Mac OS X Tiger: Missing Manual

iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual (Missing Manual)

iPhoto 5: Missing Manual

Mac OS X Tiger Killer Tips (Killer Tips)

Office 2004 for Macintosh (Missing Manual)

Other Operating Systems

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

Format: Paperback
Author: David Pogue
ReleaseDate: 01 October, 2005
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Rating:

A must have
She didn't want a book, but right away realized this was a must have. I bought this for my daughter when she got her new MacBook (replacing an XP Prof/IBM Thinkpad). I plan to buy myself a Mac and will buy another as I love this book. The Mac is easy to use but from the Windows world we are coming from another world and just can't see (or believe) the way things on done with Tiger and then are surprise how easy and elegant it is. I am an IT professional. Buy the book you won't regret it. .

Not good for non-technical PC Users switching
So many of my clients are switchers. I really had high hopes for this book. They go from a PC to a Mac and don't have a grasp of any of the basics. "Where's my Outlook? Internet Explorer? Oh no!!"

Unfortunately this book is for intermediate PC users who are switching to the Mac, not novices. The book assumes knowledge of how to configure a PC and then builds on that knowledge for you to be able to do it on a Mac. The book tells you how to move your files from your PC to your new Mac, PC programs and their Mac equivalents, and how to configure your Mac. Not much time is really spent on how to "use" your Mac. To be fair, that's what the title says "Switching to the Mac", not "How to use a Mac, Switcher edition. "

The best chapter by far is the "Transferring email and contacts" I took copious amounts of notes because the chapter was so detailed. Anyone who wants to move their emails from their PC should buy this book. It covers using Outlook, Eudora, Netscape and more to their Mac equivalents, including OS X's Mail.

In my experiences, people switch to a Mac because they found PCs too difficult to understand. Explaining things in PC terms kinda defeats the purpose of switching. For novices, look at one of the Intro to Tiger books.

If someone isn't an intermediate PC user trying to switch, but a novice. . . by this book for the person setting up your Mac so they can get all your information off your PC and make the transition to Mac as seemless as possible.

Pros: Expert advice on how to take your files, settings, and programs from a PC to a Mac
Mac: If you wanted to learn all that stuff, you'd probably still be using the PC.

The best Mac book for switchers!
This book does a great job of explaining how to utilize the many wonderful features of the Mac while comparing how the terminology or a function differs in the Windows world. I have given copies of this book to several friends who were thinking about switching or had made the decision to buy a Mac.

Macs are fun & logical but they're not dumbed down; every user can gain much from spending some time with a Missing Manual book. I own a number of the Missing Manual books & have found them to all be invaluable. I personally use the Tiger OS MM book by David Pogue for even more information.