Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual

by David Pogue

For a company that promised to "put a pause on new features," Apple sure has been busy-there's barely a feature left untouched in Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard." There's more speed, more polish, more refinement-but still no manual. Fortunately, David Pogue is back, with the humor and expertise that have made this the #1 bestselling Mac book for eight years straight. You get all the answers with jargon-free introductions to:





Big-ticket changes. A 64-bit overhaul. Faster everything. A rewritten Finder. Microsoft Exchange compatibility. All-new QuickTime Player. If Apple wrote it, this book covers it.

Snow Leopard Spots. This book demystifies the hundreds of smaller enhancements, too, in all 50 programs that come with the Mac: Safari, Mail, iChat, Preview, Time Machine.

Shortcuts. This must be the tippiest, trickiest Mac book ever written. Undocumented surprises await on every page.

Power usage. Security, networking, build-your-own Services, file sharing with Windows, even Mac OS X's Unix chassis-this one witty, expert guide makes it all crystal clear.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Software, Computers, Apple, Technology, Programming

902 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

David Pogue, Yale '85, is the weekly personal-technology columnist for the New York Times and an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News. His funny tech videos appear weekly on CNBC. And with 3 million books in print, he is also one of the world's bestselling how- to authors. He wrote or co-wrote seven books in the "For Dummies" series (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music). In 1999, he launched his own series of amusing, practical, and user-friendly computer books called Missing Manuals, which now includes 100 titles.

David and his wife, Jennifer Pogue, MD, live in Connecticut with their three young children.

Reviews

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, I’ve probably read the least from this book compared to the other two books I bought for learning the changes there are with my new computer from my old computer. Unlike most books on my reference shelf, I haven’t yet read any of these books cover to cover; I’ll be continuing to use them as reference books.

This book seems less user friendly than my Snow Leopard Dummies book, but it’s full of useful information, and I’m grateful to have it to refer to.

I really like David Pogue's books; I always learn all sorts of tips not easily found elsewhere. And it’s so much better than the included online manual. Despite my addiction to Goodreads, I actually often hate reading long passages online, and really detest reading entire books online from my computer.

So, I have a list of 5 questions for my next call to Apple Care support, but rethinking I think I’ll see if I can find the answers to my questions in this book, or in Mac OS X Snow Leopard All-in-One For Dummies (For Dummies or MacBook Pro Portable Genius. Before I make that next call.

4 ½ stars

[Eric Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

As technical references go, this book (and the series, really) do a good job of describing the real hands-on details you may need to know. Admittedly, you probably won't be reading the book from cover to cover (me neither), but I found first few seconds quite helpful for getting up to speed fast. I especially like the first chapter, which in this series tends to focus on the nifty new features in a fairly fast survey that covers of a lot of territory.

[Chris Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent... now I've got to read the Lion update.

[John Bastin · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Pogue does his usually excellent job of explaining this version of Mac OS X in an entertaining and easily readable manner.

[Jesper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for getting to the know the OS. Light on terminal stuff though.

[Angela Milora · Rating 4 out of 5]

for a person who frequently feels computer challenged, i thought it was easy to follow