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The web site for the most popular Macintosh-focused Internet radio broadcast online, you can listen to archives of past shows (or listen live on Wednesday evenings at 5:30pm Pacific). The show is the top-rated Technology file on Audible.com and their Number 2 Best Seller. It has an irreverent tone and is not just for "computer fanatics": they have a great guest lineup, chat rooms, call in and contests with prizes. From This is True for 10 October 2004 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: David Pogue List Price: $34.99 Amazon Price: $20.99 Editorial Review: With Leopard, Apple has unleashed the greatest version of Mac OS X yet, and David Pogue is back with another meticulous Missing Manual to cover the operating system with a wealth of detail. The new Mac OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard, is faster than its predecessors, but nothing's too fast for Pogue and this Missing Manual. It's just one of reasons this is the most popular computer book of all time. Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is the authoritative book for Mac users of all technical levels and experience. If you're new to the Mac, this book gives you a crystal-clear, jargon-free introduction to the Dock, the Mac OS X folder structure, and the Mail application. There are also mini-manuals on iLife applications such as iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto, and a tutorial for Safari, Mac's web browser. This Missing Manual book is amusing and fun to read, but Pogue doesn't take his subject lightly. Which new Leopard features work well and which do not? What should you look for? What should you avoid? Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition offers an objective and straightforward instruction for using: Leopard's totally revamped Finder Spaces to group your windows and organize your Mac tasks Quick Look to view files before you open them The Time Machine, Leopard's new backup feature Spotlight to search for and find anything in your Mac Front Row, a new way to enjoy music, photos, and videos Enhanced Parental Controls that come with Leopard Quick tips for setting up and configuring your Mac to make it your own There's something new on practically every page of this new edition, and David Pogue brings his celebrated wit and expertise to every one of them. Mac's brought a new catto town and Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is a great new way to tame it.  By: Paul McFedriesDavid Pabian List Price: $25.00 Amazon Price: $16.50 Editorial Review: You love your iPhone 3G and you've found out that it's mighty simple to use out-of-the-box, but you might not know that some of its most useful and powerful features are hidden away in obscure parts of the system. You've found out that your iPhone 3G doesn't get in your way when you're trying to be productive or creative, but sometimes it will do something (or force you to do something) that just makes you want to scratch your head in wonderment. You've found out that your iPhone 3G's robust design makes it a reliable device day after day, but even the best-built machines can have problems. When you come upon the iPhone 3G's dark side, you might consider making an appointment with your local Apple Store's Genius Bar, and more often than not the on-duty genius will give you good advice on how to overcome the iPhone 3G's limitations, work around its annoyances, and fix its failures. The Genius Bar is a great thing, but it isn't exactly a convenient thing. You can't just drop by to get help; you have to make an appointment; you have to drag yourself down to the store, perhaps wait for your genius, get the problem looked at, and then make your way back home; and in some cases you may need to leave your iPhone 3G for a while (No!) to get the problem checked out and hopefully resolved. What you really need is a version of the Genius Bar that's easier to access, more convenient, and doesn't require tons of time or leaving your iPhone 3G in the hands of a stranger. What you really need is a "portable" genius that enables you to be more productive and solve problems wherever you and your iPhone 3G happen to be. Welcome, therefore, to iPhone 3G Portable Genius. This book is like a mini Genius Bar all wrapped up in an easy to use, easy to access, and eminently portable format. In this book you learn how to get more out of your iPhone 3G by learning how to access all the really powerful and timesaving features that aren't obvious at a casual glance. In this book you learn how to avoid your iPhone 3G's more annoying character traits and, in those cases where such behavior can't be avoided, you learn how to work around it. In this book you learn how to prevent iPhone 3G problems from occurring, and just in case your preventative measures are for naught, you learn how to fix many common problems yourself. This book is for iPhone 3G users who know the basics but want to take their iPhone 3G education to a higher level. It's a book for people who want to be more productive, more efficient, more creative, and more self-sufficient (at least as far as the iPhone 3G goes, anyway). It's a book for people who use their iPhone 3G every day, but would like to incorporate it into more of their day to day activities. It's a book we had a blast writing, so we think it's a book you'll enjoy reading. Look Inside the iPhone 3G Portable Genius (Click on Images to Enlarge)
