Description:
I like Todd's writing--and, boy, this book has a lot of it: 1,000-plus pages. Egad! Right away, the personality in the book jumped off the page at me. I was expecting this, being familiar with Todd's work--primarily his writing with David Pogue on (an out-of-print edition of) "Macworld Mac Secrets" and other books. (Believe it or not, I've been a Mac user since 1987.) Unbeknownst to most PC users, there are many makes and models of the Macintosh, some of which were designed specifically never to be upgraded. Yet this book covers them all. Like other good books in this category, background and historical information are provided, in addition to data on upgrades, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Todd washes the whole engine here, not skimping on anything, and often telling a good story along the way. My key issue of hard-drive partitioning is covered only modestly, which is unusual when one considers the vast discussion of disk storage in general. Granted, hard-disk partitioning is not as core to the Mac as it was to the early PCs (and still is today). But it'd be nice to have at least a reference to partitioning software, or a Web page--which is done often, and well, for just about every other topic in the book. My only complaint has to do with the photographs. While the line-art illustrations are done nicely, nearly all of the photographs are too dark and contrast-y. This makes them useless in a book in which such photographs are almost crucial to getting a point across. Ignoring that single thorn in this elephant's foot, however, I was completely satisfied and enjoyed the book. It's a valuable, useful reference that I plan on keeping. --Dan Gookin
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