Wiley Publishing thinks that you can, running into Apple Mac territory with its training book Teach Yourself Visually: Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The book series that promises you can “Read Less – Learn More” unspools more than 300 full-color pages of instruction on the full range of everyday use of the Mac’s latest operating system release.

If you haven’t seen one of these books, it may not be easy to describe how much color and how many screen shots prance across the pages. This is a book for the switcher who’s moved from a business Windows system to the simplicity of the Mac — or a more advanced user who needs a quick refresher and can just scan a picture to recall how to reset a forgotten password.

The emphasis here is on the complete set of computing tasks at an everyday level. Using the Dock, entering a Web address into Safari, composing email in Mail, locating files you’ve downloaded from the Web: it’s all shown screen by screen in Paul McFriederies’ book. The lessons are broken down into two-page spreads with alternative methods for some tasks, such as uninstalling applications or customizing the Dock. Read the rest of this entry »