Although the Web has plenty of free articles about how to use your Mac, iPhone, and other Apple devices, these articles are often too short to explain a complex topic. The Take Control series solves this problem by providing book-length information — at least 80 pages and usually quite a bit more. Take Control books are free of ads and won’t autoplay videos or pop up intrusive messages.
Whether you’ve always wanted to try a Take Control title or you already own dozens and want more, you can shop in Take Control’s 50%-off Customer Appreciation Sale this week. The sale has already begun and runs through 14 April 2018.
(Remember, Adam and I sold Take Control to Joe Kissell almost a year ago and for us to receive the full sale price, Take Control needs to remain successful — see “Take Control Books Acquired by Joe Kissell,” 1 May 2017.)
Among the ebooks that are especially worth a look is my own Take Control of Mac Basics. I was pleased to hear from readers that they’ve been surprised at how much they learned from it, such as how to view System Preferences alphabetically and how to retrieve an old copy of a document with Versioning. It even comes with a video of me demoing usage techniques, with a focus on avoiding interface annoyances.
I also recommend you check out Take Control of Home Automation, by TidBITS managing editor Josh Centers. Josh’s book includes topics like “Understand What Home Kit Does,” “Choose Your First Accessories,” and “Plan Automations Carefully.” You’ll also find out why he recommends against using a smart lock.
My final pick is Joe Kissell’s Take Control of 1Password. Using a password manager effectively has become an essential skill in today’s world, and Joe’s book demystifies the popular 1Password utility and service, making it possible for you to have better passwords without a lot of bother.
In Firefox, the Take Control images don’t seem to be clickable to take you to the Take Control site - which would seem to be a threshold folks will trip over when trying to go to Take Control to buy a book - and you clearly indicate you want folks to buy books from Joe Kissell. Am I missing something?
Nope, you’re not missing anything. I thought I could make the covers clickable, but we had never done that before in the new system. It turns out that a custom URL for an image fights with the code that expands images on click. I’ll file a bug report on this and we’ll get it fixed. (And it’s worth noting that images were never linkable in our previous site.)
The customer appreciation week discount prompted me to take the opportunity to place a gift order for a friend who’s in the process of converting to the Mac. Thanks a bunch, I’m sure he’ll find the read enjoyable and informative.