Have a question about something in one of my Mac OS Visual QuickStart Guides? Here’s how to get the answer:
- Browse through the comments at the end of this article to see if someone else has already asked your question. You might get the answer without even asking!
- If your question is not asked (or answered), use the Leave a Comment form at the bottom of this post to enter your question. (If the form does not appear, click the Comment link below to display it.)
- Check in once in a while to see if your question is answered. I usually answer questions within 48 hours, unless I’m out of town. To have responses to your question delivered to you automatically by e-mail, along with other Q & A comments submitted for this book, turn on the Notify Me check box at the bottom of the form when submitting your question (step 2). You can unsubscribe to the notification feature at any time.
Please do not use the Contact form to ask me questions. I won’t answer them. I want the questions and answers here, where everyone can see them, so I don’t have to answer the same questions over and over again.
Remember, I can only answer questions that clarify or correct information in my books. If the answer to your question is in my book, I will provide a page number reference to help you find it.
Hi Maria,
PEACHPIT PRESS QUERY
I am a Mac owner and user but am also familiar and comfortable with Windows and it’s menus etc.
I want to buy a book to help me with Excel and have thumbed through your book ‘Microsoft Office Excel 2003 for Windows’ which looks ideal except that it isn’t for Mac (athough I could use it).The back of this book has an appendix that references all the formula functions in Excel giving a brief description of each.Can you tell me if the same appendix (listing all formulas) exists at the end of your ‘Excel X for Mac OS X’ which I have been unable to view and would obviously prefer.
Thanking you in advance.
have your quickstart guide for panther.Purchased office:mac 2004. previous experience was Dos 3.2 and Lotus 123.What book do you recomend?
Lee, If you like the Visual QuickStart Guide format, there are a number of VQSes that might meet your needs. Obviously, I’d love you to buy my Word 2004 VQS, but we didn’t revise the Excel title for that version of Word. There’s also an Office VQS by another author. Visit the Peachpit Web site’s VQS selection to see what might meet your needs.
Stephen, Unfortunately, I’ve been out of my office for the past 6 days and have not had a chance to peek at the Appendix for the book you’re asking about. Give me another day or two to get back to you. Sorry!
Stephen, I just checked my author copy and yes, it does include that Appendix.
If you have additional questions about my Excel books, please take them to the Q&A topic for those books. You can find it at http://www.aneclecticmind.com/2006/01/01/q-a-2/
Hi Maria!
Have your Mac OS X Tiger book here. Question is:
I have new mac intel OS X .4 Tiger as per your book.
Have a teaching application IntegradePro 9.2 which ran on the old emac OS X.3 sysem.
Can I run it on the macintel by installing classic ? I have received various answers but would like something definitive. Do the macintel computers no longer run classic 9 ?
Is there a work around so the program can be used ? Your tiger book does not say whether it refers to old mac or macitel chip.
Many thanks in advance.
Here’s the definitive answer:
“The Classic environment is not supported on Intel-based Macintosh computers.”
see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh868.html
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!
I have a PowerBook G4 with Mac OS version 10.4.8. How can I password protect a folder
Errol, I don’t know of any way to do that with what Apple provides in Mac OS X 10.4. However, you might try a third-party utility to help out. Go to http://www.macupdate.com and search for “password-protect folder” to see a list of software that might provide a solution. Good luck!
Hi Maria,
I purchased your book ( Mac Os X Tiger 10.4 ) thinking it cover every single detail on Mac OS. It’s has clarity and is concise. To my suprise. I read a paragraph stating that ” Although this book is over 700 pages long, it doesn’t cover everything single aspect of using Mac OX’.
Do you mean that there will be a part 2 which contain more detail? Or perhaps for advance stages or to download from your website?
To advise.
Cheers, Jeremy Soo
Hi Maria,
I purchased a imac 2 months ago. The current imac has more function and applications fixtures compare to those during 2005.
1) Does the Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 book which was published in 2005 cover most of the detail?
2) Where can I find those info?
