LAUG 2.0 News

Some say lightening can never strike the same place twice. The Missing Manual series proves that wrong. David Pogue and the O’Reilly gang constantly hit the mark and spark creativity and knowledge in a variety of programs.

IPhoto 6 covers absolutely every aspect of digital photography on your Mac, leaving few stones unturned. In order to make sure you get the great photos you need and minimized the editing needed in iPhoto, Derrick Story and David Pogue make sure you buy the right digital camera for your needs and tells you the basics of lighting and composition. After reading that chapter, I looked at my own iPhoto library and understand why I liked certain shots and why others ended up on the digital darkroom floor.

After explaining how to buy a camera and create great photos, the authors take you through the steps of using iPhoto in logical order: importing, managing, outputting and of course backing up. More technical manuals need to do this. Instead of taking you through the features, they take you through the workflow.

The writing was typical of the series: clear, understandable with plenty of screen shots to explain the concepts. While I consider myself an expert on iPhoto, the book was full of subtle tips and tricks to shave hours off my digital photo management.
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Did you know that “Mork and Mindy” was a spinoff from the hit TV show “Happy Days”. While Mork only appeared in one episode, that was enough to make it a hit. Sometimes spinoffs are great. “Mork and Mindy” was hilarious. Then you have other spinoffs that are pale imitations of the original. Does anyone remember Joanie Loves Chachi? Probably not. Windows Vista for Starters is a spin-off from the highly respected “Missing Manual” series. Unfortunately, it’s more of a “Joanie Loves Chachi” of the computer book world. Skip this spinoff book and head straight for the original : “Windows Vista, The Missing Manual.

First off, there was an extremely funny error that hopefully will be corrected later on. On page 11 in the book, under “Mouse and Keyboard Essentials” you find the opening statement of “This book gives you three kinds of instructions that require you to use the Mac’s Mouse.” Unfortunately, this was an early warning sign about the quality of the book (though “Windows Vista the Missing Manua”l has another funny Mac reference).
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Summary: A fine companion for the beginner or intermediate Final Cut Pro 5 user.

The Book:
Final Cut Pro (FCP) is a complex swiss army knife of an edit program and can be very intimidating to a beginner. There seems to be way too many layers, windows and other sharp objects on which to cut yourself. But once you appreciate its potential, you will put imovie in your old cigar box of treasures and only bring it out to share with the grandkids.
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While wireless connectivity should be “plug and play,” in reality there are choices, compromises, and caveats when using wireless devices. The author effectively navigates the reader through the wonder world of wireless connectivity and while warning us of problems, does not make the process overly complex.

By far, this is the most hands on and effective book on wireless networking I have read! The book was very logically organized by first training the reader on all the lingo such as the difference between an Airport Extreme and Airport Express and all the 802.11 alphabet soup. Once establishing that baseline with the reader, Miser then gives the reader all the potential options of how to setup a wireless Mac network and then explains each step with plenty of simple diagrams and pictures. Other books I read on this subject quickly lose the reader with complex and unnecessary options. For example, Miser doesn’t go into detail about “port mapping” which allows you to use create a web server “behind” an airport. If someone needs to set up a webserver, they probably don’t need help setting up a wireless network. This book covers the practical aspects of wireless networking the typical Mac user would face. If someone wanted complex, they’d probably be using a PC!
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Robin Williams is truly the queen of user instruction. She takes the hard concepts and makes them accessible to novices. She’s no relation to the actor Robin Williams of course, who has played a queen in the past!

“Podcasting and Blogging with GarageBand and iWeb” is a perfect guide for someone curious about blogging and podcasting. The book requires the reader to have a .Mac account and own iLife 06. Without these two essential components, the book is of almost no use. If you are able to type an email, then you’ll be able to blog and podcast after reading this short book. (more…)

Ipod and Itunes: The Missing Manual

You know how there are some actors whom you can trust re part of a great movie. If they are in it, you know it’s good. Take Tom Hanks: practically anything he is involved in tends to be a great movie (expect of course for “Joe and the Volcano”). David Pogue and the Missing Manual series are the Tom Hanks of the technical publishing world. Even their mediocre stuff rises head and shoulders among the competition. “iPod & iTunes” is no exception to the long string of quality and informative manuals.

