want to play new games which haven't yet come out for the Macintosh.

The book, "Running Windows on your Mac," is a perfect resource for these people, especially those who like or need significant hand holding, in setting up their Macintosh machines to run multiple operating systems. The author, Dwight Silverman, is an experienced technical writer who clearly explains how to install and run Windows on the Macintosh. He also provides a primer in Part 1 of the book for Windows users on how to run Mac OS X; Part 2 is a primer on running Windows for Mac users. Although a variety of flavors of Microsoft's Windows can run on the Mac, the author focuses nearly exclusively on Windows Vista with a nod or two to Windows XP.

Mr. Silverman writes casually and assumes the reader is an average computer user who is willing to upgrade his or her computer skills but would like some patient guidance. Geeks and power users will be disappointed in the presentation and the book is unlikely to be of much use to them. But for many Mac users wanting to run Windows, and especially for the many PC switchers, "Running Windows" maybe all that is needed to get up and running with two operating systems.

The book is a fairly typical Peachpit Press product - simply and clearly written and laden with illustrations, screenshots, charts, and sidebar Notes, Tips, and Warnings making the presentation easy to follow. In this case, there are step-by-step instructions (supported by screenshots) of how to install and configure the three "helper" programs which allow the Mac to run Windows. The Apple-supplied Boot Camp application allows one to boot into either Mac or Windows systems but not both at the same time. The other two are virtualization programs, Parallels and VMware, which run the two operating systems simultaneously. There are nice comparison charts showing the positives and negatives of each approach.

The sections dealing with the Mac OS are more complete than those dealing with Windows. There is a section on how to configure the OS X System Preferences and an overview of the included Mac applications like the iLife suite of music, photo, iChat, calendar, etc, as well as utilities for backup, searching, and networking. For Windows, there are sections on the filesystem, desktop, security issues, and even how to install Windows drivers. There are comparisons of the Mac and Windows keyboard and mouse indicating the relatively minor but important differences.

Using any of the three helper applications is relatively easy but the guidance here can provide necessary confidence for some users. The primers on the Mac OS X and on Windows Vista are basic but enough to get unacquainted users up to speed quickly. For each of the approaches Silverman discusses some (not so very) advanced topics, helpful to non-geeks.

This is a modestly intended volume but one which satisfies its purpose well.

Finally an inexpensive reference manual that helps me understand Photoshop... I have several of Andy Anderson's other titles and, I have to admit that I am a fan. I've been to two of his seminars... to say that he loves Photoshop is an understatment... I've never met anyone with his understanding of the program.

This is an excellent title for the beginner, or anyone who wants to know the how and why of what makes Photoshop tick.

This is not a book that goes into a lot of detail; it is useful though as a quick reference to the techniques in photoshop that you need to look up quickly and have a practical demonstration of how to apply. No color photos, now down and dirty tips for weird stuff but useful succinct basic guides.
Some sections suffer from the brevity eg you won't come away with much clue about color management if you rely on the chapter in this book, but it's become my handy desktop quick reference of choice. And it's not expensive.

As Miser explains, there is a lot that you can do with a Mac running OS X. The user interface is beguilingly simple to learn. And this has characterised Macs over their 20 plus years. But you can learn here that under the simple UI is a ton of complex capabilities that you can access.

En route, if you can dedicate yourself to systematically go through this book, you learn a version of Unix. Which by the way, and to good first approximation, is equivalent to learning much about linux. Of course, this is not the primary intent of the book. But it is an unheralded extra virtue.

With regards to Unix, you can learn how to use the command line. While the UI lets you do many common tasks, there is a limit even to the ingenuity of Apple's designers as to what should be enabled at the UI level. The book has a relatively short chapter on the command line. For serious, specialised tasks, you may well end up carefully perusing the chapter.

On more general issues, Miser covers the most common usages of any personal computer. For browsing, the Mac has a default browser called Safari. You may not need to consult the book's notes on it, if you just do standard browsing. Then for email, the book shows how the Mac has an application for easy use.

What adds to the book's heft is its description of higher level, value-added applications that Apple has astutely used to build up the Mac's cachet. As in listening to or managing a music collection with iTunes, or even making music with GarageBand. More elaborately, running iMovie to be your own movie director. While it should be no surprise that Miser gives extensive coverage to the iPod and how its use can be integrated into the use of a Mac.

You can think of these sections of the book as being a useful and detailed adjunct to various skimpier books that describe those applications. Here, Miser's narrative lacks the often vivid multihued illustrations in those books, but makes up for this with more comprehensive details of usage. Though some of you might wince at this turn of phrase, the book elucidates a "Mac lifestyle".

