Mac OS 9: The Missing Manual

The popular system software for the resurgent Macintosh platform is Mac OS 9, which includes over 50 new features. Among them are a searching program that finds not just files, but even web pages and words inside files; a multiple-users feature that stores a separate desktop for each user; and one-click file encryption. Despite its long list of enhancements, however, Apple ships Mac OS 9 without one of the most important features of all: a manual.

Pogue Press/O'Reilly comes to the rescue with Mac OS 9: The Missing Manual. Award-winning author David Pogue brings his humor and expertise to Mac OS 9 for the first time in this lucid, impeccably written guide. The book includes:

• Getting started. The book's early chapters cover using menus, finding lost files, reducing window clutter, and interior-decorating the screen.
• Figuring out what's what. A complete guide, Mac OS 9:The Missing Manual explains the purpose of every single software crumb in the System Folder, the A menu, and even the Apple Extras folder.
• Mastering networks. Learn how to connect Macs together--and even dial in to your home Mac from the road.
• Surviving the hordes. The new Multiple Users feature protects the Mac from mischievous (or clueless) kids or coworkers.
• Flying the Net. If Apple calls Mac OS 9 "your Internet copilot," then this book is the flight manual. It covers Sherlock 2, which searches the Internet; Mac OS 9's self- updating software feature; and Personal Web Sharing.

Consultants and home-office workers will enjoy the book's step-by-step guides to setting up small networks. Teachers and administrators will get great mileage from the tutorials on using Mac OS 9's new Multiple Users control panel. And almost everyone will benefit from the book's coverage of Mac OS 9's speech-recognition, color printing, digital video, and self-updating software features.

Along the way, Pogue communicates the joy of using the little shortcuts, drag-and-drop surprises, and elegant design touches that make the Mac the most passionately championed computer in the world.

Above all, Mac OS 9:The Missing Manual offers warm, witty, jargon-free writing, with enough patience for the novice and enough depth for the power user. The book bursts with the shortcuts, surprises, and design touches that make the Mac the most passionately championed computer in the world.

As its title indicates, Mac OS 9: The Missing Manual touts itself as the guide that should have come with your copy of Apple's operating system. It certainly makes a strong case for that claim, as author David Pogue offers a wealth of information from the basics to some of OS 9's more esoteric functions.

The book is strongest in its detailed information on operating system components like the Apple menu and using OS 9's speech-recognition features. Pogue's explanations of standard, custom, and clean installations of OS 9 are similarly helpful, as is the partial list of the OS's compatibility problems. The troubleshooting guide isn't exhaustive, but the problems it does explore are handled in depth.

Unfortunately, Pogue refers too often to the pre-Mac and -Windows days when you had to type out a filename and multitasking hadn't yet become part of the computer vocabulary. It's not likely that many users today will be upgrading from a 286 DOS machine (remember those?) to an iMac. Pogue is better at explaining some of the subtle differences between Microsoft Windows and iMac conventions. Nonetheless, any Mac OS 9 user will find lots of useful information in The Missing Manual. --John Frederick Moore