In particular, I was impressed with the flow of the book. Too often new iPod users feel they have to buy music from the iTunes Music Store to use their iPod and directly bypass their legal CD collection. Biersdorefer doesn’t introduce the iTunes music store until chapter 7. He logically starts with the iPod itself and the proper care and maintenance thereof, making sure new users can properly use and understand their iPod before they even hook it up to the computer. The book then moves from the iPod hardware to installing the software, adding songs, photos, and videos. After the user understand all that he then introduced the music store along with advanced concepts like using the iPod as an external hard drive. Finally, he introduces basic and advanced troubleshooting. Other books I’ve read on iPods organize their concepts based on themes such as hardware and software, rather than the actual flow of how a user might use their iPod. While you can easily pick up any chapter and learn something, beginner iPod users would be best serviced starting at, well, the beginning (how’s that for straightforward logic?).

Throughout the book, Biersdorefer uses extensive pictures and screen shots to illustrate the concepts described. I’m always impressed when an author does this, because not everyone likes to sit in front of a computer learning something. Good visuals help a reader learn a concept while not sitting at the computer. In addition, his explanations are clear and easily understandable without requiring knowledge of technical jargon.

Biersdorefer also included just about every iPod tip and trick I know such as all the idiosyncrasies of photo formats the iPod can display and how to put DVDs on iPods. I honestly can’t think of a single iPod concept the beginner or intermediate iPod user needs to know that isn’t covered in this book. While I consider myself an iPod expert, I still learned a thing or two and would recommend this to basic users as a book to read cover to cover to understand how to use an iPod. Intermediate users can use this manual as a reference for tools or procedures they don’t often do and don’t want to rely on the whim of internet searches. For example, I know I can use my iPod to do iPod presentations but I probably won’t remember how to do it until my new presentation. Biersdorefer covers the topic extensively so all I have to do is pick up his book. The only iPod concepts this book doesn’t cover is advanced tinkering such as installing Linux or how to boot your Mac off of it.

In general, this is a impressive book for the beginner that wants to know everything their iPod can do and a great reference manual for advanced users.

Pros: Covers it all in straightforward easy to understand language accessible to beginners without talking down to experts.

Cons: iPod not included. Waaah.

5 out of 5 dog cows

by Joe Kissell

Since I have used OS X from day, I was very anxious to analyze this book and see how it compares to my actual experience. While I don’t agree with everything the author wrote, the advice is solid, well explained, and very reliable. Every Mac should ship with this book.

Unlike other books written for the IT crowd, this “Real World” book omits the boring details about why you should do certain tasks, and gives readers specific instructions on what to do daily, weekly, and yearly basis. You can open up the book and immediately start keeping your Mac in tip top shape.

There were certain aspects of the advice I, and many other Mac professionals, would disagree with. The advice isn’t incorrect, just not Universal (pun intended!). There is not one solution that fits all situations. Kissell acknowledges other opinions on these subjects. He actually quotes a variety of experts who disagree with his advice. In this industry, it’s pretty rare for a expert to admit there are other perfectly valid, and polar opposite, opinions. I really appreciated Kissell’s lack of ego. Again, this is “Real World” and in the real world two doctors can both be excellent and, yet have very different opinions.

For example, some experts believe repairing permissions is absolutely critical while Kissell indicates this procedure has no redeeming value. His panel of experts gave different opinions allowing the reader to dras their own conclusion. (Personally, I recommend repairing permissions before any Apple update and any time you have problems), This book is his opinion and suggestions on proper maintenance. Unless you have a logical and justified reason not to follow his outstanding advice, treat his advice as gospel and follow it to the letter.

