Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Little Black Book

Rating:
Summary: Panther books in competition, Missing Manual wins
Review: Gene Steinberg has written many books about the OS X operating system for Macintosh computers, including Mac OS X (2000), Upgrading and Troubleshooting Your Mac: Mac OS X Edition (2001), Mac OS X Version 10.2 Jaquar Little Black Book (2002), Moving to the OS X Painlessly (2003), and now a new edition of his Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Little Black Book (Paraglyph Press, 2004). He knows the operating system.

The Panther Little Black Book recognizes the attractions of OS 10.3 -- more stability and more features. The book focuses on the new features, but not the iLife features. The 22 chapters cover what's hot, upgrading to Panther, user preferences, the Finder, desktop management, setup for multiple users, search feature, networking, AppleScript, installing programs, setting up hardware and peripherals, laptop tools, OS X applications, using older programs with Panther, font management, backups, security, troubleshooting, the Unix environment, surfing the net, email software, and hub applications. As the back cover states, this book is a guide for using, troubleshooting, and customizing the Panther operating system. It is a how-to book, albeit a technical manual.

The book opens with the chapter on what's hot that discusses Darwin, Quartz, Cocoa, Carbon, Aqua - information for programmers, and continues with comments about Classic, Finder, and Dock - information for general users. Despite the opening, a programmer would be disappointed with the book as it is basic how-to manual that covers, for example, the page close, minimize, and maximize buttons on the top left of windows and other such basic steps for using the OS 10.3 system. For users upgrading from OS 9, Steinberg provides a useful chart listing where to find features that have moved or disappeared with OS X (page 41). Comparisons in the text to OS versions older than OS 9 do not help solve a current problem; such information could similarly be compiled in a chart.

Among the book's weaknesses are the illustrations showing the computer screen, which are printed in black and white and in relatively small size so the text is difficult to read. The writing in the book is occasionally awkward; for example (page 12): "The famous Apple desktop isn't left untouched by the Mac OS X. Although on the surface it looks very different, looks can be deceiving." And some of the advice is trivial: "When you're finished working on your PowerBook, simply close the cover and pop it into a drawer. This is a great way to keep a neat desk" (page 371). When looking up screen options, I found myself flipping from section to section in the book in search of information that would enable me to make an informed choice, but usually to no avail.

The Panther Little Black Book is advertised as the "concise problem solver." At 548 pages, it is "concise" when compared to the competition provided by David Pogue's Mac OS X The Missing Manual, Panther Edition (Pogue Press, 2003), which now in its third edition has 728 pages. Comparison is natural in the highly competitive market for user's guides. This reviewer's library has both The Missing Manual and Little Black Book (as well as Jim Heid's Macintosh iLife, an Interactive Guide to iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD, Peachpit Press, 2003). If I had to keep -- or to buy -- one book, it would be The Missing Manual, as it is more comprehensive, more readable, better organized, easier to use, and more applicable to my needs than the Little Black Book.

Rating:
Summary: Reasons to Upgrade
Review: The purists amongst you may wince at the title. The "X" refers to "10", so the title has redundancy. Oh well...

Steinberg has produced a straightforward, understandable book on the latest Mac operating system, Panther. He starts out by putting this in the context of its predecessors - the Classic version 9 and the earlier versions 10. This is useful to those of you still using these versions and pondering why you should upgrade. He tries to induce you to do so with an introductory chapter highlighting the best of Panther.

While Panther may be software, it is actually optimal for only the latest hardware. So Steinberg also devotes space to explaining why. Obviously, Apple would prefer that you get Panther on a new Mac from them, rather than try to install Panther on your existing hardware. But Moore's Law still holds and if you are upgrading, you should seriously consider going whole hog and get a new Mac.

Panther now supports a variety of browsers, instead of just Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was true of some earlier Mac operating systems. Given the importance of a browser to many users, there is a chapter on the choices now available. These include Netscape, Mozilla, Opera ... Which will surely be well received by some.

Rating:
Summary: Reasons to Upgrade
Review: The purists amongst you may wince at the title. The "X" refers to "10", so the title has redundancy. Oh well...

Steinberg has produced a straightforward, understandable book on the latest Mac operating system, Panther. He starts out by putting this in the context of its predecessors - the Classic version 9 and the earlier versions 10. This is useful to those of you still using these versions and pondering why you should upgrade. He tries to induce you to do so with an introductory chapter highlighting the best of Panther.

While Panther may be software, it is actually optimal for only the latest hardware. So Steinberg also devotes space to explaining why. Obviously, Apple would prefer that you get Panther on a new Mac from them, rather than try to install Panther on your existing hardware. But Moore's Law still holds and if you are upgrading, you should seriously consider going whole hog and get a new Mac.

Panther now supports a variety of browsers, instead of just Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which was true of some earlier Mac operating systems. Given the importance of a browser to many users, there is a chapter on the choices now available. These include Netscape, Mozilla, Opera ... Which will surely be well received by some.

Rating:
Summary: The Best!!!
Review: This book took me from the initial install of Mac OS X 10.3 to getting to know my Mac in and out (in 1 day), setting up the mail feature was a snap. It gives good step by step instruction for every feature of the Mac OS X 10.3, as well as how to maneuver in "Classic". I don't even refer to the other books that I have purchased for the OS X 10.3 Panther.

Rating:
Summary: Broad but not deep
Review: This is more of a field guide then a book focused on the core elements of the Macintosh operating system. For a book of only four hundred pages it covers a lot of ground, from system setup, to networking, printing, file system management, as well as the fundamentals of all of the standard applications and the iPhoto suite. As you can see, that is a lot to cover in 400 pages, so the coverage is necessarily shallow.

That being said the text is easy to read and the illustrations are well used. The content is up-to-date and their and helpful tips and tricks.

If you want an overall look at Mac OS X then you should have a look at this book. I would recommend figuring out if you are interested in the operating system itself, where I would recommend Mac OS X In a Nutshell, or interested in the iLife application suite, where I would recommend the O'Reilly Missing Manual book that corresponds to the application you are interested in.