Books or resources for OS X for not-so-dummies?
July 22, 2020 6:27 PM Subscribe
My mom is a fairly adept and experienced OS X user and she would like to teach herself some more advanced home/office user skills, and I am seeking book or online resource recommendations on her behalf.
I and other family members have been helping her for years - which is fine and I'm ok with that. But she's starting to realize that we really don't know that much more than she does about doing the basics like backing up data, searching files or even how to reinstall the OS from scratch - that we're just searching question strings and that we know enough jargon to both ask the right questions and interpreting the answers.
She tends to work a lot with photography and other visual media, so generates a lot of data and files, and she's been pretty diligent about maintaining rotating backups and using Time Machine and so on.
I think she's just on the edge of being comfortable enough with, say, basic command line strings, more complicated compound search strings with wildcards, and is adept enough to go through an Over-the-Air style boot and recovery and such.
The primary goal is to give her some resources to be confident enough to do her own full OS reinstalls and recoveries and some basic tech self-support skills.
I'm tempted to send her the Jargon Files buuuuut well if you've read it you'd understand my hesitation because it's some BOFH stuff.
I and other family members have been helping her for years - which is fine and I'm ok with that. But she's starting to realize that we really don't know that much more than she does about doing the basics like backing up data, searching files or even how to reinstall the OS from scratch - that we're just searching question strings and that we know enough jargon to both ask the right questions and interpreting the answers.
She tends to work a lot with photography and other visual media, so generates a lot of data and files, and she's been pretty diligent about maintaining rotating backups and using Time Machine and so on.
I think she's just on the edge of being comfortable enough with, say, basic command line strings, more complicated compound search strings with wildcards, and is adept enough to go through an Over-the-Air style boot and recovery and such.
The primary goal is to give her some resources to be confident enough to do her own full OS reinstalls and recoveries and some basic tech self-support skills.
I'm tempted to send her the Jargon Files buuuuut well if you've read it you'd understand my hesitation because it's some BOFH stuff.
The books in the Take Control Of series are pretty good for end users who want to improve their skills.
Arek Dreyer's books are good for "pro" level troubleshooting.
posted by bcwinters at 7:13 PM on July 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Arek Dreyer's books are good for "pro" level troubleshooting.
posted by bcwinters at 7:13 PM on July 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I think she's just on the edge of being comfortable enough with, say, basic command line strings, more complicated compound search strings with wildcards
Even if she's a really competent end user with Mac stuff, other than an ability to find Terminal, I'm not sure why she'd need to get at the command line that often? Is that what she's asked for? Like maybe there's a use case, but don't assume that "next level" for a Mac user after being a sophisticated end user is learning Unix. It can be, but doesn't have to be; most Mac users, even people who have used it for decades, really don't need to know command line stuff except at a really basic "follow this script" level. And this is true even if they're doing OS reinstalls and recoveries.
Arek is a seriously good suggestion. I usually start people with the Missing Manuals if they are getting started and make sure they have the vocabulary in order to move to whatever's next. Because honestly he big skill you have--knowing the vocabulary and learning to google answers and interpret responses--is the real "next step" for what she wants to do. If she's not comfortable with just flat out Googling she might want to start with some specialized "How do I do this?" places like Ask Different (warning: nitpicking nerds but what else is new) and iFixit for "How difficult is this hardware thing?"
posted by jessamyn at 8:25 PM on July 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Even if she's a really competent end user with Mac stuff, other than an ability to find Terminal, I'm not sure why she'd need to get at the command line that often? Is that what she's asked for? Like maybe there's a use case, but don't assume that "next level" for a Mac user after being a sophisticated end user is learning Unix. It can be, but doesn't have to be; most Mac users, even people who have used it for decades, really don't need to know command line stuff except at a really basic "follow this script" level. And this is true even if they're doing OS reinstalls and recoveries.
Arek is a seriously good suggestion. I usually start people with the Missing Manuals if they are getting started and make sure they have the vocabulary in order to move to whatever's next. Because honestly he big skill you have--knowing the vocabulary and learning to google answers and interpret responses--is the real "next step" for what she wants to do. If she's not comfortable with just flat out Googling she might want to start with some specialized "How do I do this?" places like Ask Different (warning: nitpicking nerds but what else is new) and iFixit for "How difficult is this hardware thing?"
posted by jessamyn at 8:25 PM on July 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
I find the "Teach Yourself Visually" series to be very informative and is easy for complete beginners but also not insulting to those who have a medium knowledge base.
Amazon Link for OS X range here: but if the OS is ever upgraded from OSX to MacOS, then my next recommendations would definitely be the O'Reilly Missing Manuals which Jessamyn has already linked to up-thread
posted by Faintdreams at 3:23 AM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Amazon Link for OS X range here: but if the OS is ever upgraded from OSX to MacOS, then my next recommendations would definitely be the O'Reilly Missing Manuals which Jessamyn has already linked to up-thread
posted by Faintdreams at 3:23 AM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Even if she's a really competent end user with Mac stuff, other than an ability to find Terminal, I'm not sure why she'd need to get at the command line that often?
Oh, this was mainly just a description of what I'd be comfortable with walking her through or sending her a link to some instructions or something, not a requirement at all.
and iFixit for "How difficult is this hardware thing?
Anecdotal: I love/hate that site. I love it because it's so good, but I hate it because if I'm referring to it for a hardware issue that issue is likely super difficult.
I recently attempted to repair/replace a MacBook Air with a puffy battery. It was like 7 hours of work with a helper to unglue/remove the dangerous battery, including the use of acetone on the dangerously swollen battery and eventually really strong dental floss as a cutting tool and saw to slip under the convoluted battery pack panels, then install the new one and try to put it back together and not only was the dodgy third party replacement a mess and a fail, but also ended in a rather exciting battery venting event that nearly became a thermal runway and full on fire.
Dear readers,, when iFixit rates something as "very difficult" believe them. I'm never, ever doing that again.
Also never buy a MacBook Air. I've seen the inside of that thing now and despite all of the beautiful machining that goes into the chassis there's basically nothing inside except for the weird 6 panel battery pack that makes the whole computer effectively a disposable item.
posted by loquacious at 2:27 PM on July 25, 2020
Oh, this was mainly just a description of what I'd be comfortable with walking her through or sending her a link to some instructions or something, not a requirement at all.
and iFixit for "How difficult is this hardware thing?
Anecdotal: I love/hate that site. I love it because it's so good, but I hate it because if I'm referring to it for a hardware issue that issue is likely super difficult.
I recently attempted to repair/replace a MacBook Air with a puffy battery. It was like 7 hours of work with a helper to unglue/remove the dangerous battery, including the use of acetone on the dangerously swollen battery and eventually really strong dental floss as a cutting tool and saw to slip under the convoluted battery pack panels, then install the new one and try to put it back together and not only was the dodgy third party replacement a mess and a fail, but also ended in a rather exciting battery venting event that nearly became a thermal runway and full on fire.
Dear readers,, when iFixit rates something as "very difficult" believe them. I'm never, ever doing that again.
Also never buy a MacBook Air. I've seen the inside of that thing now and despite all of the beautiful machining that goes into the chassis there's basically nothing inside except for the weird 6 panel battery pack that makes the whole computer effectively a disposable item.
posted by loquacious at 2:27 PM on July 25, 2020
« Older Help me wrap my head around buying a car [in... | Help me figure out how to make a model of this... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Macworld UK has some suggestions.
There are several books out there if your mother is more of a "read and re-read and refer" kind of learner. I haven't followed that genre for a while, so I don't have recommendations. Hopefully someone else will chime in.
posted by blob at 6:49 PM on July 22, 2020