Your Body: The Missing Manual

The Missing Credits

About the Author

Matthew MacDonald is a science and technology writer with well over a dozen books to his name. He’s also the author of Your Brain: The Missing Manual, a quirky exploration into the odd and wondrous world of your squishy gray matter. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics.

About the Creative Team

Peter McKie(editor) is an editor at Missing Manuals. During the course of editing this book, he rejoined his gym, changed his eating habits, and started walking rather than riding (to the dismay of local cabbies, who have kids to put through college). He was graduated from Boston University’s School of Journalism and lives in New York City, where he works and researches the history of old houses and, every once in a while, sneaks into abandoned buildings. Email:[e-mail].

Nellie McKesson (production editor) lives in Brighton, Mass., where she spends her spare time (between working full time at O’Reilly and studying Graphic Design at MassArt) making t-shirts for friends (http://mattsaunders-bynellie.etsy.com). While working on this book, she took the plunge and went no-poo(it’s probably not what you think: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Go-No-Poo/). Email: [e-mail].

Patricia Clewell (copy editor) lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she works, makes mosaic art, and rides too many roller coasters with her 13-year-old son, Ben.

Jan Wright (indexer) lives in the mountains of New Mexico, and likes to ride an electric bike when she is not indexing, beading, or eating red chile. (http://www.wrightinformation.com/); email:[e-mail]).

Susan Allison (technical reviewer) completed a PhD at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, investigating novel neural mechanisms of bone formation. She then undertook postdoctoral research in the field of neurogenesis at the Stem Cell Center, Lund University Hospital, Sweden. She is currently an editor of a medical journal in London.

Garrett Hurst (technical reviewer) is a third-year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina. Raised in Columbia, South Carolina, he was graduated from Clemson University in 2006 with a BS degree in health science. He will graduate in 2011 with an MD degree and plans to pursue a career in the primary care field. Garrett has been involved in a variety of extracurricular service and social activities at MUSC, and in his free time he likes to play the piano, work on cars, and spend time with friends and family.

Acknowledgments

This is the part of the book that most readers skip on the road to the juicy stuff inside. If that describes you, thank you for buying the book, enjoy the trip, and please carry on without further delay.

If you’re still here (Hi, mom!), you’re probably one of the special few individuals who helped transform this book from unfocused inspiration into the odd little jewel that it is. Allow me to extend my thanks. For though I could have done it without you, the results would have been ugly. (Maybe not career-endingly ugly, but let’s just say the book wouldn’t feel out of place sitting between the professional-wrestler autobiographies and the Y2K remainder bin.)

The first in my long list of thanks goes to my dedicated reviewers, Susan Allison and Garrett Hurst, who offered helpful advice and worked industriously to catch my mistakes. Up next is my editor Peter McKie, who helped keep the schedule on track, and—on more than one occasion—climbed inside my head to help clarify a murky passage. Third, I extend a special thanks to the team of people who helped create the art for the book, including Joanna Lundeen, Belle Keller, Rob Romano, and all the talented artists atDartmouth Publishing. As you can see, the end result is art that has the perfect mix of simplicity, insight, and accuracy. I also owe thanks to Nellie McKesson, who headed production and is responsible for the slick integration of picture and print, and to everyone else who worked to get this book formatted, indexed, and printed. You can meet many of them of the Missing Credits page.

Lastly, I thank my family—particularly my parents, who were in charge of the care and feeding of my body for the first decade or two of my life (and who, in conjunction with my wife’s parents, are occasionally still responsible for it in the current day). I’m also eternally grateful for my wife Faria and my daughters Maya and Brenna, who worked tirelessly to devise ingenious ways to distract me when I should have been writing. My hope is that someday they’ll read this book, and reclaim some of the time it took from them.

—Matthew MacDonald

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; cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters); and RepKover, a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat without the assistance of weights or cinder blocks.

Recent and upcoming titles include:

Access 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein

AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink and David Reynolds

CSS: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Sawyer McFarland

Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

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

Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland

Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland

Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland

eBay: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

Excel 2003: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Excel 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

Facebook: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer

FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser

FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual by Susan Prosser and Geoff Coffey

Flash 8: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer

Flash CS3: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer and Chris Grover

Flash CS4: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover with E.A. Vander Veer

FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual by Jessica Mantaro

Google Apps: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

The Internet: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and J.D. Biersdorfer

iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

iMovie ’08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

iMovie ’09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Aaron Miller

iPhone: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue

iPhoto ’08: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

iPhoto ’09: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and J.D. Biersdorfer

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

JavaScript: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland

Living Green: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition y David Pogue

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition y David Pogue

Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Netbooks: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer

Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Mark H. Walker and Franklin Tessler

Office 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover, Matthew MacDonald, and E.A. Vander Vee

Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink

Palm Pre: The Missing Manual by Ed Baig

PCs: The Missing Manual by Andy Rathbone

Photoshop Elements 7: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage

PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer

QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner

QuickBooks 2009: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

QuickBooks 2010: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein

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

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton

Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue

Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, and Linda Zacker

Windows Vista: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

Your Brain: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald