你们中的许多人可能听说过Google+（“ Google Plus ”），这是一个相对较新的社交网站(networking site)。人们经常通过将其与Facebook 和 LinkedIn(Facebook and LinkedIn)等其他网站进行比较来描述它，但Google+有它自己的个性。与许多社交网站(networking site)一样，Google+没有附带使用说明书(instruction manual)，而且它有很多功能可能不是很直观，很难理解。进入(Enter)前Lifehacker 编辑(Lifehacker editor) Kevin Purdy，使用Google+ The Missing Manual。作为一个相当新的Google+我很想看看这本书是否能帮助我更好地理解它。
披露：我在(Disclosure:)Lifehacker实习了三个月，而Kevin是那里的编辑之一。
注意：(NOTE:) Google+最近更改了其界面外观，因此书中的插图可能与屏幕上的不符。我不关心这一点，但这本书是否有助于解释服务是如何工作的。
从头开始总是好的
这本书一开始就对Google+是什么和不是什么做了很好的清晰解释。了解你正在处理的事情通常是成功的关键，这本书让读者很快就踏上了坚实的基础。我很惊讶地看到Google+对不同浏览器的反应不同。虽然我预计Google Chrome会受到青睐，但(Google Chrome)Internet Explorer有时不会显示相同的功能集这一事实令人惊讶。这一点并不明显，这也是Missing Manual 系列(Missing Manual series)如此成功的另一个原因。每样东西都有很多清晰多彩的插图，我一直认为这是一个加分项。
读者无需拥有Google 帐户(Google account)即可；说明包括设置一个。对流程的每个步骤都进行了解释，并讨论了您可能希望也可能不希望在您的帐户中包含的Google+这是另一个值得花时间阅读的手册来解释事物的地方。（任何(Anyone)读过我书评的人都知道我是多么喜欢阅读手册。）
让Google+ shine（按照自己的方式做事）
Google+最有用的功能之一就是他们所说的圈子(Circles)。圈子有点像类固醇的联系人管理器。(contact manager)您完全可以控制哪些人从您那里获得哪些信息，并且您可以比在许多其他社交媒体网站上更快、更有效地做到这一点。Google+ The Missing Manual圈子(Circles)背后的原因，以及您可能希望将联系人列表中的人员分组的方式，以及您可以设置每个圈子(Circle)的方式，以便分配给它的人只能看到什么你想让他们看到。许多(Many)我们中的一些人写了我们不一定希望每个人都看到的东西，并且一键式简单地将联系人分配到他们自己的圈子(Circle)中，这样他们在阅读您所做的事情时就不会从椅子上摔下来。对于如何从其他站点和其他设备（例如您的手机或平板电脑(phone or tablet)）导入联系人列表，还有一个很好的清晰解释，并且无需大惊小怪(fuss and bother)。曾经努力弄清楚如何让我的 iPod Touch中的联系人列表与我的(Touch)Google 联系人(Contacts)同步，我希望两年前当我试图理解不是很有帮助的帮助文件时，我能得到这些说明。尽管我一直在使用Google+几个月来，我不知道你第一次去那里时看到的东西叫做你的Stream。书中的插图显示了一个示例页面，它的顶部确实有Stream，但新界面看起来不像那样。（这是我不知道的借口，我坚持下去。）现在我不仅知道正确的术语，我还知道更多自定义Stream的方法，所以我知道我最感兴趣的是什么。我已经注意到Stream并不总是按时间顺序排列，但还没有弄清楚到底发生了什么。Google+ The Missing Manual解释了为什么会这样。有很多说明（带有示例和插图）来解释如何将内容发布到您的流(Stream)以及如何选择您圈子中的哪些人会看到您的帖子。
你好是我
在通知方面，我认为没有任何两个人是相似的。有些人想知道每条消息何时到达，有些人不想被打扰，期间，大多数人介于两个极端之间。Google+可让您完全按照自己的方式设置通知，这几乎是每个人都可以欣赏的。Google+ The Missing Manual再次提供了说明，应该使几乎每个人的过程更容易。（猜猜(Guess)看，我也不知道有通知流(Notifications Stream)！）读者可以快速学习如何设置聊天以及直接从Google+发送和接收(send and receive) SMS 文本消息(SMS text). 还有一个很棒的部分解释了如何共享和标记照片(share and tag photos)和视频，甚至在发布后对其进行编辑。
聚会
Google+的另一个不错的功能是他们所说的环聊(Hangouts)。像我这样的老前辈认为环聊(Hangout)只是“聊天室”的另一个名称，但环聊(Hangout)比过去的聊天室要好得多。再次在这里，有关于设置所有内容的全面说明，包括您想要包括的人，并确保您的设备正常工作。本书前面对移动应用程序的简要说明在最后用一整章进行了更详细的解释。它涵盖 iOS 和Android手机和平板电脑，还提供了使用Google+在既不使用这些系统的设备上（通过使用设备的内置浏览器）。Google+ mobile拒之门外的人来说非常有用，因为他们还没有iOS 或 Android 设备(iOS or Android device)（比如我）。
