Press releases

Two New Ebooks from TidBITS on How to Keep Your Mac Running Well: Joe Kissell delivers a comprehensive maintenance plan plus effective advice for troubleshooting Mac problems

Press release: May 29, 2009

Ithaca, NY—There's no lack of advice available for how to run a Mac efficiently and solve pesky problems, but it's scattered all over the Internet. A pair of new ebooks from TidBITS Publishing Inc.--Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition (ISBN 9781933671109, $10.00 USD) and Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac (ISBN 9781933671291, $10.00 USD)--help Mac users achieve peak performance from their Macs and handle any problems that might occur.

The ebooks, both written by award-winning author Joe Kissell, are available individually for $10 at oreilly.com/tidbits or in a bundle for $16 at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com.

Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition looks at how to start on the right foot with keeping your Mac running smoothly, and then it explains weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks that help readers enjoy peak performance and avoid pesky problems. Along with telling reader what to do, it includes a section about what not to do, explaining several time-consuming tasks that don't provide any real benefits.

Particular questions answered in this ebook include:

  • How can I tell if my Mac is likely to have trouble?
  • How can I find out which unnecessary files are taking up space on my disk?
  • Should I defragment my hard disk and repair permissions regularly?
  • What are the safest ways to clean dust and crud from my Mac?
  • What is the best way to keep my software up to date?


Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac helps readers go beyond regular maintenance to dealing with computer-related troubles. It helps readers prevent problems, prepare for problems, complete 17 specific problem-solving tasks, fix 9 common problems, and diagnose and fix novel problems.

Among the problems that readers will learn how to handle are:

  • A Mac that won't turn on
  • Repeated kernel panics
  • Abnormal slowdowns
  • Emptying the Trash when the Finder balks
  • An application grinds to a halt
  • An application crashes
  • Recalcitrant keyboards and mice
  • A dead Internet connection
  • A printer won't print

For a review copy or more information please email takecontrolpr@oreilly.com.

Joe Kissell has written numerous books about the Macintosh, including many popular Take Control ebooks. He's also Senior Editor of TidBITS, contributes frequently to Macworld, and previously spent ten years in the Mac software industry. Joe Kissell joined the TidBITS staff in 2006 as Senior Editor and currently lives in Paris. He has written more than a dozen Take Control ebooks, including the best- selling Take Control of Mac OS X Backups. He's also the author of numerous print books about Mac OS X and a frequent contributor to Macworld magazine. Joe runs a business called alt concepts, which publishes such Web sites as Interesting Thing of the Day and Truffles for Breakfast.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781933671659

For more information about the Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781933671291

Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition
Publisher: TidBITS
Joe Kissell
Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac,
PDF format, 95 pages, free 30-page sample available
PDF Price: $10.00 USD
ISBN: 9781933671659


Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac
Publisher: TidBITS
Joe Kissell
Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac,
PDF format, 90 pages, free 30-page sample available
PDF Price: $10.00 USD
ISBN: 9781933671291




About TidBITS
The Take Control series is published by TidBITS Publishing Inc. TidBITS co-founders Adam and Tonya Engst have been publishing highly regarded news and editorial since 1990 when they created the online newsletter TidBITS, which covers Macintosh- and Internet-related topics. The Take Control series has helped many thousands of readers with high-quality, timely, real-world, cost-effective documentation since 2003.

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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