The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Switching to the Mac - For the bookshelf Major Keary |
Introduction of Macintosh OS X (pronounced "OS ten") is an event that is coming - albeit slowly - to the attention of Australian Microsoft Windows users. A vigorous advertising campaign in America has resulted in a migration to OS X; I have not seen anything about the size of the shift, but the surge of OS X literature suggests it is significant. Books about the Mac were generally limited to introductory texts, but now the field includes books from publishing houses that had hardly (if ever) released Mac titles. O'Reilly in particular has brought out a number of professional-level texts.
Even without that a marketing campaign pitched at PC users here, I suspect there will be a shift that will show up initially as the addition of Macs to existing fleets.
For Windows users who haven't caught up with developments, OS X is a completely new Unix-based operating system that provides access to a Unix shell and development tools as well as a very slick GUI. It is a remarkable example of a command-line interface co-exisitng with a point-and-click graphical interface. The Unix connection makes available a powerful array of tools, such as Perl and regular expressions.
For those who are tempted to migrate, or who would simply like to know more, Switching to the Mac is the book to read. Published in the 'Missing Manual' series, it is presented in the style of a proper user manual. It is a clever concept, employing the style of a user-manual to explain the Windows-to-Mac OS X transition. The reader is assumed to have a good - but not necessarily expert -grasp of Windows, but is not expected to know anything about the Mac. The first part of the book introduces the Mac, explains how it differs from Windows, defines Macspeak (Menulets=Tray, Dock=Taskbar, and so on), provides a tour of the desktop, and briefly introduces Classic, Carbon and Cocoa. Those three terms refer to the kinds of programs that run under OS X: Classic programs are those written for previous Mac versions and which can be run under OS X using an emulator; Carbon refers to old programs that have been updated using the Carbon application; and Cocoa refers to programs compiled specifically for OS X.
What the switching user needs to know is how to transfer data files from Windows to OS X, and how to assemble a collection of applications that replace those used under Windows. Much of the book is about those issues, addressing all the questions that a potential OS X user would want to ask. The discussion is detailed and well presented.
A number of familiar packages, such as the Microsoft Office suite and applications from Adobe and Macromedia, are available in Mac versions. The other issue, of course, is how to use the new system; the book walks the reader through 'housekeeping' procedures and the use of the many applications that come as part of the OS X package. Internet connections, email clients, and Web browsers are all discussed in detail.
This is an essential resource for Windows users who want to know about OS X and what is involved in moving across. A book worth recommending to your local library.
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David Pogue: Switching to the Mac - The Missing Manual ISBN 0-596-00452-4 Published by Pogue Press/O'Reilly, 434 pp., RRP $59.95 incl. GST |
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Reprinted from the July 2003 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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