3) Can I find it on your new book? ( Mac OS X Leopard Sneak Peek – To be published on April 07 )
Cheers, Jeremy Soo
Jeremy, NO BOOK covers every single feature of Mac OS X. And I really do mean that. An author could never finish a book that covered all the features because there are so many features. To make things more difficult, Apple keeps adding more features or making minor changes to existing features with every update. But I think my book covers all of the most widely used features.
This site has additional articles that build on the book’s content. But there won’t be a part 2 to the Tiger book. I’m working on a Leopard book now, but it’s not the “Sneak Peek” book you referenced in your comment. I’ve never heard of that book.
Hope this helps.
I’m reading the chapter about Sherlock in Mac OS X Tiger. On page 400 you state that a revised version of pages 400 and 401 (about the Pictures Channel) will be available on your website. I am unable to find it. Was the revised version ever written?
No, those pages were not written. Pictures and Phone Book were subsequently removed from Sherlock in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. By that time, the book had gone to the printer.
my ISP is verizon.net. At this point, I can only send outgoing mail thru Aol
which I kept as a free service. Is it possible to send outgoing mail thru .mac? How do I go about doing so.
Thanks,
Tee
hi i just got your mac osx 10.4 tiger book as a gift of my girlreind and just wanted to say its very very good it helped a great deal as i have just got a mac book as i have heard good things about the mac and was fed up with all the problems i have had with my pc. your book has really helped with getting to use it. great book well done and well put together……scott.
Hi there! Just wanted to say what an excellent book. The one thing that is still puzzling me is that my PC will not add a shared Mac to its network places. With regard to firewalls, both machines are in trusted groups, folders have correct permissions etc. But when I enter the address “\\xxx.xxx.x.x\username” my PC tells me that the folder I entered does not appear to be valid. The account I want to access does not have administration privileges.
Anyway, thanks again for such a great book!
Tee, if you’re talking about settings within Mail, set the outgoing (SMTP) server port to 587. That SHOULD work. Comment again here if it does not.
Scott, thanks very much for the kind words about my book. I’m looking forward to revising it for Leopard, which should be out later this year.
John, unfortunately, I can’t help with Windows networking problems beyond what’s in my book. Each version of Windows is different in the way it handles Mac OS connectivity, and additional firewall software many users install and use further complicate matters. I recommend using Google to search for help. That’s how I tracked down the answer to my own Vista/Mac OS networking problem a while back. (Not the same as yours.) Good luck!
Hi: How does one remove Bookmarks in the Mac OS Leopard?
Regards,
Bryn.
I assume you mean bookmarks in Safari? Choose Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks. Then select the bookmark you want to delete and press Delete.
Hope this helps!
I was hoping for info on iphoto..I want to print photos stored in iphoto site on my hp photosmart c6280 and have been unable..my mac os x 10.5 is connected to the printer…can you advise…cannot find anything in your book to help……
J.H. -
The book covers Mac OS. iPhoto doesn’t come with Mac OS. It comes with new computers and it’s part of the iLife suite of products. We had to draw the line at what comes with Mac OS.
I suggest the iPhoto ’08 Visual QuickStart Guide. you can learn more here: http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/TakeControl/iphoto7-vqs.html
Good luck!
I have learned a lot from your book on Mac OS X Leopard. Thank you. I am trying to find someone who can write an Apple Script for me. I am willing to pay, of course. I need a script that can be invoked from within a Rule in Mail that will take all e-mail messages from the Apple Mac OS X Mail client in the Sent and Deleted mailboxes (as soon as the message arrives in the respective mailbox) and forward them in the background to another email address, or at least take all the messages that enter the Deleted mail folder (or trash can in Mail) and have a copy saved in the Sent messages folder of the same account. There are no Apple programmers where I live.
I wish I could help with your scripting needs, but I really don’t know enough AppleScript to get a job like that done. Have you considered posting your request on AppleScript forums? Maybe within the Apple Support system? Start at http://www.apple.com/support and track down the AppleScript-related forums. Someone there might be able to help. Good luck!