播放时间
Google+ The Missing Manual以关于玩游戏的章节结束。有相当多的游戏可供选择，未来肯定会有更多。有些游戏需要您提供的信息比您可能愿意分享的更多，很高兴看到有关此的警告。有些游戏旨在与其他人（您可以与他们分享邀请）一起玩，而有些游戏是单人游戏。由于游戏格局(game landscape)可能会迅速变化，因此本章仅给出一个概述，并邀请读者在有兴趣的情况下尝试其中的一些游戏。
把它包起来
我希望在我刚开始探索Google+时就拥有这本书。并非所有关于它的内容都是直观的，也并非所有内容都在帮助(Help)中得到了很好的解释。本书旨在帮助读者(reader feel)轻松掌握每个功能，并且解释清晰全面。色彩丰富的插图是一个加分项，我敢肯定书中有几乎每个人都没有发现的Google+这是一个赢家。
判决
Google+感兴趣的人，从新手到有经验的用户。它以简单的对话风格几乎涵盖了任何人(everything anyone)想知道的所有内容。它旨在让您快速启动并运行，然后解释许多人想要探索的更高级的功能。我已经了解了一些我以前没见过的东西，我把它放在附近以备将来参考。
Book Review - Google+ The Missing Manual
Many of you may have heаrd about Google+ ("Googlе Plus"), a relatively new sociаl networking site. People often describe it by сomparing it to оther sіtes like Facebook and LinkedIn, but Google+ hаs a personality all its own. Like many social networking sites, Google+ doesn't come with an instruction manual, and it has a lot of features that may not be intuitive to figure out. Enter former Lifehacker editor Kevin Purdy, with Google+ The Missing Manual. As a fairly new user of Google+ I was very interested to see if this book would help me understand it better.
Disclosure: I was an intern for Lifehacker for three months while Kevin was one of the editors there.
NOTE: Google+ recently changed the look of its interface, so the illustrations in the book may not match what's on the screen. I'm not concerned with that, but whether the book helps explain how the service works.
Beginning at the beginning is always good
The book starts out with a nice clear explanation of what Google+ is and is not. Getting an understanding of what you're dealing with is often the key to success, and this book gets the reader onto solid ground quickly. I was surprised to see that Google+ reacts differently with different browsers. While I expected Google Chrome to be favored, the fact that Internet Explorer sometimes doesn't display the same set of features came as a surprise. This is something that would not be obvious, and it's another reason why the Missing Manual series is so successful. There are plenty of clear and colorful illustrations for everything, which I always think is a plus.
