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operating system, the first thing I think is "I hope

David Pogue gets out his book soon". "His book" is the

Missing Manual series he has created to fill the void

that Apple has created by not including a manual in

the box OS X Panther comes in. Even if Apple had a

manual, I doubt it would be as good or complete as

this one is.

You can run Panther without a reference, but you only

scratch the surface of what it can do. I consider

Pogue's book a reference book, because at 740 pages of

small type, I don't think you are going to read it

cover to cover and remember much of it. I remember

when the first "MacBible" came out (I think it was for

System 6) I could read all of it, but times have

changed. Apple's OS X is not just for running Word

Processors, MacPaint & MacDraw. Now we have the

Internet, e-mail, digital photos and movies. Things we

did not even think of just 10 years ago. Who would

have thought that we would have music and photo files

on our Macs? Whole collections of them. The biggest

sound files I had in OS 6 was a clip of Homer Simpson

saying "Computers can do that?" and "Doh".

With all these new capabilities "under the hood" of

Panther, "Mac OSX: The Missing Manual , Panther

Edition" has to be large. It starts with the very

basics of using Panther, continues on with

mini-manuals on how to use iMovie, Mail, iTunes,

Safari, iPhoto, iDVD, iChat, iCal, and any other "i"

you can come up with. Then you can move up to the more

advanced- how to make Applescripts, share files, and

even dabble in UNIX. It is fun to thumb through the

book and try out different things too.

David Pogue doesn't just tell you how things work, he

also tells you how well they work in Panther. This can

save you from the maddening "why isn't this working?".

When you know someone else has run into the same

problem, you won't keep trying to make it work.

I recommend all David Pogue's books. I consider this

one essential.