My New iPad: A User's Guide Book Review - No Starch Press Book

Wallace Wang, best seller of My New Mac and My New iPhone for the No Starch Press publisher has written a new book detailing everything you need to know about the iPad in a book called "My New iPad: A User's Guide." No Starch Press provided a reviewer's copy of "My New iPad: A User's Guide" for this review.

"My New iPad: A User's Guide" includes seven chapters including: basic training; customizing your iPad; getting on the Internet; sharing data with your iPad; video, music, and eBooks; organizing yourself and additional tips. Each chapter is small and comes in easily consumable chunks of information that can instantly help new users complete a certain task with easy to follow step by step instructions.

The first chapter called "Basic Training" teaches you how to turn on and off the iPad, what the various buttons and slides perform and how to use and customize the virtual keyboard. Apple changed the Screen Location Lock since the book was published so information has changed since the publish date resulting in incorrect information.

"Customizing Your iPad" is the second chapter that details how to customize your home screen, set the date and time, restoring and resetting your iPad and installing and uninstalling iPad apps.

The third chapter called "Getting on the Internet" shows how to use the email client and web browser called Safari including some intermediate information such as how to use bookmarks and automatically fill out forms with Safari.

If you do not know how to transfer content to your iPad, chapter four is perfect for you. "Sharing Data with Your iPad" shows how to synchronize with iTunes to transfer media such as photos, movies, TV shows and even podcasts. The chapter further goes on to show steps to synch your eBooks, Audio Books, Contacts, Appointments, Mail, Notes, Bookmarks and even iTunes University Courses. The book is light on how to actually configure Yahoo! or Google services with your iPad however.

The next chapter focuses on content consumption on the iPad and it titled "Video, Music and eBooks". This chapter shows you how to watch your photos to listen to your music to watching YouTube videos.

Chapter six focuses on how to use the iPad to keep yourself organized using included iPad apps and is called "Organizing Yourself."

Finally, the last chapter called "Additional Tips" provides some additional miscellaneous tips including how to update the iOS or use foreign languages. This last chapter also includes a section called "Best iPad Apps" which includes some good apps but is dated. To keep up with the best iPad apps, you should watch for articles that continually are updated such as the Gizmos for Geeks Favorite iPad Apps monthly updated list.

I started and finished "My New iPad: A User's Guide" in one afternoon. The book is geared towards new users of not only the iPad device but of Apple's iOS devices including iPod Touch and iPhones and definitely not towards advanced user's of the iOS. For example, this book would be ideal for my parents since they have never used an iOS device, but I found the book way to simplistic to really become engaged.

Doug Felteau enjoys blogging about the latest gadgets and anything technology related and maintains a monthly article on Gizmos for Geeks listing the best iPad apps. An avid iPad user since the device was released, Doug has integrated the device and apps into his everyday life.

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The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook - A Guide For The Serious Searcher by Randolph Hock

Looking for something on the Internet and need more than the results you find with a quick Google or Bing search? If so, this might be just the book you are looking for. "The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide For The Serious Searcher" by Randolph Hock is touted as the essential guide for anyone who uses the internet for research - librarians, teachers, students, writers, business professionals, and others who need to search the web proficiently. The book provides strategies and tools (including search engines, portals, and social networks) for all major areas of internet content. The author explains how and when to go beyond the leading search engines and offers techniques for using Web 2.0 resources like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and more.

Here is the really great thing about this book. Hock has organized it very well, so you can easily find what you are looking for, and the book is also written for everyone. Don't worry, you don't need to be a computer geek to understand this book. In fact, it is written for the non techie or geek, and for anyone who just wants to use the internet and web to locate information. Again, the book is organized well. It starts with a detailed table of contents, then a listing of the figures and tables in the book, a foreword and then introduction that includes a brief overview of the chapters and some advice on proceeding. There is also a page about the web page that accompanies this book that you will most likely want to check out. I'm planning on using it.

The book is divided into ten chapters that focus on the basics for the serious searcher; directories and portals; the basics about search engines; more specifics about search engines; discussion groups, forums, newsgroups, and their relatives; an internet reference shelf; sights and sounds, or how to find images, audio and video; news resources; finding products online, and your own place on the web, participating and publishing. All of these chapters contain many websites and a lot of practical information regarding finding what you are looking for. There are so many different places to look for things, and this guide really does help you figure out the best places to look for what you need. In the back, there is a list of all the sites covered in the book, and if you visit the accompanying website, the links are provided there.

Easy enough for the novice, but with ideas that even experts may not know about, this book contains the information to make anyone an advanced expert at finding things on the internet, or in other words, an extreme searcher.

Alain Burrese, J.D. is a writer, speaker, and mediator who teaches how to live, take action, and get things done through the Warrior's Edge. He is an expert on conflict and mediates and teaches conflict resolution and negotiation. Additionally, he teaches physical conflict skills in his Hapkido and Self-Defense courses, lectures, and seminars. Alain is the author of Hard-Won Wisdom From The School Of Hard Knocks, the DVDs Hapkido Hoshinsul, Streetfighting Essentials, Hapkido Cane, the Lock On Joint Locking series, and numerous articles and reviews. You can read more articles and reviews and see clips of his DVDs as well as much more at http://www.burrese.com/ and http://www.yourwarriorsedge.com/

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