Maria’s Guides

Download it for free!

I’m always the last to know…

Peachpit said they were putting a free chapter of my book online as a sample. We even discussed which chapter to use. But I somehow missed the memo that said it was available for download.

It is. Download Chapter 7 from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide from Peachpit Press’s Web site as a PDF file.

Enjoy!

A tip for readers.

Occasionally, I’ll release updated pages to my books when something has changed or is otherwise incorrect. I did that the other day when I released updated pages 90-91 of my Leopard book for Spotlight feature corrections.

This morning, I got a message from a reader who had downloaded the revised pages. She wrote:

I just bought your excellent book, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and noted the corrected pages 90-91 online. A suggestion: Could you have the .pdf pages (and also corrected screenshots, e.g., Figure 5) be the same size as the pages (or figures) in your book ? That way, one could paste the corrected pages over the original pages rather than having to fold 8.5 x 11 paper in half.

I admit I was baffled for a moment. You see, the pages are the same size. The PDFs were created from the same document Peachpit’s production department uses to print the book.

But just in case I was missing something, I printed out pages 90-91 from the PDF to make sure. They were the same size.

Well, that isn’t exactly true. Like the reader who wrote to me, I printed the pages on standard (in the US anyway) 8-1/2 x 11 inch paper. So the pages were that size.

But the content was the right size. So I advised:

When you print the pages from Adobe Reader, make sure Page Scaling is set to None. Print on regular paper. Then cut the pages down to the book trim size, 7 x 9 inches. You will be cutting off part of the gray thumbtab because it’s set up with a bleed.

I hope that helps anyone else interested in inserting pages into their copy of the book.

As for screenshots that I put on the Web site, I’ll make an effort to get them down to the right size in case you want to paste them over the old shot in the book. But they might not print the same size they appear onscreen. Besides, the figures in the book tend to be a bit small. Wouldn’t you rather have them larger so you can see them better?

Or maybe it’s just my middle-aged eyes…

For my Leopard book readers.

A few last-minute changes to Spotlight in Leopard slipped through the editing cracks. These changes affect a number of screenshots in Chapter 5 and the text on pages 90-91 of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide.

The main change in the screenshots is the way the Spotlight feature enables you to indicate search locations. The Search line near the top of the dialog includes buttons for This Mac and whatever folder was active or selected when you used Spotlight or the Find command. The Where criteria line is gone. Instead, buttons in the Search line enable you to specify whether you want to search Contents or just File Name for the search word or phrase. Here’s the revised Figure 5:

The text on pages 90-91 was modified to better explain how the Search locations criteria looks and works and to remove reference to the Where criteria. Readers of the book can download the revised pages as a password protected PDF file. The password is the second word in the heading on page 90 of the book. Enter this word as it appears in the book when prompted by Preview, Adobe Reader, or any other PDF reader software. You may want to print these two pages and insert them in your copy of the book for future reference.

If I find any other errors in the book, I’ll provide updates here.

If you have questions about the book or need clarification for its contents, please don’t hesitate to post your question as a comment in the book’s Q & A. Be sure to read the comments that appear there first; your question may already be answered.

An excerpt from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide.

With Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple has finally phased out Mac OS 9. The Classic Environment, which enabled you to run Mac OS 9.2.2 from within Mac OS X is no longer supported in Leopard.

Don’t whine! Let’s face it — Mac OS X has been out for years now. It’s pretty amazing that it supported Mac OS 9 for so long. At this point, Mac OS X users shouldn’t need support for Mac OS 9 anymore. You should have upgraded all your applications for Mac OS X by now.

That said, we pulled the Classic chapter from my Mac OS X QuickStart Guide for the Leopard revision. Rather than throw it away, we decided to release it here as a freely distributable PDF file. And remember, my Tiger book is still out there for the folks not ready to step up to Leopard.

So here’s Chapter 18: The Classic Environment. Enjoy!

An excerpt from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Visual QuickStart Guide.

In an effort to trim some fat from my Mac OS X book for its Leopard revision, we decided to cut the existing Unix chapter from the Tiger book. This freed up 44 pages for new material about Leopard’s new features.

But there’s nothing wrong with this older material. It’s still pretty much valid. So rather than discard it forever, we decided to make it available as a free download in PDF format.

So here’s Chapter 19: Unix Basics for Mac OS X. Enjoy!

Two Excerpts from Creating Spreadsheets and Charts in Microsoft Office Excel 2007: Visual QuickProject Guide.

Want to see some sample pages from my Excel Visual QuickProject? Here are a few links.

• Front Matter (including complete Table of Contents)
• Excerpt from Chapter 3