Hi Dan,
I haven't been keeping up with the new O'Reilly Bookshare offerings,
and the listed entries were only based on doing a search of their
catalog, so please feel free to chime in with any particular
suggestions. Likewise, for the "Take Control" books. I've heard (on
another list) the recently issued "Take Control of Making Music with
GarageBand" come highly recommended, but I haven't checked this out
yet. There are sample download sections for each "Take Control" book
that you can check before deciding to order.
For other users, the quality of books that are available at Bookshare
can be variable, depending on the source (many of these scanned in).
Since O'Reilly has been a participating Bookshare member for over 5
years and the source material comes directly from the publisher, this
isn't an issue here. Also, distribution of Bookshare material
internationally depends on the publisher, but again here O'Reilly has
given permission for world-wide distribution, so this is a good
reference source for users outside the U.S. I don't always find the
"sort by publication date" options on Bookshare to be reliable, so
please be aware that there may be books with similar title an
different publication dates -- most notably there are entries for "Mac
OS X for Unix Geeks" dated 2008 and 2003.
Cheers,
Esther
On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:38 AM, Dan wrote:
Hello Esther,
As always, you provide a wealth of knowledge and I really appreciate
it. I am a member of Book Share and I love the O'Reilly books. And
thanks for the other pages and archived message.
Dan
On Oct 24, 2008, at 10:28 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Kaare and others,
For new Mac users coming in with a background in linux or unix,
there's an old but good web page called "Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for
Unix Geeks":
http://www.macdevcenter.com/lpt/a/2792
There were some quick introductory sites to unix (for general)
users mentioned in an older post to this list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/
msg30161.html
That post also notes that you can find a number of O'Reilly Books
(including "Mac OS X for Unix Geeks" -- an up-to-date 2008 version
of the older book that was the source for the Mac OS X tips for
unix geeks page) at bookshare:
http://www.bookshare.org
The O'Reilly books are available to bookshare users world-wide, and
are a particularly good general source of information on computer
topics -- including many specialized areas (Perl, Java, C++
programming, Apache, etc.) as well as general-purpose guides. The
advanced search page at Bookshare.org has a separate pop-up button
where you can choose "O'Reilly books, available worldwide". There
are close to a thousand O'Reilly titles available in accessible
format at Bookshare.org, and information about format (Daisy) is
available on the result pages for each book.
Possibly interesting O'Reilly titles for new Mac users:
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard edition by David
Pogue
Mac OS X Leopard Pocket Guide by Chuck Toporek
Another good source of information are the "Take Control" Ebooks:
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog.html
These are modestly priced (generally around $10) ebooks that are
available in downloadable PDF format. They're pitched more at the
general user, and are generally shorter and more topical than the
O'Reilly books. A nice feature is that if there are updates to the
version you purchased, you can download updated versions free from
the Take Control web site.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
