Review

An Excellent Book.  :) :) :) :) :) of 5.

Recently I bought an old G3 iBook with Mac OS X (Panther) on it from a friend. I already had some knowledge of Apple laptops -- but not much.

What did I expect from this book?

I was hoping this book would

• teach me a few things I didn't know about the iBook.
• help me get more comfortable using the iBook.

This book doesn't pretend to cover all the details, and I didn't expect it to. Rather it aims to tell you what you need to know.

I thought this book would be only marginally applicable to an old iBook like the one I have.

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What did I especially like?

Layout and Graphics: The layout of this book and the graphics are superb. This is appropriate for a book about something as fine as the iBook.

Bonding: I hadn't expected the encouragement I got to bond with my iBook. It turns out that helping the reader to bond with his/her iBook is the heart of the book's purpose. The book does a really good job of this, especially in the Introduction.

Keys: I learned some useful keys.

System Preferences: I especially liked the tour of System Preferences. Mostly I left things the way my friend had set them up. However I did change a few things including

• the alert sound
• the date format
• the desktop background

Accessories: Many of the accessories described are enticing. I appreciated being introduced to them.

Applied to my laptop: I had expected that much of the information in this book would not apply to my somewhat dated G3 iBook. So far everything I've tried has worked. How very nice.

Now that I think of it, my iBook itself is old but the OS on it is not.

Comfortable: What with the bonding, the things I learned, etc., I feel very comfortable with my iBook.

Summary: Overall, I got what I expected and more.

Your interests and knowledge are almost certainly different from mine. But there's a surprising amount of well-chosen information in this small book. Assuming you are new to the iBook, likely there are some nuggets here for you.

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Do I have any gripes?

DVD Write: I don't have a Super Drive, so I won't be writing any movies to DVD.

However, many people do have Super Drives. Also, I do want to know what I'm missing.

Other things I may not do soon: There are a number of other things discussed in the book that are not likely to be relevant to me any time soon. For example

• I don't expect to be cleaning my iBook any time soon.
• I don't have any plans to buy accessories for my iBook.

Still I will eventually want to clean my iBook. Maybe sooner than I expect.

And I likely will eventually want to get some of the accessories described. I'm particularly interested in the pocketable Flash memory. (The day after writing the above, I bought some USB flash memory. Bye bye gripe.)

Who's the Book for?

This book would be ideal for someone

• who has recently acquired (or is about to acquire) an iBook

and

• who wants to learn more about his/her iBook and bond with it

Some good reasons to not get this book are

• To you, any machine made by Apple is best used as a boat anchor.
• You don't have an iBook and don't plan to get one.
• You do own an iBook but have mastered it.
• The whole idea of bonding with a machine makes you sick.

Final Thought

The intent of this book is for you to bond with your iBook. Everything in the book contributes to that.

If you just got an iBook (or are about to get one) and wish to learn the things you need to know about your iBook and to bond with it, get this book.

An Excellent Book.  :) :) :) :) :) of 5.

George Woolley
of Oakland.pm and Camelot.pm

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