Mac OS X Power Hound · 12 September 2005, 07:34 by Admin
Rob Griffiths is the creator of Macosxhints.com and you could describe this book as a loosely organized version of the better hints and tips you’ll find there.
I lean toward disliking this sort of book because it is nearly impossible to organize things in such a way that I can come back later and find the tip I half remember but now want. On the web (in this case at the Mac OS X Hints site), it’s easy to search for the tips that match what I’m trying to remember. In a book, unless the index is incredible (this one isn’t – 15 pages), finding what I want can be frustrating.
However, Rob has done a good job of organizing by topic, and these are not just the raw hints you’d find at the site: Rob introduces them and surrounds them with explanatory text. As Rob writes well, and with humor, this is a pleasant book to just pick up and read. Best to do so with your Mac close by, of course, but I read (and enjoyed) a chapter or two while riding a train.
There’s also the matter of finding things you might have missed at Mac OS X Hints. I’m a sporadic reader there, sometimes going months without even looking, because, well, because there’s just too much that doesn’t interest me at all. I have zero interest in Itunes and Iphoto, and that sort of hint is quite common at the site. The book is full of them too, but I just skipped those chapters entirely. In the other chapters, I found several tips that I hadn’t previously been aware of and have put to good use on my own machine.
So, while my intial reaction wasn’t promising, I ended up enjoying this. I’m sure other Mac owners will too.
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