Tips from iPhone 3G Portable Genius (Click on Images for More Information)  By: David Pogue List Price: $24.99 Amazon Price: $16.49 Editorial Review: Written by New York Times columnist and Missing Manual series creator David Pogue, this first-to-market update shows readers and tire kickers everything they need to know to get the most out of their new Apple iPhone. As beautiful as the product it covers, this full-color book helps readers accomplish everything from Web browsing to watching videos. Author David Pogue's iPhone 2E Tips The beauty of the new iPhone 3G is that you don't need one. Almost all of the juicy stuff actually comes with the iPhone 2.0 software and the online App Store, both of which run perfectly well on the old iPhone as well. That, incidentally, is also the beauty of iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition. It covers both the old and the new iPhones, because it covers the 2.0 software, the iPhone App Store, and so on. Here are a few of my favorite tips from the book: 1) At the top of the screen, little icons indicate how you're connected to the Internet: an E for the vast but dog-slow AT&T Edge network, a 3G icon if you're on the faster but limited-area AT&T third-generation network, and radiating signal bars if you're on Wi-Fi. The tip here: The two cellular icons (E and 3G) disappear whenever you're on Wi-Fi. That's not a mistake. The iPhone assumes that Wi-Fi is faster and better than any cellular network, and if you're on it, you don't care about E or 3G (and it's right). 2) Unfortunately, 3G is a battery hog. If you don't see a 3G icon on your iPhone 3G's status bar, then you're not in a 3G hot spot, and you're not getting any benefit from the phone's 3G radio. By turning it off, you'll double the length of your iPhone 3G's battery power, from 5 hours of talk time to 10. To do so, from the Home screen, tap Settings->General->Network-> Enable 3G Off. Yes, this is sort of a hassle, but if you're anticipating a long day and you can't risk the battery dying halfway through, it might be worth doing. After all, most 3G phones don't even let you turn off their 3G circuitry. 3) More ways to save power: turn off more features. In Settings, you can turn off Bluetooth; Wi-Fi; GPS; "push" data; and the cellphone radio. Each saves you another bit of power. 4) When typing on the on-screen keyboard, you can save time by deliberately leaving out the apostrophe in contractions like I'm, don't, can't, and so on. Type im, dont, cant, and so on. The iPhone proposes I'm, don't, or can't, so you can just tap the Space bar to fix the word and continue. 5) To produce an accented character (like é, ë, č, ę, and so on), keep your finger pressed on that key for 1 second. A palette of accented alternatives appears; slide onto the one you want. (Keys that sprout these alternative versions: E, Y, U, I, O, S, L, Z, C, N, ?, ', ", $, and !.) 6) Even if you've engaged the silencer switch on the side, the iPhone still sounds any alarm you've set. Good to know. 7) You probably already know that you can rearrange your Home screen, and even set up multiple Home screens (up to 9). Just hold your finger down on any one icon until they all begin to wiggle. Now you can drag them to rearrange them (even onto the Dock of four special icons at the bottom), or drag off to the right to create a new Home screen. And what if, in the process of downloading and then deleting new App store programs, you wind up with unsightly gaps on your Home screens? Here's a quick way to consolidate them onto a smaller number of full Home screens, without gaps: tap Settings->General-> Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout. If you'd put 10 programs on each of four Home screens, you wind up with only two screens, each packed with 20 icons. Any leftover blank pages are eliminated. 8) If you come to the iPhone from another, lesser GSM phone, your phone book may be stored on its little SIM card instead of in the phone itself . In that case, you don't have to retype all of those names and numbers to bring them into your iPhone. In Settings->Contacts, the new Import SIM Contacts button can do the job for you. (The results may not be pretty. For example, some phones store all address-book data in CAPITAL LETTERS.) 9) If you've indulged yourself by downloading some goodies from the App Store, then you may find yourself wondering where you're supposed to adjust their preferences. Turns out they often get stashed away in a completely different program—in Settings. That's where Apple encourages software authors to locate their own setting screens. For example, here's where you can edit your screen name and password for the AIM chat program, change how many days' worth of news you want the NY Times Reader to display, and so on. 10) Don't type http://www or .com when entering Web addresses. Safari is smart enough to know that most Web addresses use that format—so you can leave all that stuff out, and it will supply them automatically. Instead of http://www.cnn.com, for example, just type cnn and hit Go. 11) Don't type .net, .org, or .edu, either. Safari's secret pop-up menu of canned URL choices can save you four keyboard-taps apiece. To see it, hold your finger down on the .com button. Then tap the common suffix you want. 12) The iPhone can now geotag the photos you take with it. Geotagging means, "embedding your latitude and longitude information into a photo when you take it." After all, every digital picture you've ever taken comes with its time and date invisibly embedded in its file; why not its location? So the good news is that the iPhone can geotag every photo you take. How you get to see this information, is a bit trickier. Once the photos are synced to your computer, you can view the geotag information in iPhoto (the Get Info command reveals latitude and longitude), Preview (the Inspector window shows a map), Picasa (use the Tools->Geotag menu to see the photo's location in Google Earth). Unfortunately, the iPhone strips away the geotags whenever you send a photo by e-mail. That's a good argument for using the free downloadable program AirMe instead of the iPhone's built-in camera program. It avoids that geotag-stripping problem and many others. The new iPhone 3G is here, and New York Times tech columnist David Pogue is on top of it with a thoroughly updated edition of iPhone: The Missing Manual. With its faster downloads, touch-screen iPod, and best-ever mobile Web browser, the new affordable iPhone is packed with possibilities. But without an objective guide like this one, you'll never unlock all it can do for you. In this new edition, there are new chapters on the App Store, with special troubleshooting and sycning issues with iTunes; Apple's new MobileMe service, and what it means to the iPhone; and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync compatibility. Each custom designed page in iPhone: The Missing Manual helps you accomplish specific tasks with complete step-by-step instructions for everything from scheduling to web browsing to watching videos. You'll learn how to: Use the