Important topics covered include:

• Where your fonts reside and in what order they load, and what - if anything - you should do about it
• The ins and outs of different font installation methods
• Using Font Book to manage, validate, and organize fonts
• Making the most of character-rich Unicode fonts
• Using Apple's Character Palette/Viewer and Keyboard Viewer to insert and explore special characters
• The quirks of fonts from Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008, and which ones you should keep around
• Organizing fonts from Adobe CS2, CS3, CS4, and CS5 so they are available where you need them

The ebook costs $15 and includes a coupon worth 20% off on any purchase from Ergonis Software, makers of the font utility PopChar X and other software.

Buy Take Control of Fonts in Snow Leopard

If your tags for foreign language music are not legible, it is probably because they are in the wrong encoding. iTunes requires Unicode, while sometimes music files come with tags in older, legacy encodings. You could re-enter the tags manually, but two apps that can help fix them are—Unicode Rewriter and ID3Mod.

Buy Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ

• See a list of - and re-download - all the ebooks that you've purchased, as well as any free updates. No more worrying about losing them!

• From an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, you can log in to the mobile version of your account, which has different options. Use it to read your ebook PDFs either in Safari or in the GoodReader app ($0.99). Once you've opened an ebook in Safari, if you are running iOS 4, you can open it in iBooks, too.

• Quickly determine if there are upgrade discounts for newer editions of ebooks you currently own. (But stay tuned, because we'll be starting a sale shortly and sales are a great way to pick up a bunch of updates efficiently.)

• For recent books, download EPUB and Mobipocket versions for use with ebook readers. We recommend PDF for the iPad, EPUB for the iPhone, and Mobipocket for the Kindle.

• Link multiple email addresses to your Take Control account, so orders from all of them appear in your library. If you received several copies of our welcome message at different addresses, that's an indication that you have multiple accounts that are ripe for merging in this fashion.

• Set the email address that receives Take Control-related email from us. For example, you'll receive our upcoming sale announcement at that address, if your Contact Me setting is set to Yes.

• Throughout the site, see which ebooks you own and which you're eligible to buy at a discount.

Finally, the new system enables us to send email in a more-targeted fashion (by book, edition, and date), which should significantly reduce duplicate or unnecessary messages.

To get started, you need to set up a password. (Passwords are encrypted in our system, so we can't just send one to you.)

Here's how to get your password and log in:

1. Go to the Forgot Password page.

2. Enter your email address, and click the Send Password Reset Instructions button. You'll receive an email message asking you to click a Web URL. If the message doesn't arrive, check your spam filters!

3. In the email message, click the URL. You'll get a second email message, this one containing your password.

4. Copy the password from the second email message.

5. Back on the Take Control site, click the Log In link in the top orange navigation bar on any page and, in the drop-down form, enter your email address and paste the password. (You can set a more memorable password later, so don't bother saving this one in your keychain or browser.) Your Take Control Account page appears, showing your purchased books in the Library tab.

Now, you can start taking advantage of your account! If you like to follow directions, click the Help tab, scroll down a short way, and work your way through the directions titled "What to Do after Your First Login." After that, keep reading in "How to Use Your Account."

Otherwise, here's an overview of what you can do:

• Change your password and real name (which was picked up from your order information). Click the Profile tab, and enter a new name and/or password, and paste your temporary password into the Current Password field before clicking the Update Profile button. (Changing your password requires logging in again.)

• If you want to be alerted to ebook updates, new books, and our sales, make sure you'll receive email from us. On your Profile tab, ensure that the Contact Me pop-up menu is set to Yes. (You'll need to enter your password and click Update Profile after changing it.)

• Associate additional email addresses with your account. If you have ordered books using different email addresses, you have multiple accounts in our system. To merge all your ebooks into one account, you need to link orders made using different email addresses together. In the "Email Addresses Used for Orders" section, at the bottom of the Profile tab, enter an address you used - or might use in the future - and click Add Email. You'll receive an email confirmation of this with a code to paste into the Authorization Code field that appears. You can repeat this process for additional email addresses. If you cannot receive email at an old address, contact us with your full name and the old address and we'll add it for you.

• Once you've associated multiple addresses with your account, you can select which one you want to receive Take Control-related mail using the Email pop-up menu at the top of the Profile tab. (You'll need to enter your password and click Update Profile after changing it.)

• Back in the Library tab, see what ebooks you own. If a bunch of ebooks appear to be missing, you probably bought them with a different email address (see above for how to link additional addresses with your account). Note that if you are logged in and you click the Check for Updates button on the cover of any Take Control ebook PDF, the system adds that ebook to your account. Cool, eh?

