Macs are great for beginners, because the basics are easy. The challenge comes when you want OS X to do things your way. For Mac users who want to travel beyond the basics,Master Your Mac (No Starch Press, November 2012, 424 pp., $29.95, ISBN 9781593274061) is here to help.
“The great thing about OS X is that a complete beginner can turn on a new Mac and start surfing the web in less than five minutes,” says author Matt Cone. “But things get tricky after that. How do you connect another monitor or create new trackpad gestures? I wrote Master Your Mac to teach people how to do things in OS X that they didn’t even know were possible.”
Master Your Mac takes users to the next level with tutorials on how to change hidden defaults, enable undocumented features, repair disk permissions to improve performance, monitor their systems, and even create a bootable USB drive for emergencies. Readers will also learn how to:
- Automate tasks with AppleScript, triggers, and Automator macros
- Handle massive amounts of email and media with synced accounts and spam filters
- Turn their Macs into a file or Web server
- Create Safari extensions and use site-specific browsers
- Secure their Macs with firmware passwords, firewalls, FileVault full-disk encryption
- Install the best apps to boost productivity and fix everyday annoyances
Sure, anyone can use a Mac fresh out of its pretty packaging, but that’s no fun. Master Your Mac promises to teach readers to customize their machines to make them work their way.
