You heard the buzz and made the switch: You're in good company! And here to prove it is Windows guru and CNET commentator David Coursey with Mac OS X for Windows Users: A Switcher's Guide. In this volume, Coursey draws on the experiences of real-world switchers to frame his own straightforward instructions on how to use Mac OS X. There's a lot involved in moving to a new operating system-files to be ported, software to learn, Internet and connectivity issues to iron out, and a new interface to unravel-but you'll find everything you need here to get up to speed quickly as well as understand the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the Windows and Mac operating systems. Best of all, the information is presented from a Windows user's perspective: You print like that in Windows; you print like this in Mac OS X. You used to be a Windows pro; now you're a Mac pro!

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 14 Ratings

Don't waste your money or time. - 2003-11-25
Reviewer Rating:
I am a life long PC user who also has 3 Macs. I just purchase 2 of the hottest new Macs for my video edit suite and saw this book on the shelf and grabbed it without opening it. I actually thought it would contain some useful information about the OS X and help me get up to speed easier. Foolish me for judging a book by its cover. This author should be ashamed of himself. The only thing worse than the content is the writing. I do recommend this publisher however for anyone who cannot write and doesn't have much to say because clearly they don't care either.

Bottom line - I purchased the Mac! I don't need to be validated or praised as a "switcher." The book is full of Mac ads and commercials and who needs that. What I wanted was to know how the Mac and PC are the same and how to get the job done in OS X not an assemblage of why the PC is inferior.

BTW: I don't write reviews but this book is so bad I felt it was a must.

Lazy and sloppy - 2004-01-25
Reviewer Rating:
Had this book been titled 'My Switch to Mac, a Personal Odyssey', it would merit two or three stars. But it's titled 'Mac OS-X for Windows Users', and with such a title one expects much more than this book delivers

The author is lazy and sloppy at all turns. Other reviewers have mentioned the 'filler' material such as pro-Apple testimonials from 'Switchers', and the author's habit of saying 'this should work, although I didn't try it'. But also take note of the screenshots, which often include oddball icons that the author explains away as software he happens to have installed on his machine, but isn't relevant to the current discussion. It's as if he didn't want to spend the $1000 for a clean-install machine and start from ground zero, as a new user in his target audience would, so he took screenshots from his everyday box instead.

I've used Windows for many years and recently bought an iMac. This book provided little of value to me.

There's a good book still 'waiting to be written' on the subject. For instance, when I first tried my iMac, I was puzzled that when I killed a window, it didn't kill the app. There's still a black triangle in the dock indicating the process is still alive and eating up RAM. In Windows, you click the X, and the app is dead. So what do I do on the iMac? Baffled, I opened a terminal window, looked at 'top', and 'kill'ed all the junk by process-ID. But I thought 'this can't be the best way', and it isn't. Among other 'better' approaches, you can hold down the mouse button on the dock icon and a menu with Quit comes up. But this is exactly the sort of useful explanation the book lacks.

A good first attempt - 2004-03-10
Reviewer Rating:
I enjoy reading David's Anchor Desk articles and I recall the editorials which eventually led to the creation of this book. I think that readers will find that the testimonials and David's own experiences provide compelling reasons to make the switch to Mac OS X. However, as a "switcher's guide" this book falls short.

Besides being outdated, which can happen quickly with any computer book, it is a bit shallow and incomplete. For starters, David needs to consider a home network as a means of transferring data from a PC to a Mac and not just using third party software and cables or burning lots of CDs. A big concern for many people is how to transfer their data from Outlook to Entourage and if you do a Google search you can find information about how other people made this work. David would score big in a revised edition if he could try out some of these techniques and write about them as well.

There needs to be a better discussion about the differences between OS X and Windows XP. I am currently trying to learn OS X on an upgraded G3 and have been confused about installing applications and making them easily accessible to other user accounts, as some applications installed by one user were not in the applications folder for another user. In fact, a good switcher's guide would help me with the differences between multiple user profiles on XP and OS X.

I would like to see a revised edition of this book. David should search the newsgroups and other Mac websites and see what type of issues are commonly brought up by newbies. He should read the other reviews on Amazon.com and take to heart their opinions and suggestions. And he should remove what essentially is his own user manual for someone else's PC to Mac software.

Despite all of this, David's book has still managed to help me decide to switch to Mac with my next PC purchase. Well, David and Symatec also, whose System Works 2004 install has all but crippled my PC.

Moderately helpful - 2004-08-15
Reviewer Rating:
I purchased this prior to actually purchasing my iBook and it was helpful in arranging my files on my PC desktop for the transfer to the new notebook. Beyond that, though, the information is fairly basic.

If you have any experience with computers, the transfer is readily accomplished without the software program that is promoted quite heavily in the book (and which the author had a hand in).

Love it, but it is mistitled - 2004-10-23
Reviewer Rating:
The title of this book should be: Mac OS X: The Alter-Ego Experiences
This is an ego boosting book for mac users, especially for the switchers.

This book, if read as a guidebook, might only give preliminary information.
But I enjoy the book, not for its purpose as a switcher's guide. But more toward in learning the experiences of the author (and some switchers that are being interviewed) answering his problems/questions during the conversion period. Treat it as a light book for your leisure time, turn on the iPod then read this book, and smile.

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