BOOK REVIEWS
J. Chem. Inf. Model., Vol. 45, No. 1, 2005 213
BOOK REVIEWS Final Cut Pro HD. By Diana Weynand. Peachpit Press: Berkeley, CA. 2004. 872 pp. paperback. ISBN 0-321-25613-1. $44.99.
Mac OS X Help Line, Panther Edition. By Ted Landau. Peachpit Press: Berkeley, CA. 2004. 1184 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 0-321-19387-3. $39.99
With more people preparing sophisticated scientific presentations, books that help explain the complexities of the programs that prepare these presentations are very useful. This review covers the Apple Final Cut Pro program, an Apple Macintosh program for preparing and editing videos. The book is part of the Apple Pro Training series and is designed to be used first as a “hands-on” training book. The book consists of 21 chapters or lessons, each of which take about an hour to an hour and a half to do. The book is divided up into six sections. Chapters 1-7 are for basic editing and trimming. Chapters 8-10 are for customizing, capturing, importing, and exporting of data and files. Chapters 11-14 are for audio mixing, video transitions, and soundtrack composing. Chapters 15-18 go into the Final Pro effects. Chapters 19 and 20 cover titling, and Chapter 21 is the lesson showing how to prepare the final output. The book comes with a DVD with all the lesson files. The lesson chapters are well prepared, and Weynand is an excellent author who has written many good books on how to use various software packages. With the tutorials being self-paced, it is easy to go over areas which are either hard to understand at first, or areas which you want to use for your own applications. The numerous examples make the task of learning relatively easy, although certainly timeconsuming.
In my experience, computer operating system manuals tend to be long on technical specifications and short on useful answers and help. Ted Landau’s 1184 page book on the new Apple Macintosh OS X 10.3 (Panther) operating system is just the sort of reference that, while you may need it only once in a while, you will find it of immense value at the time. Landau is the founder of the MacFixIt Web site and a well-known expert in this area. This lengthy book, consisting of 11 chapters, is filled with simple and detailed help and information, often cross referenced to other parts of the books. For example, in Chapter 6, in the section on problems with deleting files, there is a pointer to Chapter 4 and another section of Chapter 6 on to how to work with “invisible” files and where trash files are located. I found this integration and linking to be very helpful. Some of the areas covered in the 11 chapters are as follows: (1) How to fix problems specific to the new features of Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). (2) How to diagnose, recover from, and prevent startup crashes, freezes, and unexpected quits. (3) The smart way to install, reinstall, update, and backup Mac OS X. (4) How to harness the hidden power in Mac OS X’s Get Info windows, invisible files, preferences files, and packages. (5) How to master Mac OS X’s permissionss launching, saving, moving, and deleting files, even when the Finder says you cannot. (6) Techniques to troubleshoot printing glitches. (7) How to set up (and fix problems with) your networksincluding local file sharing, routers, wireless connections and the Internet. (8) How to make sure your Mac is secure from network intruders or other unauthorized access. (9) How to take advantage of Mac OS X’s highpowered UNIX foundation to expand your troubleshooting powers. (10) Which third-party utilities you should get to help diagnose and fix problems. (11) How to troubleshoot problems with your i-software from iTunes to iSync.
Stephen R. Heller NIST CI040124L 10.1021/ci040124l
Illustrator CS Killer Tips. By Dave Cross. Peachpit Press: Berkeley, CA. 2004. 288 pp. paperback. ISBN 0-321-27224-2. $29.99. This is a 288-page book of tips and “secrets” that the author has amassed to help maximize your use of Adobe Illustrator. The book consists of 10 chapters of examples, with 1-2 tips per page. It is a great book to have on your shelf to use as a library reference when you need to perform a given task. Chapter 1, The View, covers viewing, doing, undoing, and more. Chapter 2, called Tool Time, covers creating graphics in Illustrator CS. Chapter 3, Nip/Tuck, is not about plastic surgery but rather how to select, edit, and transform graphics. Different Strokesin Chapter 4 covers colors, swatches, fills, and strokes. Layers and transparency are covered in Chapter 5, entitled Get Smart. Chapter 6, Extreme Makeover, goes into symbols, brushes, appearance, filters, and effects. Moving and manipulating text is covered in Chapter 7, Trading Spaces. More tips on text manipulation is covered in Chapter 8, Whose Line is it Anyway? Chapter 9, called Friends, covers how to move files in and out of Illustrator. Chapter 10, called D’oh!, contains such fundamental tips that, as the author says, these would be basic tips that even Homer (Simpson) would love. For those who buy this book as a reference for their library and who have little experience with Illustrator, perhaps Chapter 10 is the place to start. In addition to the ten chapters, there are two pages of additional resources for the Illustrator package, making this book an even more useful and inexpensive addition to your library.
For a Mac owner with OS X, not having this book, while not inviting disaster, is inviting a great deal of probable hardship and aggravation.
Stephen R. Heller NIST CI0401266 10.1021/ci0401266
Real World Adobe Acrobat 6: Pro and Standard. By Christopher Smith, Mohamad Tawil, and Anita Dennis. Peachpit Press: Berkeley, CA. 2004. 576 pp. Paperback. ISBN 0-32119440-3. $44.99. This is an excellent reference book for serious users of Adobe Acrobat. While Adobe does provide good manuals, for a small additional cost, booksssuch as Real World Adobe Acrobat 6: Pro and Standardsare very worthwhile to have to help with understanding and using the software. The chapters on forms, particularly using JavaScript in forms, is useful and very readable. The book explains how to, very simply, create PDF forms. Overall, I found the book worth having, and the extensive set of examples and photos make using Adobe Acrobat much easier.
Stephen R. Heller NIST
Stephen R. Heller NIST
CI040125D
CI040127Y
10.1021/ci040125d
10.1021/ci040127y
214 J. Chem. Inf. Model., Vol. 45, No. 1, 2005 Real World Adobe Photoshop CS. By David Blatner and Bruce Fraser. Peachpit Press: Berkeley, CA. 2004. 928 pp. Paperback. ISBN 0-321-24578-4. $49.99. For those who know the basics of Photoshop, this is a very good and useful book for really learning Photoshop CS. David Blatner is an excellent and well-known author who continues to write and explain things very well. Of the 18 chapters in the book, the initial chapters, such as, Building a Photoshop system, Essential Photoshop Tips and Tricks, Image Essentials, Color Essentials, and Color Settings, cover the color management areas to an extent that should satisfy most any user of this software. The next chapters then go over correction and color correction issues, selection, and channels. There is a good discussion of spot colors, duotones, and capturing images. The last few
BOOK REVIEWS chapters explain how to output images. The chapter on tips and tricks is very nice and not to be found with the software package and manual that you buy from Adobe. As with the other Adobe products, having the manuals provided are good, but having useful booksssuch as Real World Adobe Photoshop CS, available, with lots of illustrations, to supplement the basic material from Adobesjust makes things go so much more smoothly.
Stephen R. Heller NIST CI040128Q 10.1021/ci040128q