• If you've logged in from an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, the mobile version of the Library tab has different options. You can read your ebooks in Safari or download them directly into GoodReader. (We recommend GoodReader for reading PDFs on an iOS device. It's far more capable than iBooks or Safari.)

• If you've logged in from a laptop or desktop computer, read the bullet list at the top of the Library tab, which explains the links in the Free Download, Paid Upgrade, Special Offers, and Alternative Formats columns. Notice that you can scan the list to figure out which ebooks have free updates (and download those updates) and to determine if any have new editions available for purchasing. (If you have many titles in your library, note that adding library management features is on our to-do list!)

• If you shop for more ebooks (click the Catalog or Home links on the navigation bar, or use the pop-up menu on the navigation bar), notice that if you already own an ebook, you are told that you do. Also, you may see upgrade offers or special pricing based on ebooks that you already own. (As always, note that our cart can handle only one bundle/discount/coupon per order.)

• If you get stuck, click the Help tab (adjacent to your Profile tab) and read the directions there, especially in the third topic down - "What to Do after Your First Login" and the next topic after that - "How to Use Your Account." Of course, if the Help isn't helping, send us email and we'll see what we can do.

A big thank you to everyone who has helped us get this far with the account management system! Whether you requested a feature that we've now implemented, given us feedback on the beta version of your account, or simply bought an ebook (all ebook sales help to fund development), you've contributed to improving the back-end systems that power the Take Control series.

Buy Take Control of Media on Your iPad

All this is fantastic, and if I may say so, long overdue. Of course, it also means I'll have to completely revise my Calendar coverage in Take Control of MobileMe, so the update I've been working on will take a bit longer than I previously thought.

To participate in the beta program (no word yet on when the service will officially roll out for all users), log in to your account at http://www.me.com/calendar and click the Request an Invitation link in the lower left corner. Then wait; Apple may take days or weeks to process your invitation. (I requested mine within 12 hours of the announcement, and I haven't received my invitation yet, although Dan Frakes, who edits the book, has received his.)

But beware: during the beta period, some features are missing and others are incomplete, so switching to the new calendar in its current state may cause some problems while causing others. Read all about the service's features and requirements in Apple's FAQ, and also be sure to read the known issues page.

Buy Take Control of MobileMe

The mobile version may have more to do clashing titans of the tech industry (YouTube's parent company is Google) than with user's needs, but it certainly offers another option for viewing YouTube videos.

If you like the mobile site and want to view it quickly from your Home screen, you can make a "Web clip" of the site: Go to the site in Safari, tap the plus (+) button on the toolbar, and then Tap Add to Home Screen. Then, name the clip and tap the Add button. Your device will switch to the Home screen and show an icon for the clip you created. Tap the icon to quickly return to the mobile YouTube site.

If you'd like to read more about the mobile YouTube site, here are two good resources:

• Google Makes the iPhone YouTube App Obsolete (New York Times Bits blog)

• YouTube Mobile Site Trumps Dedicated iPhone App (PCWorld)

The site is currently in English only, but localized versions are expected.

Buy Take Control of iPhone OS 3

The mobile version may have more to do clashing titans of the tech industry (YouTube's parent company is Google) than with user's needs, but it certainly offers iPad users another option for viewing YouTube videos.

If you like the mobile site and want to view it quickly from your Home screen, you can make a "Web clip" of the site: Go to the site in Safari, tap the plus (+) button on the toolbar, and then Tap Add to Home Screen. Then, name the clip and tap the Add button. The iPad will respond by switching to the Home screen and showing an icon for the clip you created. Tap the icon to quickly return to the mobile YouTube site.

If you'd like to read more about the mobile YouTube site, here are two good resources:

• Google Makes the iPhone YouTube App Obsolete (New York Times Bits blog)

• YouTube Mobile Site Trumps Dedicated iPhone App (PCWorld)

The site is currently in English only, but localized versions are expected.

Buy Take Control of iPad Basics

Apple may issue a software fix. Meanwhile, two workarounds are available:

• Click in the message's body, and then choose Format > Make Plain Text.
• But, if your message contains any links, try this: Click in the message's body, and then choose Edit > Select All. Choose Edit > Cut. Press the Delete key to clear any remaining characters. Finally, choose Edit > Paste and Match Style.

For full information see Apple's description of the problem and its fix.

Buy Take Control of Apple Mail in Snow Leopard

Buy Take Control of Your iPhone Apps

Apple also updated several aspects of the me.com Web site, including a few tweaks to the Find My iPhone Web app. The overall look-and-feel of the Web app and the mobile app is the same.

Buy Take Control of MobileMe