Where is the Special Character   For easily finding and entering special characters, the 

simplest and most effective tool I've found is PopChar 2.2.1 (see page 14). 

[http://www.macility.com/products/popcharx/]. It, too, lives in the OS Menu Bar and is available 

in a `text' using application. 

Norton Utilities (Mac) is Dead and Gone   Symantec, at the time Apple selected TechTool 

Pro as its recommended disk repair software utility, stopped developing Norton Utilities for the 

Macintosh (page 16). That is a real shame, because Micromat's product has irreversibly trashed 

more of my friends' hard disks this year than the Symantec product did over its lifetime of our 

use. At the advice of a trusted software Macintosh support expert at a major corporation, this is 

one of the few products I shall never use on my computer. (Safety First  I clone my disk at least 

every two weeks, and key folders whenever they significantly change.) 

Alphabetizing Bookmarks   The freeware product that allow alphabetized bookmarks, 

SafariSorter (page 57) no longer exists. It has been replaced with the shareware product named 

Bookdog 1.2, and will be the subject of a future shareware review. 

In Closing 

Mac Annoyances is a useful, easy to read book full of annoyance solutions that were easy to 

implement. It also was a good read, full of interesting hints, tidbits, and a bit of gentle humor, all 

of which I enjoyed. I recommend it to all Macintosh users. 

As noted by David Weeks in 

MyMac.com

 January 2005,  Mac Annoyances is a fine collections 

of hints and tips to get around the rough edges of OS X...When I first cracked open Mac 

Annoyances, I thought it would be not much more than a collection of shopworn hints that only 

newbies would appreciate. I was quite wrong...there are plenty of tasty tidbits to enjoy.  

The book is well worth 4.5 macC's 

Review PS 

I just got word that O'Reilly has published Word Annoyances   Wrestling Word into Submission 

  by Guy Hart Davis. So, with a little bit of luck, you'll read about that book in the September 

macC. I'm looking forward to the review because I am more annoyed with MS Word 2004 than 

with any other software program I use daily. John Rizzo's information on Microsoft Office 

Annoyances (Word, pages 72 85) doesn't even scratch the major itch I get whenever I use that 

necessary but annoying program. 

  MPN, LLC 2005 macCompanion 

Page 45 

August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8