The reader does not have to have a Google account to begin with; the instructions include setting one up. Each step of the process is explained, with discussions of what features Google+ offers that you may and may not want to include on your account. This is another place where having a manual to explain things is well worth the time it takes to read it. (Anyone who's read my book reviews knows how genuinely fond I am of reading manuals.)
Making Google+ shine (and do things your way)
One of Google+'s most useful features is what they call Circles. Circles are kind of like a contact manager on steroids. You're fully in control of which people get which information from you, and you can do this much faster and more efficiently than on many other social media sites. Google+ The Missing Manual walks you through the reasoning behind Circles, and the ways in which you might want to group the people on your contact list, and the ways in which you can set up each Circle so that the people assigned to it see only what you want them to see. Many of us write things that we don't necessarily want everyone to see, and it's one-click simple to assign contacts to their own Circle so that they don't fall off their chairs when they read what you've been up to. There's also a good clear explanation of how you can import contact lists from other sites and from other devices (like your phone or tablet) with minimal fuss and bother. Having once struggled to figure out how to get my contact list from my iPod Touch synced with my Google Contacts, I wished I'd had these instructions two years ago when I was trying to understand not very helpful help files. Even though I've been using Google+ for several months, I was not aware that what you see when you first go there is called your Stream. The illustrations in the book show a sample page that does indeed have Stream at the top of it, but the new interface doesn't look like that. (That's my excuse for not knowing and I'm sticking to it.) Now I not only know the right term for it, I know many more ways to customize the Stream so I see what interests me most. I had already noticed that a Stream isn't always arranged in chronological order, but hadn't figured out quite what was going on. Google+ The Missing Manual explains why this is. There are plenty of instructions (with examples and illustrations) to explain how to post things to your Stream and how to choose which people in your Circles will see your posts.
Hello, it's me
I don't think any two people are alike when it comes to notifications. Some people want to know when every single message arrives, some people don't want to be bothered, period, and most people fall somewhere between the two extremes. Google+ lets you set up your notifications exactly the way you want, which is something just about everyone can appreciate. Once again Google+ The Missing Manual comes through with instructions that should make the process easier for just about everyone. (Guess what, I didn't know there was a Notifications Stream, either!) The reader can quickly learn how to set up chats and send and receive SMS text messages right from Google+. There is also an excellent section that explains how you can share and tag photos and videos and even edit them after they are posted.
Getting together
Another nice feature of Google+ is what they call Hangouts. Old-timers like me think of Hangout as just another name for "chat room," but a Hangout is a lot better than the chat rooms of days gone by. Here again, having comprehensive instructions for setting everything up, including whom you want to include, and making sure your equipment is working properly. The brief explanation of mobile apps earlier in the book gets an entire chapter explaining it in much more detail toward the end. It covers iOS and Android phones and tablets and also gives instructions for using Google+ on devices that use neither of those systems (by using the device's built-in browser). This will be very useful for people who might think they're shut out of Google+ mobile because they don't yet have an iOS or Android device (like me).
Play time
Google+ The Missing Manual concludes with a chapter about playing games. There's quite an assortment of games available, and there will surely be more in the future. Some games want more information from you than you may care to share, and it was good to see a warning about that. Some games are designed to be played with other people (with whom you can share invitations) and some are solo. Since the game landscape is likely to change rapidly, this chapter just gives an overview and invites the reader to try some of the games out if so inclined.
Wrapping it up
I wish I'd had this book when I first started exploring Google+. Not everything about it is intuitive, and not everything is explained well in the Help. The book is designed to help the reader feel at ease with each feature, and the explanations are clear and comprehensive. The colorful illustrations are a plus and I'm sure there are Google+ features in the book that nearly everyone hasn't discovered yet. It's a winner.
Verdict
This is for everyone who's interested in Google+, from novice to experienced user. It covers nearly everything anyone would want to know in an easy, conversational style. It's designed to get you up and running quickly and then to explain the more advanced features that many people will want to explore. I've learned about several things I hadn't seen before, and I'm keeping this close by for future reference.
