The Take Control Of e-book guides are on sale through the end of the year, Dec. 31, at the company’s Web site. These are well-written, easily-search guides to all level of Mac use, including some aspects of Apple computing that a business operator can benefit from.

We’ve reviewed the guide for securing WiFi, for example, and invested in our own copies of the Snow Leopard guides (Upgrading, Exploring and Customizing the newest OS version), the AirPort networking guide (essential if you set up an office net without yards and yards and cables) and even something as complicated and powerful as permissions.

From that last guide I got a tip on FileExaminer, a dandy $10 utility that sets permissions on files so you can transfer music and photos from one system to another without the vexing “permissions not sufficient” error box.

Take Control guides are written by the staff of TidBits, one of the very best Mac resources online. Tonya and Adam Engst have run the company for years as man and wife, a combination that delivers a broader range of strategies.

The guides, delivered as PDF files, cost as little as $5 in the current 50 percent off sale. It’s hard to find a better value for training.

It’s easy to forget how many strides Apple made since the Year 2000 to become a force in computing. This article from TechRadar.com sums up the magic, from the iPod to embracing Unix as the new Mac OS X to those stores jammed with customers for advice, repair and business counseling.

Here in Austin on Dec. 26, the busiest day of the retail year, the Apple store in The Domain retail village (shown at left) was buzzing with customers. I visited a handful of shops in this retail mecca and Apple’s was busiest. So busy, in fact, that the crowds were overwhelming the network that could connect them to schedules of free workshops and training. Of course, that mob at the end of the store might have been bringing in holiday gifts for the Geniuses to repair, or just getting on-the-spot training on a new tool. Or just asking why they couldn’t discover when the store’s network was going to be back up. In a legendary episode from the series Californication, our hero Hank writes his first paid blog entry from an Apple store and posts it.

The Apple Stores have their shortcomings — the red-shirted floor staff is wildly uneven in its expertise about the Mac line — but these places are a hub of face to face advice and counsel. One such overlooked resource is the One to One training, a year of lessons available for $99 that entitles you to a one-on-one session of an hour per week. It’s a great way to go deeper on an Apple solution, especially something like Numbers, Pages, or iPhoto, the software that Apple makes and nobody else seems to know how to teach.

One to One has its own limits, too, such as scheduling: the Apple Concierge Web site won’t let you book more than one session in advance. But even if you only used 10 visits out of 52 weeks, this would be a $9.90 consult. You can even bring your own laptop to train, and so take away more than just learning. You can finish a production.

The Mac is more self-maintaining than other business computers. A big reason for this is Apple’s user interface design. So much of what makes your Unix-based system hum along is gracefully hidden from you. Some call this Apple’s passion to control your experience. You can also consider it a blessed delivery from the constant scrubbing Windows seems to demand.

On the other hand, system maintenance is a means to get more out of the Mac investment. This week Koingo Software is offering MacPilot Lite as a free download to users who’ve purchased Koingo software in the past. The full version of MacPilot is also on sale in an Essentials Bundle (along with three other tools such as the nifty Alarm Clock Pro) — and it’s worth the space in your system administrator’s toolbox

Yes, you are the system administrator of your Mac. While your expertise is probably in creating a product, delivering a service or managing a business, a small office or single-proprietor business usually has someone to manage computers: You. So as a present to yourself for the coming business year, a tool like MacPilot or Onyx (a free tool) is a worthy investment.

Koingo sells MacPilot as competing product to the free Onyx, so MacPilot has got to work harder. Koingo explains that MacPilot can

Optimize your network for broadband connectivity, completely customize Apple File Sharing, perform essential maintenance without having to remember mind-boggling acronyms, and much more. However, those are just a few of the many reasons why MacPilot is your choice over Cocktail, TinkerTool and Onyx!

There’s a deep feature list for MacPilot along with a free 15-day trial of the full product. The longer you use a Mac for your business, the more you’re likely to appreciate the facets of file-sharing in your office network or getting the most out of your broadband connection. The Mac OS is deep and can be fine-tuned to return the best value for time spent at your keyboard and mouse. But Unix, the core of Mac OS, is arcane and byzantine. Something like one of these tools is like having the teacher’s version of the Unix textbook, with answers in the back, sitting on your work desk. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Windows software on a Mac is as simple as installing one of three tools: Nova Development’s Parallels, VMWare’s Fusion, or Apple’s Boot Camp. But of these three, only Parallels and Fusion supply the essential anti-viral component that every Windows installation requires.

This month I’ve installed the latest Version 5 of Parallels, as well as a trial copy of Fusion 3, on the Mac I use as a test system. (It’s a Mini with 3GB of memory, one that accesses the Internet though a wireless network port, since the Mini comes with a built-in Airport card. The 3GB is essential, since these Windows emulators suck up memory.) I can report the Fusion installation is smoother and tinkers less with a Mac’s user environment. Fusion uses McAfee anti-virus software, quite the brand name among Windows users. Parallels replies on the Kapersky Anti-Virus suite. Parallels seems to offer a half-dozen ways of using Windows alongside your Mac environment, but this slight of hand goes so far as to install folders on your Dock to speed up access to Windows programs. This trick erased a couple of useful Dock icons for my databases on the Mac side, demonstrating that Parallels Version 5 is like so many other versions of the software: buggy, with lots of fixes (long downloads) needed for stability.

Another thing that gets tricky about using these products is the constant updating that Windows users endure. Microsoft seems to add patches on a weekly basis to Windows (I use XP Home, very affordable) — so if your Windows use is infrequent, every startup of these environments will include downloads and restarts to get Windows into a secure state.

The anti-viral tools need their own updates religiously, too. This is a separate set of updates. In my tests I’ve found there’s an order to be recognized here: get the anit-virals updated first, even though Windows will ask you to restart itself before the anti-virals get their updates downloaded.

The process of running Windows on a Mac, essential for any programs you may need for your business that don’t have Mac versions, is an eye-opener about security. Don’t believe the Apple commercials about viruses, no matter how entertaining they are: Macs run on a variant of Unix, an operating system with plenty of security holes. Visiting the Windows world with Parallels or Fusion makes you aware how lucky we Mac users are, simply because there are fewer of us. We present a smaller target to the virus hackers, so we enjoy Security by Obscurity. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple has an important Software Update for its users who employ Java in their businesses. Like it or not, that’s everyone who’s reading this. Java is endemic in the Web experience, with Java scripts and “applets” being launched many times you visit Web pages.

This security update closes a hole that permits hackers and spammers to take control of your Internet feed — turning your Mac into a drone for the transmission of spam and other communication you’d rather not be associated with.

Simply run Software Update and accept the upgraded Java file that Apple recommends. It’s a big one at 85 MB, but essential to maintaining control of your system. Apple released the patch on Friday (December 4), so it’s recent. And needed.