Mac OS 101 – Mastering Your Mac
reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Presenter: Martin Sitter http://www.macprovideo.com/trainer/martinsitter#bio macProVideo.com PO Box 93598 Vancouver, BC V6E 4L7 FAX: 778-786-1331 Product site: http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/MacOs101 Released: April 24, 2006 $40 USD 351 MB download or DVD for $10 USD more plus shipping. Runtime: 170 minutes. Strengths: Shows how to quickly come up to speed using Mac OS X.
Reviewed on an iMac G5 running Mac OS X 10.4.6 |
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Martin Sitter has produced 12 chapters in this Mac OS 101 training video on tips and tricks for getting up to speed quickly with Mac OS X from mac Pro Video dot com. Nothing beats a professionally done training program that makes the Mac even more of a companion than it already is.
The first thing I did when beginning this training app was think that my parents would really enjoy this, since dad tends to be a bit of a computer phob and is much more comfortable with musical instruments, pencil and paper than a keyboard and mouse. And Martin Sitter does a grand job showing keyboard shortcuts in case the mouse ever decided to “go south”.
Martin has an easy-to-listen-to voice with the slight Canadian accent, and he does a great job as he discusses his discoveries with Mac OS X. On my system I did have to turn up the volume a little to hear his voice better and the version I got of the program showed Reason 101: Mastering Reason at the top of the screen. I didn’t notice it until I was all the way through with the program. It just started and ran smoothly through all the lessons.
A file gets loaded onto the desktop named N.E.D. and it is the process for opening the MacOS 101 program. N.E.D. stands for Nonlinear Educating Device - The Friendly Video Player as a public beta that works just fine on my Mac.
Once there, sections on the Finder and Desktop, Dock, screen and energy savers, system and software updates, Activity Monitor, quitting hung apps, setting up Users, using the Info dialog, using Spotlight, recording Discs and Disk Images, Exposé and Spotlight. Each one opens up further into chapters, Each of those have almost the same flavor as the MacBreak videos that Leo LaPorte has been trying to get online at http://macbreak.com/. Okay, maybe not, but the video presentations are top-notch!
I think I learned the most from the Exposé and Spotlight chapters, but I also learned about the disc burning information as well – and martin is correct about a few things; Apple does indeed have functions that rival 3rd-party apps.
One thing that Martin uses is that huge circle surrounding the cursor so there is no ambiguity at all as to where the demo presentation cursor is located while watching the video presentations.
I’m looking forward to the other training packages that mac Pro Video dot com has put together. I suspect they are as good or perhaps even better than this one.
I gave this a 5 because, like the Mac, the training just works.And Martin fixed the banner heading so it reads Mac OS 101: Mastering Your Mac now.
