I didn't purchase this book the first time around. Instead, I purchased Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, because that was exactly what I was doing. When it arrived I dove in, thinking it would answer all my questions. WHOA! Way over my head! I'm sure the book is brilliant but unfortunately, I'm not! I gave it to my husband and had him read it instead. I immediately ordered the more lowly rated Mac for Dummies and gave a big sigh of relief upon reading a few pages in it. Now this was something I could understand. My point is, if you're like me and do well negotiating the web, sending emails and doing a little word processing this book is for you. All I want to know is how the heck to I put someone's email address in my new address book. The other day I got fed up with that little bar that's at the bottom of my screen when I go into Safari - the one with all the icons. I was also frustrated because I couldn't get the whole page to take up the entire screen. Guess what - a little reading in my Mac for Dummies and I not only had that little bar off to the side of the screen, but I figured out how to keep it hidden so that it would pop out only when I needed it! I also figured out how to make the web page take up the whole screen. Print on the screen to small? I enlarged it! This may sound like small stuff to you techies out there, but to a middle aged mom who is completely befuddled by this stuff it was a minor miracle! I had used my PC for so many years that small stuff like this became easy for me. All of a sudden everything was difficult. So for those of you out there who are reading this and going "yeah, I'm right with you", grab this book when you buy your new Mac. For the rest of you, grab Switching to the Mac. They're both excellent books, depending upon your abilities.

For years I was exclusively a Windows user, but recently I bought a new MacBook Pro. When one is steeped in the terms and methods of another computer operating system, it's not an altogether easy task to relearn it all overnight. I got another book, "Switching to the Mac," and good as it is I found it a bit too deep and convoluted for where I was at the moment. Then I picked up "Macs for Dummies." The more I read it the more I liked it. Sure, there's a bit of the cute and trite - that's the style that has made this line of books famous and hugely successful after all - but nicely folded into the mix is an easily understood set of descriptions that walks one through how to use a Mac, from the most basic nuts and bolts like turning it on and off, to managing the core (core, get it?) functions of the operating system, and using the iLife serious of "lifestyle" programs. Then it's on to broader discussions of internet communication concepts, networking, dealing with problems, and a nice overview of ten indispensable Mac web sites.

The result is the best "Dummies" book I know of. There are two sorts of persons I think would benefit most from this book: someone totally new to computing (young or old) whose first computer is a Mac; and someone (like me) who has years of experience with PCs and needs a simple but broad-ranging assist in making the platform transition. One other consideration; some learn better with pictures than words. While this book has lots of pictures, the real meat is in the text, so it serves better the person who absorbs information best in that fashion rather than one who is more "visually" oriented.

Lots of good tips to get you started. Accurate and easy to follow. However, if you were as excited as I was to get your new iMac, chances are you figured out much of what this book has to offer during the time it took for Amazon to ship it. I found the Apple Training Series library to be more what I had in mind. Those books have color pics, and are better in a tutorial/training sense. But they're at least double the price. Am I glad I bought the Mac for Dummies anyway? Yes. Money well spent. Good luck. And CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING A MAC!