Comments about oreilly Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide:

If you have a light weight MacBook or MacBook Air that you can take with you, you do not want to drag along a heavy manual. There are times when you can't remember how to enter a special character, or a needed key command (Chapter 8; Keyboard Commands and Special Characters). There are times when you experience a problem (Chapter 4; Trouble Shooting Mac OS X). There are times when you can't remember a password (Chapter 7: Managing Passwords in Lion). There are times when you need a small light weight pocket guide (Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide).

Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide begins with a good quick introduction to what is new in Lion, and how to install it, and how to use it. It also includes a chapter on System Preferences. In just a small page and a half it covers the essentials of Mission Control "you're going to love it." Did you know that the symbol on the Command key is the "Place of Interest Symbol?"

The more I explored Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide the more I liked it.

Comments about oreilly Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide:

Well, this is my first review for an O'Reilly book, not the first I've read mind you, but the first I've read with the express purpose of reviewing (in fact it's the first book I've read with that in mind). Having said that I likely would have read this one anyway being a chronic Mac aficionado and a reader of Chris Seibold's blog it was already on my must read list for this fall. I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint, Chris has delivered a well written, easy read that leaves the indecipherable technical jargon at home while managing to not pander. He presents Lion in a way that a novice user will understand while still including kernels of wisdom a power-user will find handy.

The book covers all aspects of Lion, from the features of it's new GUI to Keyboard shortcuts that even as a power-user I didn't know. When I started into the first chapter I was delighted to see the subheading "What Lion Can't Do" and if you read nothing else in the first chapter read this section understanding the limitations of the OS is crucial when deciding whether or not to adopt it right away. For most people the deal breaker when making this decision will be the lack of Rosetta support, there aren't many apps that are in wide use that don't have a Lion (and by definition Intel-native) version; however, if your business is dependent on a piece of software from a company that went bankrupt, or the loss of Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab makes you feel like life just isn't worth living (Freeverse decided to discontinue a whole slew of games rather than port them to Intel) you might want to wait on upgrading to Lion. I'm glad Chris included this section, and it's a big step towards separating the first chapter from Apple's Lion Keynote. Another point I personally hadn't considered, but that will make a big difference to my workflow, is the combination of Full Screen apps with multiple monitors. I had no idea that when using a full screen app in a multiple monitor setup that the secondary monitor(s) would show "a static, gray linen screen".

The further I read, the more I encountered situations I hadn't thought of, great tips to make adopting Lion easier, and a solid grounding in the basics of OS 10.7. The book also lists some handy troubleshooting tips for common issues that can occur with your Mac (gasp! Macs can have issues!?!) like what to do when a hard drive starts making clunky noises, or how to quit an app that's misbehaving. This all adds up to a worthwhile read regardless of skill level, and a must read for anyone who is planning to make the move to Lion.

Comments about oreilly Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide:

Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide by Chris Seibold is one of those handly small books that O'Reilly does so well. In this case, we have a con­cise, but thor­ough, look at the key fea­tures and facets of Apple's latest oper­at­ing sys­tem and how it changes the way in which we inter­act with our Macs. The handy book begins by expor­ing the new fea­tures and then logic­ally looks at how to upgrade, what issues may emerge and a quick over­view of how to bene­fit from the new fea­tures.

Comments about oreilly Mac OS X Lion Pocket Guide:

With the release of the new Mac OSX Lion operating system come new books to help us learn the ins and outs. The first one I have come across is the Mac OSX Lion – Pocket Guide, written by Chris Seibold and published by O'Reilly in August 2011.

O'Reilly has provided me with a review copy – with a catch. It only comes as an ebook. – that is a PDF file. This turns out to be the first ebook, that I have read, having steered well clear of them so far. OK, so I read my User Group Newsletter in PDF format each month, but when I do I always wistfully think of the good old days when it came on paper in the mail! As a matter of interest, the book includes 205 pages of content and that would be pretty thick as a paper version.

But anyway, when I found that the review copy would come electronically I bravely decided to give it a fair go and try out this ebook business. I tried out reading it on my iPod Touch but found that too much of an effort to keep expanding and moving around each page on the small screen. I did think though that the Touch could be useful as an emergency reference device (a 'pocket' guide!) if I was away from the computer, for example helping someone else. Of course an iPad might be the perfect answer, but not having one, I can't comment.

So I read the book using Preview on the Mac. As a straight read it was OK but I still would have preferred a real book. Being tucked away in the study staring at a screen is not as comfortable or friendly as sitting in a cosy lounge chair with family members near by. However, as a reference text there were advantages to the ebook format. Clicking on a Table of Contents entry takes the reader to the referenced page and, of course, the general Edit/Find function quickly searches out any word in the document. There is no Index – but one would not add a lot in this context.

Turning to the actual content, I found it great for an introduction to OSX Lion. It covers what has changed from the previous system, installing the new system and migrating to it, trouble-shooting, the all important system preferences, built in applications (eg Mail, Address Book etc), passwords and keyboard commands. The trouble-shooting section caught my eye. Yes things can go wrong, but for us normal users they are usually fixable.

In the main, the Guide explains, trouble can occur with older applications and attached devices. For example most readers would have already heard that our old PowerPC based application won't work with Lion – that includes two of my long time favourites AppleWorks and Quicken!

I haven't purchased Lion yet – for two reasons. First, wise superusers always warn against using version one of anything and second, I am not ready to give up some of my older applications. However, I was very interested to read all about Lion. As I indicated earlier, this ebook is a great introduction. I found it covered everything I could think of , to a level of starting out with Lion and using it at a basic to intermediate standard in the longer term. This could be more than sufficient for most general Mac users.

So do you need this Guide? My recommendation is yes. Even if you don't sit down and read it from cover to cover, as I like to, it is bound to be invaluable as you muddle though the new OS learning about it in a trial-and-error fashion. When you get to an 'error' the Guide will be there to help. I also find that reading a guide or manual after the first exploration and use gives me lots of 'Aha' moments when what seemed to be strange behaviour is explained or something new is uncovered.

So happy reading.