A friend has given me a MacBook that Finder says is OS x 10.5.4 Panther. Is your book, “Mac OS X 10.5 Visual Quickstart Guide” the one that is appropriate for this machine? Thank you very much.
Bruce, Mac OS X 10.5.4 is not Panther. (I think Panther was Mac OS 10.3, but don’t quote me.) Mac OS 10.5 is Leopard.
If that’s what you have, then yes, my Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard book should be a good guide for you.
Best of luck with your new computer!
The word “Scan” does not appear in the Index at the end of the excellent ‘Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’ book. Is it covered elsewhere in the book?
Peter: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide does not cover scanning. This was caused by our inability to find compatible scanner drivers prior to the release of Leopard when the book was written. Scanning with Image Capture, will be covered in the Snow Leopard book which will be released when Snow Leopard hits the stores.
Maria,
There appears to be an inaccuracy on page 275 of your new VQG Mac OS X 10.6 guide. Could you clarify this?
At the bottom of page 275, you state: “Audio export format is also determined by Import Settings in iTunes preferences (figure 30).” This implies that iTunes is capable of converting between formats.
I already had some .m4a files in my iTunes Media folder that I wanted to convert to .mp3 for a non-Apple player. So I set iTunes->Preferences->Import Settings->Import Using = “MP3 Encoder”. However when I drag the .m4a files out of iTunes, they end up as still being .m4a in the Desktop or Finder.
Does iTunes refuse to encode in the requested format in all circumstances? Or will it encode on export when the exported file is in lossless .aiff?
If iTunes won’t do conversions, do you happen to know if any one of the various 3rd-party products that convert via virtual CD burning, is better than the rest?
Thanks for your advice.
This took some research to make sure I answered you correctly.
First, from AnswerBag (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/313850):
This same post goes on to explain that most media players can play M4A format files. So part of me isn’t sure why you’d want to convert. M4A is smaller, sounds better, and should be compatible.
That said, I’m not sure WHY iTunes no longer exports in the format chosen in Import settings. I know that it did when I wrote the book. But I also know that iTunes 9 was released right around the same time the book was published. I can only assume that some kind of change was made in the code for the software for that new release. I no longer have iTunes 8 installed anywhere, so I can’t test this.
You can download a converter, though. Google “m4a to mp3″ (http://www.google.com/search?q=m4a+to+mp3) to search for one. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to convert any protected audio files — for example, DRM-protected files downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.
I don’t know anything about third party conversion software. I’m also not an iTunes expert. The book includes less than a dozen pages about iTunes; we covered the basics only because of page count restraints, preferring to concentrate on Mac OS features that needed to be in the book.
Hope this helps. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll add an errata page to this site to point out the discrepancy.
Maria,
Thanks for the info. I had heard that .m4a has better sound quality than .mp3. But the problem is a legacy issue: many people have older players that don’t play .m4a. For instance, I have an Olympus that only plays .mp3 and .wma, and it’s working fine. So I’ll pursue the software conversion idea.
Hello, I’ve just bought your lovely book on Snow Leopard in Dutch – I live in Flanders-Belgium. New to the Mac OS I’m currently trying to add some pics as an attachment in Mail. When mailing them to a PC running Windows Outlook the pics do not really arrive as an attachment but are shown in the mail itself, so the addressee isn’t really able to save them. Sent to my Macbook they also show beneath the text – which I set that way – but here I can save them as the attachment icon is shown. Unfortunately, I can’t find any information on this in your book. Can you help me, please.
I’m looking forward to your reply,
Hans Vansteenkiste
Hans: When attaching photos to be sent to Windows users, you have two options.
Use the Attach button in the mail window (it looks like a paper clip) to locate and attach the photos. Be sure to turn on the Windows friendly check box. OR
Compress all the photos into one archive (using the Finder’s Compress command) and then send that file via e-mail.
Either way, I believe the photos will be savable on the Windows PC.