Maria’s Guides

You ask, I’ll answer.

As I work on the tenth edition of my Mac OS Visual QuickStart for Peachpit Press, I’ve been thinking back to the introduction to Mac courses I taught for various training organizations and my own observations of beginners using Mac OS. My goal, in writing these books, is to answer the questions that beginner and intermediate Mac users might have.

What’s “Basic” Has Changed

The books I write are task oriented — that is, they explain how to perform a task without going into a lot of detail about theory. The whole Visual QuickStart Guide series is like this — it’s designed to provide quick answers for “How do I…?” type questions so you can learn what you need to know and get right back to work. (Who has time to wade through dumb jokes in a fat book when there’s work to be done?)

As computer literacy increases, the books need to meet the needs of a more savvy pool of users. So while important basics like how to click and how to close a window are still included in the book, there’s a chance that some of the really basic topics — or the background information about how Mac OS X works — may be excluded, in favor of more advance material.

An Example

What am I talking about? Here’s an example. I’ve often observed Mac OS users shutting down their computers. The first thing some of them do is painstakingly close every open FInder window — even if the first thing they’ll do when they start up is open the same darn windows. Do they have to close the windows before shutting down? No. Do they have to quit applications before shutting down? No. And why is it that windows that aren’t closed when you shut down reopen automatically in the same position onscreen when you restart?

These are the kinds of questions that are very basic yet may not be covered in my book (or others, for that matter). Remember — publishers only give writers a certain number of pages. We have to pick and choose among the topics we think the majority of readers would benefit from. So basic information you don’t need to know may be excluded from the book.

What I’d like to do here is answer some of these questions for users. All I need is the questions.

Send Me Your Questions

Got a basic Mac OS question you want answered? Use the comments link or form below to ask. I’ll create new entries that answer the questions that are not specifically covered in my book.

If a question is covered in my book, I’ll provide the page number(s) of its coverage in the Tiger and Leopard editions (if applicable) for reader reference. Similarly, if the question has already been answered on this site or in one of my Informit articles, I’ll link to the answer.

Keep in mind that if you’re a reader with a question about a topic covered in my books, you should use the Q & A for that book to look up an existing answer or ask the question. That’s the best place to get clarification about book topics.