Pogue On Panther
As part of a review I’ve been writing on the new Panther edition of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, I had the chance to get David Pogue to answer a couple of my questions on Panther in general and the book in particular. And here they are:
ES: What are a couple of your favorite new Panther features?
DP: I’m just nuts about the secret buried just-for-fun features: the secret graphing mode of the Calculator; the choice of surface textures for the pieces in Chess (including Marble and Jaguar Fur!); the way you can Option-drag in Preview to copy only one column of text without snagging the adjacent column in the process. These are the kinds of grace notes that really distinguish the Macintosh from the more boring operating systems.
ES: Anything from Jaguar or earlier that you particularly miss?
DP: ALMOST all of the stuff that disappeared from Mac OS 9 has now come back into Mac OS X: labels, the clean install, spring-loaded folders, randomized desktop pictures, and so on.
A few niceties still haven’t returned, though. Occasionally I miss the Put Away command, SimpleSound (for quick and dirty sound recordings), and the ability to encrypt a folder on the fly without leaving the desktop.
ES: Do you think that Apple’s decision to more or less give up on writing their own manuals is a wise one?
DP: Well, as someone who’s making a living filling the gap Apple left behind, obviously I have a vested interest in this point.
But the truth is, a lot of people never crack software manuals–I’m told this over and over again by software manuals–and they are expensive and, more to the point, time-consuming to create. (Translation: Once the product is ready, the company wants to SHIP it–not wait around for manuals to be printed and bound.) And Apple certainly isn’t alone in eliminating paper manuals.
For myself, yes, I rather wish my software programs came with printed manuals–they’re infinitely superior to online help. Whether it’s “wise” or not depends on whether you’re a shareholder, programmer, customer, product manager…
ES: For those just switching to Mac OS from Windows, should they go for Mac OS X: The Missing Manual or Switching to the Mac? (Or both?)
DP: At this point, “”Mac OS X: The Missing Manual,” Panther Edition. Because I haven’t yet updated the Switching book to reflect Panther.
ES: What’s another Mac book you’d recommend?
DP: There are many books that pick up in technological depth from where mine leave off. For example, if you’re interested in digging deeper into the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X, I hear great things about Mac OS X Unleashed. And if you want to become a Mac OS X programmer, of course, the whole O’Reilly line of Cocoa, Unix, and Java books await.