The Barnes & Noble Review
It may be a Mac, but it’s still a computer. And that means -- some of the time -- it’s going to give you a headache. When your Mac running OS X gives you a headache, we’ve got a book that’s Advil, Tylenol, and aspirin all rolled into one: Mac OS X Headaches, by Curt Simmons.
Simmons covers no less than 18 different categories of Mac OS X headache in this book, and all flavors of Mac OS X through Jaguar, Version 10.2, whose new features bring with them whole new migraines. Best of all, unlike some “power users only” books, you needn’t know much about Mac OS X -- except that you want it to work right.
All in all, this book covers well over a hundred different hassles. Simmons cures them all with specific, direct-to-the-point solutions... most of which start working in just moments.
We’re talking fast relief. The inside front and back covers of the book contains charts that direct you straight to the solutions you’re looking for. Having trouble installing OS X (or upgrading between versions)? Simmons offers painless solutions. Ditto for application headaches. Internet connectivity and Web browser headaches. Email headaches. Networking headaches -- both wired and wireless.
Simmons remedies the many headaches that arise from Steve Jobs’s iMenagerie of applications -- iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, and so forth -- as well as the many multimedia headaches you might suffer from even when you’re not using the iApps. You’ll also find a full chapter on fixing disk troubles.
Mac OS X Headaches begins with headaches related to the OS X interface and desktop. Think the items on your screen are too large -- or too small? Here’s the fix. Don’t like the way your windows look? Don’t like the default screen effects (a.k.a. screen savers)? Sick of being asked for a password whenever you wake up your Mac? Does your Mac go to sleep too soon? Too late? Never? All dealt with.
Finding your Dock a little unmanageable lately? Simmons offers six ways to deal with that. Don’t want humongous icons when you hover over them? Want to move the whole dock somewhere else -- or want it to disappear when you’re not using it? Done.
There’s a full chapter on headaches associated with windows (not that Windows); folders and files; and the Trash. Don’t like the way windows minimize to the Dock? Want to get all the way back to the top of your folder hierarchy without clicking Back, Back, Back, and Back some more? Can’t change permissions on a folder or file? Squared away. There’s plenty of help with accounts and passwords, too.
You say you can’t find drivers? And you don’t know how to print a file to scale? And you sent several files to the printer and now you can’t stop them from printing? Is that what’s troubling you, bunky? Curt Simmons will fix it in nothing flat.
Don’t get another Mac headache before you get Mac OS X Headaches. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.