iPhone as a phone -- get a guided tour of 3G's phone features and learn how much time you can save with things like Visual Voicemail, contact searching, and more Figure out what 3G means and how it affects battery life, internet speed, and even phone call audio quality. Treat the iPhone as an iPod -- listen to music, upload and view photos, and fill the iPhone with TV shows and movies Take the iPhone online -- learn how to get online, use email, browse the Web, and use the GPS Go beyond the iPhone -- discover how to use iPhone with iTunes, sync it with your calendar, and learn about The App Store where you can pick from hundreds of iPhone-friendly programs Teeming with high-quality color graphics and filled with humor, tips, tricks, and surprises, iPhone: The Missing Manual quickly teaches you how to set up, accessorize, and troubleshoot your iPhone. Instead offumbling around, take advantage of this device with the manual that should have been in the box. It's your call.  By: Elaine WeinmannPeter Lourekas List Price: $29.99 Amazon Price: $19.79 Editorial Review: This eagerly anticipated update to the popular Photoshop CS2 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide uses a combination of task-based instruction and strong visuals to teach beginning and intermediate users how to create great-looking images with Photoshop. Best-selling authors Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas take readers step by step through all of today's Photoshop essentials: from importing digital photos through basic color manipulation and image correction to painting, masking, using filters, and more. Hot topics like working with Camera Raw, using the improved Photomerge command (that aligns and blends layers automatically) to stitch together images, making selections using the new Quick Selection tool and Refine Edge feature, and Smart Filters are all covered. Both beginning users, who want a thorough introduction to the topic, and more advanced users, who are looking for a handy reference, will find what they need here. In this new edition, using a fresh new design and now illustrated in full color, the authors have streamlined the text by focusing on the most efficient means of accomplishing a task, rather than explaining all possible methods. By the end of the book, users will have a solid foundation for working in Photoshop CS3.  By: Aaron Hillegass List Price: $49.99 Amazon Price: $29.99 Editorial Review: There's a reason that a large slice of the open-source movement has defected from running Linux on its laptops to running Mac OS X. The reason is the Unix core that underlies Mac OS X, and the development tools that run on that core. Cocoa makes it easy to create very slick Mac OS X interfaces for software (as well as to create applications in a hurry), and this new edition of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X does an excellent job of teaching its readers how to put a Cocoa face on top of code (Objective-C code almost exclusively). If you know something about C and/or C++ programming and want to apply your skills to the Mac, this is precisely the book you want. Author Aaron Hillegass teaches a Cocoa class, and his book reads like a demonstration-driven lecture in a computer lab. That is, the book takes a heavily example-centric approach to its subject, beginning with simple announcement windows and proceeding to cover the more advanced controls and object-oriented features of Cocoa and Objective-C. Throughout, he hops back and forth between descriptions of the goal to be accomplished, listings of the code that does the job, and instructions on how to use the Mac OS X development tools to speed the development process. --David Wall Topics covered: How to write software for Mac OS X in Objective-C and, especially, with Cocoa. The new edition shows how to use NSUndoManager, add AppleScript capability to an application, do graphics work with OpenGL, and use Cocoa under Linux using GNUstep. As well, all the basic controls and design patterns are covered. The best-selling introduction to Cocoa, once again updated to cover the latest Mac programming technologies, and still enthusiastically recommended by experienced Mac OS X developers.
“Aaron’s book is the gold standard for Mac OS X programming books—beautifully written, and thoughtfully sculpted. The best book on Leopard development.” —Scott Stevenson, www.theocacao.com
“This is the first book I’d recommend for anyone wanting to learn Cocoa from scratch. Aaron’s one of the few (perhaps only) full-time professional Cocoa instructors, and his teaching experience shows in the book.” —Tim Burks, software developer and creator of the Nu programming language, www.programming.nu
“If you’re a UNIX or Windows developer who picked up a Mac OS X machine recently in hopes of developing new apps or porting your apps to Mac users, this book should be strongly considered as one of your essential reference and training tomes.” —Kevin H. Spencer, Apple Certified Technical Coordinator
If you’re developing applications for Mac OS X, Cocoa® Programming for Mac® OS X, Third Edition, is the book you’ve been waiting to get your hands on. If you’re new to the Mac environment, it’s probably the book you’ve been told to read first. Covering the bulk of what you need to know to develop full-featured applications for OS X, written in an engaging tutorial style, and thoroughly class-tested to assure clarity and accuracy, it is an invaluable resource for any Mac programmer.
Specifically, Aaron Hillegass introduces the three most commonly used Mac developer tools: Xcode, Interface Builder, and Instruments. He also covers the Objective-C language and the major design patterns of Cocoa. Aaron illustrates his explanations with exemplary code, written in the idioms of the Cocoa community, to show you how Mac programs should be written. After reading this book, you will know enough to understand and utilize Apple’s online documentation for your own unique needs. And you will know enough to write your own stylish code.
Updated for Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, this revised edition includes coverage of Xcode 3, Objective-C 2, Core Data, the garbage collector, and CoreAnimation. |
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