The book is formatted most simply: annoyance descriptions and their solutions are organized by 

chapter. All of this is interlaced with hints, references to underlying technical information, and at 

times, recommended shareware. (I downloaded many of the latter because  hmmm.) A taste of 

the book's organization is tabulated below. 

Mac OS X Annoyances   Chapter 1 

Finder and system  23 vexations and 

botherations 

Email Annoyances   Chapter 2 

General Annoyances, Apple Mail, Entourage, 

Eudora, and AOL 

Internet Annoyances   Chapter 3 

Web Browsing, Google, Sherlock, iChat and 

AIM Messaging 

MS Office Annoyances   Chapter 4 

Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Virtual PC. 

[Entourage is covered under email.] 

iLife Annoyances   Chapter 5   Chapter 6 

iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garage 

Band 

iPod Annoyances 

 Stuff about 17 irritations  

Hardware Annoyances   Chapter 7 

General Hardware, Keyboards & Mice, 

Displays, PowerBooks, and iBooks 

The book is more than annoyance and fixes 

More Info When Needed   The contents of this book go far beyond the collected annoyances 

and their clearly defined and illustrated fixes. John provides us not only with links to shareware 

that provides a better fix than that possible within the annoying software, but with sources of 

information to deal with annoyances that fall outside the scope of this 157 page book. There are 

many available links, the author notes, where the reader can gain detailed information about a 

given fix or its underlying problem. I've copied some below. 

To seek out more information about a given annoyance, the reader is directed to both Apple's 

Knowledge Base, via Sherlock, and to the Apple discussion boards 

http://discussions.info.apple.com

. Information is also available on the O'Reilley's Mac 

DevCenter 

http://www.macdevcenter.com/

 website. Among my favorite sources for 

troubleshooting answers are MacInTouch 

http://www.macintouch.com/

 and MacFixit 

http://www.macfixit.com

/. Although I've not yet used the O'Reilly site for solving problems, the 

others have helped me get out of binds with both my software and hardware. I do however, 

prefer my troubleshooting books prior to dealing with an exponential number of hits obtained 

from the sites referenced above. 

Of Mice and Buttons   The good news is that John provides shortcuts designed for 2  and 3 

button scroll wheel mice. The bad news is that Apple hasn't gotten the word that even newbie 

users can use a 3 button scroll mouse. Anyone who has used a game controller knows such 

devices are more complex than multiple button mice. It's easier, Steve Jobs, sir, to give users a 

three button mouse than to ask them to switch to an Intel chip based MacTel platform. 

  MPN, LLC 2005 macCompanion 

Page 43 

August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8