In spite of the great maintenance advice Kissel gives, his advice on backups is second to none and should be required reading for anyone who has anything of value on their Mac. Why can’t Apple explain it this easy (oh, that’s right, they want you to upgrade to Leopard with built-in rudimentary backups)? He is going to save readers thousands of dollars in emergency data recovery costs. I suspect Kissel will be getting cookies baked for him, invitations to weddings, and wedding proposals himself. With Kissel’s help, data loss can be eliminated in our generation! Seriously though, Kisssel realizes that people won’t do everything he suggests, and he acknowledges that fact and creates good/better/best type scenarios for backups. People get intimidated by backups, and just ignore it—the same reason people don’t go to the dentist. In the last chapter of the book, Kissel take the most popular backup program out there, Retrospect, and takes you step by step through proper backup and restoration. Even the least technical among us can easily follow his advice and not wake up in the middle of the night in fear of data loss.

This book is one of the best organized I have seen. This is not a technical reference to be used only when you have a question, but a practical how-to guide with all the information you need at your fingertips. Not only does Kissel refer to shareware programs with eact download to download them in context of the chapters, but Appendix B summarizes all the programs mentioned in the book, the program features, and where to get them. Wow—why don’t more books do that. The last page of the book summarizes everything you need to do to maintain your Mac. Most Mac users should rip out that page and keep it near their computer—taunting them to actually do the things they learned in the book.

This book is probably going to win some major awards and should be given as a gift to any Mac user who cares about their data. Every small business should follow his advice to the letter. Too often, people think because Macs are so realiable, they won’t fail. While they tend to have less problems than Windows computers, Macs need Maintenance and Backups too!

Pros; Hands down the BEST book on backups and specifically Retrospect. Great maintenance advice given in a straightforward easy to follow manner.

Cons: This book will put lots of technicians out of business. He’ll also kill the entire data recovery business, as well as a good share of therapists who counsel people after data loss. Good for consumers, bad for professionals like myself J. Just kidding….maybe.

Five out of Five Dogcows

by Dave Taylor

I had really high hopes for this book. I consider myself a pretty smart Mac tech, but Unix was the one thing that really scared me about OS X. To fix some esoteric problem, I’d have to follow some Unix recipe and it always annoyed me I didn’t understand what I was typing. O’Relly books are well known not just for the animals on the cover, but excellent explanations of very technical concepts.

After reading Taylor’s book, I felt better, but not by much. Most readers can easily understand the basic Unix file structure commands, but towards the middle of the book he inaccurately assumed that his readers could also quickly understand some of the advanced concepts. Towards the end of the book I was left scratching my head. We went from move a file here and there to commands that were taking up multiple lines. Arrrgh!

The critical flaw in the book was a lack of exercises and real world examples. When I want to learn something, I don’t just want to be told. Involve me and test my knowledge. Some of the more difficult concepts covered in the book would have been enhanced with numerous real world examples, each building on the other. Things moved way too fast and made it easy to get lost.

The book was an excellent overview of Unix for the Macintosh and perfect for someone to decide whether to pursue further learning. “Introduction to Unix” instead of “Learning Unix” would have been a better title. After reading the book, I was reminded of speed dating where you meet 20 people for five minutes each and decide whether you want to go out with them or not. After reading the book I have enough familiarity with Unix that I can understand basic commands and how they relate to each other. I clearly want to go out on another date but any type of wedding bells are way in the distance.

PROS: Excellent overview of Unix for the Macintosh
CONS: Doesn’t leave you with enough practical understanding

3 out of 5 dog cows

I consider myself a pretty darn good computer technician, but when it comes to design, I’m like a bull in a china shop. I can fix Illustrator or Photoshop crashes, but I don’t know the first thing about a path or a bleed (is that what that knife is for–to bleed?). I was excited to learn some basic design principles from this book. More importantly, I wanted to learn them without having to buy expensive software like Quark or InDesign.

