BKMACBIB.RVW 940117 Peachpit Press, Inc. 2414 Sixth Street Berkeley, CA 94701 800 283-9444 520 548-4393 fax: 520 548-5991 tbooth@peachpit.mhs.compuserve.com "The Macintosh Bible", Naiman et al, 1993, 1-56609-009-1, U$32.00/C$42.00 I would have to say that, yes, this is definitely the Macintosh Bible. As with most works claiming biblical status, this is a fairly comprehensive overview. Chapters include hardware, storage and memory, basic software, printing, fonts, utilities, troubleshooting, the major applications, graphics, sound and video, communications, programming, sources and resources, and a list of companies and products. Within each chapter are icons denoting items for beginners, power users, hot tips, shortcuts, good features, bad features, bugs, bargains, warnings, predictions, gossip, and opinion. This book is also very Mac. Big on presentation and short on technical details. A lot of work has gone into this; but mostly on the presentation. Open the book anywhere and you find clearly defined sections and topics, with readable (and even enjoyable) text. It is not just that the tone is light and bantering, but that care has been taken to explain material in very easily understandable terms. If, that is, the material is there. No other technical bible could get away with supplying so few technical details. Although point icons seem to proliferate at the rate of two per page, power user points average seventeen pages between occurrences. Many aren't terribly powerful. Given the number of contributors, opinions tend to be reasonably even-handed, but I am not sure that all readers will agree with the priorities. Fonts get one hundred pages in a chapter all to themselves (with fifty pages devoted to symbols and sample fonts), while ResEdit gets four pages. (The book is Mac-like in another way. Books on using VMS don't gloat over OS/400. Books on UNIX don't point out the shortcomings of Pick. Books about MS-DOS don't repeatedly mention the 64K memory limit of CP/M. Why do Mac books consistently waste space and time on system bashing?) This work can be valuable even before you buy a Mac. For anyone considering a purchase, the buying tips are very likely worth more than the price of the book, itself. For those who positively want to work on getting the most out of their Mac, this is a good, overall introduction. For the majority, there is certainly enough in here as to be useful for any Mac user. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKMACBIB.RVW 940117 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 DECUS Symposium '95, Toronto, ON, February 13-17, 1995, contact: rulag@decus.ca