Editorial Reviews:
A completely revised edition of the best-selling, standard guide to computing on the Macintosh provides the most useful information and tips on the PowerMac, multimedia, the new System 7 revisions, the Internet, QuickDraw 6X, Powerbooks, and more. Original. (All Users).
To listen to some Macintosh fans, you'd think they take the title of The Macintosh Bible literally. Their fondness for their computers can verge on zealotry. It's easy to understand why, though: the latest Macs are the best ever, capable of handling home computing with style and business computing efficiently. Macs, as they always have, also excel at specialized work with publications and graphics. The Macintosh Bible introduces its readers to the full range of modern Macs' capabilities, leaving them well prepared to buy, configure, use, and troubleshoot their computers. Clifford Colby and Marty Cortinas aren't as good as some other Mac writers at conveying the liveliness of the Mac-user culture--authors David Pogue and Robin Williams excel in that area--but they and their collaborators have done a great job of compiling facts, procedures, and ideas about Macs and their software.For a how-to book, this one is unusually dense with text, and that's a good thing. After all, most aspects of Macs are pretty easy to figure out unaided, so it stands to reason that when you turn to a book for help you'll want the kind of detailed explanations that the authors provide here. There's lots of information on the history of Mac products, as well as peripherals offered by third-party vendors. Procedural details about how to do work in Mac OS X and other programs are right on, though more information about the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X would be nice (there's hardly any, a characteristic typical of most recent Mac books). Background information about, for instance, how database management programs work also helps novices and intermediate users gain familiarity with the Mac environment. --David Wall Topics covered: How to use a modern Macintosh computer, at a level suitable for someone new to Macs or moderately experienced with them. Coverage of hardware options, third-party software, productivity tools, utilities, and local area networks (LANs) is nice, though there's little coverage of AppleScript, Cocoa, or other programming subjects.
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 18 total reviews (Page 1 of 4):
 A useful reference
The strengths of this book are the tips to getting yourself out of trouble. The interesting part of this book are the interviews with the major players in the history of the MAC. Gives a chance to those people to voice their opinion of the state of the MAC.  Not Quite Everything You Need to Know, but Almost
There are four major parts to this book:
. Looking at the Mac, which talks about the Mac in general from an overview of the operating system to storage systems and printing.
. Getting Productive which walks about common business and personal applications like word processing, databases and spreadsheets.
. Getting Creative, all about graphics, web design and HTML, after all, the Mac is reknown for its capabilities in the graphical area.
. Extending your Reach, reaching out for the internet, for networks and even working with Windows machines. This part also has a chapter 'Switching to the Mac from Windows.'
In a bit over a thousand pages the authors have room to cover nearly every aspect of working with a Mac. This book covers the standard everyday tasks that you're likely to do on a Mac. From here, of course you can go on to more specialized programs if that's where your job lies. For instance in the graphics area, iPhoto, which is supplied with all new Macs is covered. But if you're a graphics professional you probably want some more professional. And the book talks about the professional level packages such as Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop, ACD Systems Canvas, Macromedia FreeHand, Corel Painter, and others. It doesn't cover these in detail, but at least talks enough about them to get you started on deciding which is best for your needs.
This book is, as the title says, the Bible of the Mac. It doesn't contain everything there is to know about the Mac (if it did you couldn't lift it) but it certainly contains enough to get you well started.  "Bible" is apt...
I have to admit, from the outset, that I am not a Mac person. I am a PC tech trying to service one of the only Mac's I will probably work on this year. I have a copy of the Mac Bible. It is huge! That's not bad if it is useful. The problem I am having is finding what I need while I have to wade through the barrels of verbage that are useless to me. I finally had to resort to scouring the Web to find my answers. I guess I'm used to the more direct, almost cookbook approach to troubleshooting and setup. To be fair, and thats why I gave the book two stars instead of one, I realize that the different chapters are written by different authors, so the content and style will vary. Unfortunately for me the sections I needed were written by authors I would rather not consult in the future. I found it very useful
I recently had an excellent opportunity to try out this book as I made the switch from the PC to a new 15" PowerBook G4. This is the type of book that very few people probably read from cover to cover. Rather they would read it as a resource book when they are having troubles or questions. As I made the change from one OS to another I found myself going to the book eleven times. Two of those times the book didn't answer my questions. But for the most part I learned what I needed to know each time.If you are about to make a switch or are having issues with your Mac I would recommend this book to you. good
its a good book, if you are reading this review, skip the first chapter. I wish it had information of the newer OS like OS X. I learn many simple things about Macs I had no idea.
good book!! The is a newer Mac bible, take a look on that one. More Customer Reviews:
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(18 reviews)
