Book Review: Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies

Some people think we're a nation of dummies. Well, if the writing style of "Mac OS X Snow Leopard For Dummies" is any indication, we must be collectively smarter than I thought. The book is a thorough look at Snow Leopard. Perhaps too thorough for the "Dummies" moniker with sections like "Understanding Nested Folders" and "Zapping the PRAM." Again, these are clearly explained, but maybe this all too much for the first-time Mac (and maybe even first-time computer) owner. Bear in mind this is a book that starts with an explanation of what the power button looks like.

In this same spirit, some sections might over complicate things or scare the newbie. For example, this discussion on properly shutting down the Mac:

Turning off the power without shutting down your Mac properly is one of the worst things you can do to your poor Mac. Shutting down your Mac improperly can really screw up your hard drive, scramble the contents of your most important files, or both.

As a newcomer, I might wonder just what I got myself into.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard has plenty of thorough information on the OS and a few of the included apps, but it tends to hide that information between swinging between being written for a complete newbie, and as a complete Snow Leopard manual for all users.

Book Review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

I've sat through many corporate Powerpoint presentations in my day, and I think I speak for everyone when I say 98% of them are terrible. Make that 99%. Those of us who follow Apple, know one guy who really knows how to make a presentation shine, and that is, of course, Steve Jobs.

In the new book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, Businessweek.com columnist Carmine Gallo hopes to share of Jobs' techniques, and hopefully make the presentation world a better place.

The book is a mix of practical tips, and examples from Jobs' keynote appearances. Most of the book focuses on three presentations: the Original Macintosh announcement, the iPhone announcement, and the iPod launch. It's not surprising that the book would focus on three keynotes, since the "rule of three" is one of the major themes of the book. However, it does become monotonous, and redundant to hear about these three presentations. (the Intel conversion, 3G launch, and GarageBand launch are also mentioned.) One advantage to focusing on these three presentations though: they are readily available on YouTube, making it easy for you to watch them yourself. Additionally, Gallo has supplied 13 pages of notes, many of which are links to video clips.

I hope this book can make its way into the hands of those who need it most: the middle-managers, and CEOs who regularly give presentations. Gallo makes an interesting observation that most people create "sliduments": they take documents, and make slides out of them, with multiple bullet points, sub-headings, etc. As most Apple fans know, these elements rarely appear on Jobs' simplified slides. 

It's a quick read, that although a bit redundant and maybe a little too pro-Apple to give to your favorite Dell or HP executive, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs does a fine job of pointing out the brilliance of a Jobs keynote, and how anyone can improve their own presentations.

Hey, anything could help, right? The biggest "secret" revealed that most people probably don't want to hear, is that practice, practice, practice is perhaps the most important thing to creating a great presentation.

If you're an Apple fan, and you've tried to emulate Jobs in your business life, this is a great read, as it also serves as a trip down memory lane to great moments in Apple Keynote history.