Peachpit Press, July 2005

There are a lot of books on Tiger, but this one focuses on letting readers know all that needs to be done before, during, and after the upgrade from Panther or Jaguar. I zero in on just the need-to-know essentials that will ensure a smooth transition to Mac OS X Tiger. After a safe upgrade, I give a quick overview of what's changed before showing readers how to customize their systems and use three of Tiger's key features: Spotlight search, Automator (for streamlining repetitive tasks), and Dashboard (the control panel for Tiger's nifty new widget mini-applications). I wrap it up by recommending some of my favorite add-ons and utilities to make your Tiger experience even better.

Peachpit Press, May 2005

Apple's iWork '05 includes Keynote 2 and their new program, Pages. Another book in the Visual QuickProject series (one not written by me) covers Pages, and this one shows people how to get up and running with their first presentation using Keynote 2.

Managing Your Personal Finances with Quicken: Visual QuickProject Guide
Peachpit Press, December 2004

This book covers Quicken 2005 for both Windows and Macintosh. Again, it's a good beginners book for people who need help getting their personal finances under control. We did this instead of updating the Quicken for Mac Visual QuickStart, which because that program doesn't change that much from year to year, the book only needs updating every few years.

Creating A Presentation In Powerpoint: Visual QuickProject Guide

Peachpit Press, October 2004

This book was one of the first in a new series from Peachpit Press. It's a cross-platform book, covering the latest versions; PowerPoint 2003 for Windows, and PowerPoint 2004 for Mac. Like all of the books in this series, it's a tightly-focused book for beginners who want to get up and running fast.The book steps the reader though the process of creating and giving a presentation, and focuses on what people absolutely have to know. It's only about 160 pages, and it is loaded with color pictures. I'm told that it is selling quite well, helped along no doubt by the book's low price; it sells for less than $10 at Amazon.

Peachpit Press, September 2004

This third edition covers new features in Contribute 3 on both the Mac and Windows versions. On the Mac side, Contribute adds the ability to create FlashPaper documents. On the Windows side, you can now create FlashPaper from within Office applications, which is a nice touch. Both platforms tout integrated image editing, better CSS rendering and style control, better administrative controls,  the ability to put Google search fields on your pages, a nice new reviews process, WebDAV support, and more.

TidBITS Electronic Publishing, June 2004

It's my first ebook, covering the new features of Microsoft Entourage 2004. I think this is the first book-like publication on any aspect of Office 2004 for the Mac. The book is a tightly-focused 60 pages on the new features, with tips and tricks for getting the most out of them. And it's only five bucks!

Mac OS X Unwired

O'Reilly and Associates, November 2003

This book, written with Dori Smith, introduces you to the basics of wireless computing, from the reasons why you'd want to go wireless in the first place, to setting up your wireless network or accessing your wireless services on the road. The book provides a complete introduction to all the wireless technologies supported by Mac OS X. We maintain a companion site with wireless technology news and information, updated daily.

JavaScript for the World Wide Web, Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition

Peachpit Press, July 2003

After two years, it was time to revise this book again, and this time Dori and I have added several new chapters, rearranged the material a bit, and updated all of the code in the book to be compliant with XHTML 1.0. This edition comes in just shy of 500 pages.

JavaScript for the World Wide Web, Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition, Student Edition

Peachpit Press, December 2003

We also did a Student Edition, which included instructor questions for each chapter.

Peachpit Press, September 2003

This book was a fairly quick revision of the previous edition, mostly adding coverage of Contribute's new Mac OS X version. I also discussed the program's new features since the original release, including enhanced security, the FlashPaper feature (which lets you take any page you can print and turn it into a Web page; Windows-only in this version), a nifty new tool for adding PayPal buttons to your sites, the ability for Mac users to use Contribute to edit their .Mac sites, and more.

Peachpit Press, June 2003

This book covering Keynote, Apple's new presentation program, came from watching Steve Jobs' January 2003 Macworld Expo keynote address. Before he'd finished talking about the program, I had sent off a pitch to my editors at Peachpit, because I could tell that it would be an important product. Keynote is the rare Apple software that comes with a manual, but this book is three times as long, and delves into much more detail.

Macromedia Contribute for Windows, Visual QuickStart Guide

Peachpit Press, January 2003

The product is something new -- a Web editor that allows people who are decidedly not Web-savvy to add and update content for Web sites -- and this book was the first one to market. I'm pretty happy with it, and it has sold well, too. Besides coming from Peachpit, this is also published by Macromedia Press.

Quicken 2003 for Macintosh, Visual QuickStart Guide
Peachpit Press, October 2002

We skipped a year with the Quicken VQS, but we're back with bells on for Quicken 2003. It's the biggest revision yet, adding about 60 pages to the previous edition, and upgrading the book to cover Quicken for Mac OS X. There are improvements throughout the book, but I'm especially happy with the expanded treatment of online banking and managing your investments with Quicken.

Microsoft Office v. X Inside Out
Microsoft Press, May 2002

This book was (so far) the most difficult project I've ever done. It's a 1,000 page book with extensive coverage of MS Office v. X for Mac OS X. It took about six months to finish this one, and that's with the excellent help of my three co-authors, Kirk Mc Elhearn, Kate Binder, and Curt Frye. We ended up with a darned good book.

Microsoft Office v. X for Macs for Dummies
Hungry Minds, January 2002

Covering the first version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X, this book required a lot of revision of the previous editions. Virtually all of the screenshots in the book needed to be redone, and many of the procedures were updated to reflect the new ways of doing things under Mac OS X. They also gave me some extra pages to work with, so I was finally able to write a section about doing data merging in Word, which didn't make the cut last time around.