BKTYMCO9.RVW   20000607

"Sams Teach Yourself Mac OS 9 in 24 Hours", Rita Lewis. 2000,
0-672-31775-3, U$19.99/C$29.95/UK#14.50
%A   Rita Lewis
%C   201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN   46290
%D   2000
%G   0-672-31775-3
%I   Macmillan Computer Publishing (MCP)
%O   U$19.99/C$29.95/UK#14.50 317-581-3743 info@mcp.com
%P   488 p.
%T   "Sams Teach Yourself Mac OS 9 in 24 Hours"

Chapters one and two are the usual reformatting of the documentation,
although the wording is awkward, the order convoluted, and there are a
great many typographical errors.  Along with a heavy emphasis on
outside software, the coverage of multiple users is rather facile. 
This is a new concept in the Mac world, and deserved better
explanation in terms of new concerns, such as security.

Chapter three deals with the user interface, but it is not for new
users.  Experienced Macists, in fact, may have difficulty with it. 
There is more on the interface, as well as some basic operating system
applications, in chapter four, and the form indicates that many
operations are going to be spread over many chapters.  Chapter five
seems to be simply more screen shots, although there is some
background information on themes.  Both applications and memory are
covered far too briefly in chapter six.  There is some very odd
material on the underlying concepts, in chapter seven, including the
assertion that the Unicode standard is somehow a Wintel product.

Part two moves, as is usual for Mac introductions, into graphics,
printing, and multimedia.  The book moves quickly through printing
(with confusing information), colour (made more difficult with black
and white screen shots), and QuickTime in chapters eight through ten. 
Chaptre eleven outlines a few sound applications and breezes through
speech recognition without mentioning the fun your friends will have
if you don't change the name of your computer from the default
"Computer."  A few video applications are mentioned in chapter twelve.

Chapter thirteen is a grab bag of net stuff, with generally confused
security material, oddly good security setup suggestions, and weird
information on cabling.  Connecting to the Internet, in chapter
fourteen, is done only through pre-packaged installation programs, and
the section on editing existing connections is incomplete.  It is at
this point that the book divides for part three, said to be about
networks and the Internet.  Chapter fifteen gives some generic net
info, while sixteen and seventeen give you just enough data about
Personal Web Sharing and web publishing to get you into trouble. 
Chapter eighteen definitely does not give you enough material about
sharing files with other platforms (and takes a rather arrogant tone
in doing so).  Some screen shots of Sherlock in action, and rather
poor Internet search information, is in chapter nineteen.

Chapter twenty presents too little information about Mac performance
tuning.  There are some tips for mobile computing in chapter twenty
one, but the reader will likely have to find other resources to make
it useful.

Part four is on advanced topics.  Chapter twenty two has a very brief
introduction to Applescript.  There is odd and erroneous information
about Java in chapter twenty three.  And, to finish off, not enough
content on troubleshooting in chapter twenty four.

Overall, there are a good many introductory resources for the Mac that
are a lot better.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 2000   BKTYMCO9.RVW   20000607