The Missing Credits

About the Author

image with no caption

Peter Meyers designs, speaks, and writes about digital books. Currently he’s vice president of editorial and content innovation at Citia (http://citia.com), an incredibly cool publishing startup. For more than two decades, he’s worked at the intersection of writing and technology. He cofounded Digital Learning Interactive, a pioneering multimedia textbook publisher (sold in 2004 to Thomson Learning). Peter has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Salon, and the Village Voice. During a five-year tour of duty at O’Reilly Media, he worked in the Missing Manual group, serving as managing editor and associate publisher. He’s also the author of Best iPad Apps and Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience. Peter’s undergraduate degree is from Harvard, where he studied American history and literature, and he has an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives with his wife and two daughters in “upstate Manhattan” (aka Washington Heights). Online, you can find his blog at http://newkindofbook.com and his tweets at http://twitter.com/petermeyers.

About the Creative Team

Nan Barber (editor) has been working with the Missing Manual series since its inception. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, a variety of electronic gadgets, and a stack of dictionaries. Email: .

Holly Bauer (production editor) resides in Ye Olde Cambridge, Mass. She’s a production editor by day and an avid home cook, prolific DIYer, and mid-century modern furniture enthusiast by night/weekend. Email:

Carla Spoon (proofreader) is a freelance writer and copyeditor. An avid runner, she works and feeds her tech gadget addiction from her home office in the shadow of Mount Rainier. Email: .

Ron Strauss (indexer) specializes in the indexing of information technology publications of all kinds. He is also an accomplished classical violist and lives in northern California with his wife and fellow indexer, Annie, and his miniature pinscher, Kanga. Email: .

Yvonne Mills (technical reviewer) is a writer, blogger, and gadget addicted she-geek. She is equally comfortable in the corporate world as she is blogging from within a fort made out of her extensive tablet collection. Follow her musings at www.acerbicblonde.com.

Acknowledgments

The Missing Manual series doesn’t accept ads, but I can’t resist kicking these thanks off with an uncompensated word of gratitude to the makers of Cafe du Monde. Friends, this is some writing-friendly coffee! For a book that was largely written in the wee hours of the day, this caffeinated support was crucial. In the department of humans that helped, Brian Sawyer gave me the green light on the initial version of this project, and to him I remain thankful. At Amazon, Leslie Letts and Amir Pellig were patient, valuable guides to the Fire. They answered many questions that I would have had to spend hours hunting down on my own. On a related note, technical reviewer Yvonne Mills did a thorough job of spotting missing or confusing explanations; she also added a number of great suggestions. Indexer Ron Strauss put together the subject finder at the back of this book; as a huge fan of that overlooked art, I wanted to say thanks for doing such a great job on that front. What this book contains, of course, is more than just words, and for the finely polished images and labels I wanted to tip my hat to Rebecca Demarest. Equally important is Holly Bauer’s work; each page layout is a beautifully crafted combo of words and pictures thanks to her fine interior design skills. Speaking of prose: My editor Nan Barber has demonstrated why she belongs in the Missing Manual Hall of Fame; thanks to her, with ample help from proofreader Carla Spoon, lots o’ flab and fuzzy verbiage got trimmed and clarified.

On the home front, this writing project couldn’t have happened—and wouldn’t be worth doing—without the help of my three favorite touchscreen fanatics. Willa, I hereby award you the Ms. Junior Cryptographer Award, for youngest-ever cracker of Mom and Dad’s security code. Esme, you are now platinum-certified on every version of Toca Boca ever invented. Here’s to many more joint sketching sessions!

And to my darling Lisa: I am grateful to you especially for enduring my annual fall book-writing ritual. For your extra-innings childcare work, your above-and-beyond-the-call wifely support, and your heapings of multi-gigabyte love, I hereby pledge that I will figure out a way to write faster!

—Peter Meyers

The Missing Manual Series

Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a handcrafted index and cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters). Recent and upcoming titles include:

Access 2010: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Access 2013: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

Buying a Home: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition, by Matthew MacDonald

CSS3: The Missing Manual, Third Edition, by David Sawyer McFarland

David Pogue’s Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Dreamweaver CS6: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland

Droid 2: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Droid X2: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Excel 2010: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Excel 2013: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Facebook: The Missing Manual, Third Edition by E. A. Vander Veer

FileMaker Pro 12: The Missing Manual by Susan Prosser and Stuart Gripman

Flash CS6: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

Galaxy S II: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Galaxy Tab: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Google+: The Missing Manual by Kevin Purdy

Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

HTML5: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

iMovie ’11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Aaron Miller

iPad: The Missing Manual, Fifth Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer

iPhone: The Missing Manual, Sixth Edition by David Pogue

iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual by Craig Hockenberry

iPhoto ’11: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Lesa Snider

iPod: The Missing Manual, Eleventh Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue

JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Sawyer McFarland

Living Green: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Motorola Xoom: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Netbooks: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer

NOOK Tablet: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

Office 2010: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner, Chris Grover, and Matthew MacDonald

Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

Office 2013: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner and Matthew MacDonald

OS X Mountain Lion: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Personal Investing: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Photoshop CS6: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider

Photoshop Elements 10: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage

PHP & MySQL: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Brett McLaughlin

QuickBooks 2013: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition by David Pogue

Windows 7: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Windows 8: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Your Body: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Your Brain: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Your Money: The Missing Manual by J.D. Roth

For a full list of all Missing Manuals in print, go to www.missingmanuals.com/library.html.

Get Kindle Fire HD: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.