Another cool Take Control eBook (a PDF file you pay for, then download and either read on your screen or print out) is this guide to troubleshooting.

As Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac by Joe Kissell points out, problems with Macs are more unlikely than they are with PCS, but no one wants to feel powerless if disaster does strike. Kissel knows just what he’s talking about too; he’s senior editor of the excellent TidBits weekly subscriber electronic newsletter that Miraz Jordan put me onto a couple of years ago.

This eBook goes through how to safeguard against problems (surge protectors, backups, keep your software up-to-date etc) and then goes into what to do when all else fails. It’s actually designed as something to refer to when you need it, the only problem being, with only one Mac, any computer problem may mean you can’t read an eBook on it because of the damage … so either printing it out or saving it to a CD you can stash might be a great idea, especially since PDFs can be read on Macs or PCs.

You are told how to prepare for an emergency (how to create a secondary startup volume) and what diagnostic/repair software is worth considering. It also tells you how to set up a second user account on your Mac – Kissel recommends setting up another account solely for troubleshooting. That way, when a problem arises, you just switch to the other account, which will have default settings for everything, and see whether the problem still occurs.

This is all good, practical, usable advice and while some may be of no surprise to experienced users, if you’re new to Mac it’s priceless information.

Then the book runs through restarting, forced restarts, starting from alternative volumes and how to use the disk repair utilities previously mentioned, including Apple’s free Disk Utility. You’re instructed how to start up in Safe Mode, which boots up the Mac raw with no start-up codes loaded (good for figuring out where the root of the problem may be).

Soon you’ll be acting like a pro and running all the routines service people run when you drop your precious Mac off – resetting your PMU, SMU, SMC, NVRAM, or PRAM. And learning what those acronyms stand for and what resetting them actually means.

Troubleshooting also tells you a little more about the mysterious utilities Apple puts into your Utilities folder (it’s in Applications). This brief includes Activity Monitor, how to check and analyse your Log Files in Console and more. There are also links to handy software tools you can download for free (like WhatSize, which finds big files you may wish to delete).

There’s even a chapter called Troubleshoot Novel Problems (no, it’s not for librarians) that covers how to deal with odd and unexpected occurrences.

Conclusion: this eBook contains a hell of a lot of information for $10US (about $14.50). Seriously, I thought it would be much lighter than it was. It’s actually pretty much indispensable. Well done, Joe Kissel and Take Control, I say.

What’s new: great strategies for non-geeks to help them deal with almost any Mac problem

What’s great: it’s not long but it’s easy to read and packed with information

What’s not: nothing is not great, but it would pay to keep a copy on a flash drive, a CD or printed and filed in case your Mac dies and your only copy of this indispensable eBook is on it.

Would I buy it? Absolutely.

Looks: 9/10

Usability: 9/10

Value for money: 10/10

> Take Control of Mac OS X Troubleshooting, c$14.50 (US$10)

Description: 86 page pdf eBook

Contact: buy it online from Take Control Books.