Andrew Shalat deserves quite a bit of credit for tweaking lots of performance out of the basic applications that come with most Macs. Who would of thought you could do basic design in TextEdit? He earns the title of MacGyver of the Mac Design world. While I found his writing rather cheesy (he pretends the reader is stranded on a desert island and then starts a fruit import/export business), he teaches the reader how to make basic flyers, business cards, web pages, movies , soundtracks and DVDs. The target audience for this book is the Grandma or little league coach who wants to make some basic yet professional publicity materials for their organization.

This is not a tutorial about iLIie or iWork, this book is strictly project focused. MacDesign out of the box requires no previous knowledge of any of these programs. Statler walks you through the principles step by step with great screen pictures of any confusing steps. He also explains the design principles of what you are doing, so you can apply them to your individual projects. After reading the book, I feel much more comfortable using the basic Mac software to create a nice identity for any organization–however all my designer friends will still have a job for sure.

Pros: Excellent explanation on how to use the iLife and iWork suite to create flyers, business cards, web pages, and movies. Great book for someone delegated publicity duties for any organizations.
Cons: A bit cutesy. I’d prefer a straightforward explanation than an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek approach. Not everyone has iWork preinstalled on their Mac

To purchase this book on Amazon and earn some money for the LAUG, click here

Fire the Phone Company by Dave Field

The title sounds pretty enticing…how to fire the phone company. The book is about Voice Over IP, or VoIP, which is a technology that allows voice chat over the Internet. Even though the book is copyright 2006, it really felt dated. That’s probably because this is such a fast moving field. No mention was made of some of the more innovative products out today such as the usb flash based phone from Vonage nor any info about Skype being bought by ebay. Unfortunately, the book also completely ignored Apple’s very high quality entry into VoIP—iChat AV.

The book’s subtitle is “A Handy Guide to Voice Over IP.” Not to nitpick, but I wouldn’t call it a guide, rather a overview. The book gave the reader a brief yet complex overview of the history of VoIP communications. The book took a simple straightforward subject and overwhelmed the reader with hundreds of acronyms (I actually started counting). Most of the acronyms, while interesting, are completely impractical as a guide. These acronyms have little usage for the average person wanting to dump the phone company. In addition, I think the book unnecessarily scared readers away from using VoIP. Too much time was spent on technical details such as home wiring or firewalls. In reality, this stuff generally works out of the box with little configuration from the user.

Based on the cover and title, I expected more of a guide on what options for VoIP were out there and which company would be right for me. Field did provide a chapter on how to compare VoIP companies, but left all the research to the reader. While I respect that if he included recommendations, they might change by presstime, but too often in the book instead of offering practical advice, he simply suggested that readers use Google to do their own research.

Personally, ever time I’ve used VoIP solutions, they work! I didn’t have to configure firewalls, check the wiring in my house, it worked like a charm. Same for any customer I’ve worked with. I almost wondered…does he work for the phone company…and is he being paid to scare readers. I don’t think he researched his subject very well, and he based all his recommendations on personal experience. Again, this stuff isn’t rocket science. I can confidentially say it’s harder to secure a wireless router than to chat with someone over the internet

Field did do a decent job of giving readers who want to switch to VoIP descriptions of realistic problems and how to handle them, most notably how to establish 911 access and how to switch your land line number to your VoIP number.

Buy this book if you need a historical overview of VoIP for your computer classes, but as a guide for someone wanting to switch to making phone calls over the Internet—avoid this book because it will needlessly scare you.

Pros: Great if you own stock in AT&T/SBC, as people will be afraid to fire the phone company
Cons: Endless fear mongering and complexity inaccurately portrays the ease in which you can fire the phone company

2 out of 5 DogCows

Link for more information on Amazon.com