I`ve owned Apple computers now since 2000, theres no turning back. However, like most first users I was surprised that there was no manual when I purchased my G4 in 2000. So I went out and got the Missing Manuals, the Macs for Dummies and so on. These books are all great. When I got the G5 with the new OS X, I was drooling. This machine was beauty and with the little knowledge I did acquire from my wanderings on my G4, I realized the G5 was even easier to use and so intuitive that I really did not feel the need to get a manual but I did anyway because I knew there were things I was simply unaware of and that I could take this G5 further into my creative endeavors.

Anyway, there are many excellent books out there to get but I try not to stick with one publisher or writer because everyone has their own style and ideas and I try to get as many as possible, not only that but I just feel every book has their own strengths so I seriously sit down and thumb though key sections for me at the book store before purchasing. With the said, I found this book to be the most helpful of the bunch and the easist to read. There are other books that are more colorful but this book gives me the info I need without all the photos and hoopla.

I should add that even though the book can get technical, if you`re into that sort of thing, it also helped me to set up my printer which should be an easy thing to do but this time I was having trouble with my HP. After thumbing through the book, I found what I was looking for and was printing seconds later. So this book can help with the most simple to the most technical aspects of working with your OS.

Eden and Rory have provided us beginners with an excellent introduction into learning to use our Macs to keep those home movies and vacation videos from rotting on the shelf. The dialogue is clear with just enough technical information to give the 'newbie' a comprehensive picture of how to edit video on the computer with confidence. Most notable are their tutorials, which unlike most books of this nature, go beyond covering the use of the computer and provide excellent pointers on movie-making in general. After reading the book, not only have I been able to make entertaining videos through the editing techniques they describe, but my original footage has improved as well through their guidance on how to use my DV camera to get the best results. Thanks guys!!

I just got this book and it's the best of all the iMovie books I've used/read. Like "iMovies2 For Dummies," this book includes a very good DVD that includes visual/iMovie examples of the techniques and strategies that it explains in the book. For me, this the DVD is the selling point of the book--even though it is somewhat expensive.

I've always felt that a book talking about video/film production must have an accompanying CD or DVD. It's not just about visual learning, but moreso about providing effective examples of what is being explained about visual techniques. I mean...it only makes sense to talk about video technigues by using actual video examples. It really doesn't make sense to keep using a traditional form of communication (writing) to talk about an emerging and developing form of communication (digital video).

Besides the DVD, I also appreciate how the writers of this book provide strategies for different types of video productions--instructional video, music video, documentary video, home video, and short fictional movies. It's the only book I know of that talks about these types of video productions using iMovie. Thus this book (along with another one titled "The Little Digital Video Book, by Micheal Rubin) to me is for the serious/intermediate digital camera and iMovie users.

Finally, I would just like recommend another new book for those like me who want to one day move beyond iMovie to something more professional: Micheal Wohl's "Editing Technqiues with Final Cut Pro" (Peachpit Press) is a very good book on video editing--no matter what editing software you're using. All three of these books should be on your library reference shelf.

Many stat mech courses still use leaden, old-fashioned texts like Ma and Pathria that start by teaching thermodynamics, and that obsess on old issues that no one cares about any more. I strongly recommend that teachers using such books get out of their rut and look at a modern presentation. This book is very clear in its approach: thermodynamics is a consequence of statistical mechanics, not a separate subject, and there are no new fundamental laws. Thermo is discussed only after the foundations of stat mech have been laid out. It's also very good about introducing topics of more current interest (e.g. there are examples or problems involving stars, polymers, surfaces...) Finally, there are lots of worked-out problems in the back of the book. It's not a very advanced book (it starts to fail when it attempts to tackle superfluidity, renormalization group, etc., because it takes much more space to do this properly than is available). But the first 3/4 of the book is elegant, logical, complete and clear. It can be used for an undergrad or beginning grad class.

This book was chosen for my undergrad thermo course for it's depth and originality, even if (as with most texts) use of it in teaching might benefit from providing alternate and simpler ways to introduce some of the key elements. Dr. Garrod is aware of contemporary developments on a variety of fronts, and hence provides handles that are absent in many of the texts currently available. More importantly, about HALF of the book consists of worked exercises. It has potential for both graduate and undergraduate applications, in which worked exercises and instructor material might be used to augment respectively the second and first halves of the book.

