The title of this CD probably says it all. Discovering an aspect of your Mac that has huge potential to help you in your every day work on a Mac...all packaged up in a QuickTime movie. Quite a long and comprehensive QuickTime movie I hasten to add.

Discover Your Mac (www.discoveryourmac.com ) bill the CD as "a comprehensive video guide to learning and using Spotlight " and they are certainly not wrong...although at 2 hours and 50 minutes, you're probably wishing it wasn't as comprehensive as it is.

Review
Installation & Documentation
Ease of use
Value for money
Price approx.	$29.99 USD + shipping
Software/Hardware Requirements	QuickTime 7 or 6.5 1024 x 768 screen resolution Spotlight is a Mac OS X 10.4 technology. In order to use any tips shown, Mac OS X 10.4.2 is needed. The Table of Contents viewer requires OS X 10.4.2+
Available from	www.discoveryourmac.com

The CD-ROM is easy to run. Your insert it into your Mac and it contains a brief 2 page "Read Me" PDF, one QuickTime movie (527 MB in size if you want to copy it to your Hard drive) and a "Table of Contents Viewer" that when you open, provides a list of the contents of the movie file and a "Play" button to jump to that chapter in the movie.

Indeed "Chapter" is a good way to describe how the movie file has been set up. Using markers embedded in the QuickTime movie (a technology sadly used by few people), you're able to select chapters or sections to jump to (particularly handy if you've copied the file to your Hard Drive) and view that section. As a side note, you might be asking about the "Contents viewer" on the CD...which in fact is just an application that picks up the markers from the movie file and displays them.

The CD is very easy to control. Anyone who knows how to open and play QuickTime movies will find the navigation easy and for beginners, it is a simple process to learn.

Spotlight is an interesting technology and the CD provides a detailed overview of every way in which it can be used. I would find it hard to believe that there is anything about Spotlight that isn't discussed on this CD.

What you may not be aware of is how much Spotlight is integrated into the Mac operating system and into other applications. The CD goes in-depth into these other Apple applications (for example, iPhoto, Mail and the Address book) and shows you how you can take advantage of the power of Spotlight both within the programs and how Spotlight still integrates with them when they are closed and you're searching your Mac using Spotlight.

The CD production is exceptional and everything discussed in the commentary is indicated in visual and graphics that inform and educate at the same time. It is evident that that a lot of attention has been put in to truly showing the power of Spotlight in action. I have no doubt that hours were spent writing the script, preparing the demo Mac shown and editing the movie...it's that brilliantly put together.

That said, I would have two criticisms about the CD and the fact it is so comprehensive. Both these criticisms are really something that impact on the length of the CD:

• It seems funny (as an ex-teacher) to be criticising the CD for an approach that basically:
  
  
  • Explained what was about to be taught
  • Showed you an aspect of Spotlight in action
  • Reminded you of what you had just been shown
    
    ...but it got to the point for me that this process what far, far, too repetitive. Even breaking up the viewing of the CD over a number of days, I did get close to the point of saying "Enough already!...Move on!". I can't criticise the technique, but it was used so repetitively that it started to really get to me....particularly when we were reminded of things we had learnt back in previous sections.
    
    
• The pace. Beautifully presented, animated and with a wonderful commentary...I just wish it was a little faster. The CD felt slow. Whether that was as a result of my previous point or not, close to 3 hours about one topic is a lot of watching.

I was thoroughly impressed with the CD and the detail it went into (have I said "comprehensive" enough?) about a subject which frankly didn't really interest me.

Does Spotlight interest me now? Absolutely? Did I learn a few things that I didn't know? Most definitely. Was it worth the 2 hours and 50 minutes of watching? Ahem...I haven't quite finished watching it all I admit...it is long and I needed breaks.

I guess what I'm really looking forward to is future CDs from the "Discover Your Mac" series. This company really knows Macs....and one suggestion to them would be to perhaps bundle 2 or 3 technologies into one CD (for example "Get to know Spotlight and Automator")...but keeping it all under about 150 minutes max, ok?

One day when they bring out a "Best of" CD, featuring all their great tips, I'll most definitely be buying. Until then, if you're obsessed by Spotlight or want to be, this is an ideal purchase to learn all you need to know.

This review is based in part on an incomplete review submission by Thomas Holt.

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