I have the third edition which I used in college back in the mid- 1990's. Of all the math books that I have used, This text is my favorite. The authors of this text really make math fun and easy to learn. I highly recommend this book to all who just haven't understood math and hate it. This book will make math fun.

The book and the publisher's MathZone show a nice attempt at integrating the power of the Internet with a traditional maths text. The material is for high school readers. You can of course treat the book just as a conventional text, and refrain from accessing MathZone. In this respect, the book is well polished, being in its 6th edition, and very logically internally consistent. As befits Euclidean geometry.

Now if you do want to use MathZone, what to do at the website? Perhaps the most fruitful approach, if you are disciplined enough, is to take those tests offered there. In addition to doing the exercises in the book, of course. The tests are a valuable metric of how well you comprehend the material. The authors and publisher have put a lot of time into MathZone. Go for it!

The Teach Yourself Visually guides are outstanding for those who may feel overwhelmed by the Panther OS -- and the heavily textual manuals that are available. This may not be comprehensive (that's not its aim). but it does a fine job of picking out the things a Panther user would most likely want to do, and outline explanations clearly and with abundant illustrations.

This is fun to flip through, emulating the heady experience of actually using the latest Mac OS. The information here is available in other guides, of course, but none can surpass the simplicity of Maran's presentation. It's recommended especiallu for newer users, who can likely find what they're looking for in the excellent index.

It's so good at what it does that you want it to be longer. That's its only real drawback, which speaks well for what it does cover.

This is by far the best guide for teaching yourself and familiarizing yourself with MAC's new OS PANTHER. It is extremely well written and the graphics are just astonishing. The graphics are very original and make it such a valuable training tool that compliments this books "hints". The MAC is a wonderful computer and this book will help you bring out the best in both you and you MAC. It covers iDVD, iMovie, basic operations, emailiing, iTunes you name it - it's in here! Great book, great buy, highly recommended for any MAC user!

For all you newbies out there, this is the book that men are made of, my suggestion is to memorize it then read it again, aka. ya newbie.

When I first pick up this book in the library, I was suprised by the date it was published. After reading a few pages, I start to love this book, it gives a detail describtion on almost every command that you'll need in Sys V. This is a good book to read and good book to keep for reference. Since most major commercial Unix are based on SVR*, this book still has its value after all these years.

I bought this book when I signed up for a class on the Bible as literature, and now I'm really glad I have a copy. The notes are outstanding, as are the overview sections of each book and the history. I like the binding, also - it always sits just right when you open it to a page.

Wonderful source for Bible research. Thorough notes, indices, maps; comparisons among the many translations and interpretations used by different religions and denominations, historical background, etc. Fascinating to read even if research isn't your goal.

The Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version, is one of the best Bibles anyone can own. Introductions to each book plus footnotes are invaluable. Having the Apocrapha in a Bible is recommended, whether you consider this remarkable collection to be "cannon" or not. This is the Bible we award to high school graduates at our Presbyterian church. It may also come in handy if a grad attends college and takes a class on the Bible. Everyone should have several translations, or versions, of the Bible to help in reading and understanding this inspired and timeless volume. But this particular version is the one you should wear out.

As a research tool, this edition is perfect for everyone from high school students through Master's studies and everyone in between. As a guide through life, it is filled with easy to follow annotations for clarity and understanding. I highly recommend!

I purchased this because I wanted a Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocannonical books and because I thought that even without research into the options for study Bibles Oxford would not disappoint. You can usually count of them.

Unfortunately I was disappointed. I found the introductions to be, rather than a presentation of evidence, an incredibly brief overview of the multiple positions concerning authorship etc... Which would be great if I was desiring a condensed history of research, but I wanted discussions of WHY those positions are taken on 'Date, authorship, etc..'

The annotations are generally the same. There are many notes that give information about the passage, but often it is a seemingly random reference to geography or some such thing, which, although sometimes helpful, does not help a student to understand what the text is attempting to communicate. That is, being that this is a study Bible and not a commentary I believe that the notes should be aimed at the immediate interpretation of the passage in the context of the book rather than bits of (correct though it may be) information that could best be utilized in the thorough survey of a commentary.

For my money the best study Bibles containing the A/DC books are the HarperCollins NRSV, the Interpreter's Bible w/NRSV, the second ed. Oxford Annotated with RSV, and The New Jerusalem Bible (provided it has the annotations). The single greatest study Bible that concerns textual criticism, translation, and grammar is the NET Bible. Unfortunately they have not yet released a Bible with the A/DC books and they are needed in one form or another for thorough exegesis of much of the NT and to understand the shape and story of the Canon.