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Mac OS X Power Tools
from the powah-like-ahnold dept.
Here's the thing about book reviews: They're a lot easier to write when you either absolutely hated or absolutely adored the book in question. Once you've decided how you feel about it, it's easy to find a dozen examples of its mediocrity or excellence, as the case may be. However, I've been sitting on this particular review for a few weeks now, unable to finish it because I can't say that I feel very strongly at all about Power Tools. I recently decided, however, that being unable to form a definite opinion of it one way or another is itself a kind of opinion. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it or missing from it, but when it comes down to whether I'd choose to buy it over a different Mac book, I can't say that I would. I realize that this isn't a work of fiction -- its goal isn't exactly to suck me in with thrilling plot twists so that I read the whole thing cover to cover in one sitting. Nevertheless, there are some other books out there that do exactly that (I'll get to them later), and I think I've been spoiled by reading them.
What I Liked
Power Tools covers its bases in a thorough, informative way. It's a solid OS X book, intended for anyone who understands the very basics involved in using a Mac. The author makes very clear early on that he's not intending to show you how to log in, or how to launch an application, but that's about the extent of the proficiency required, I think. Frakes seems to understand his audience and to address it consistently, which is rare enough to be refreshing. One of my pet peeves in technical writing concerns authors who can't decide who they're talking to -- sidebars for beginners and power users are great, but when the body of the text itself waffles back and forth between skill levels, it can be both frustrating and confusing. This is a trap that Power Tools sidesteps completely: At the beginning of each section, you'll find a couple of lines telling you whether an Admin account is required for the techniques described, and whether the changes being made are system-wide or will affect only your own account. Mac OS X Hacks (which is, incidentally and confusingly enough, the Mac equivalent of O'Reilly's classic Unix Power Tools) uses a similar system to introduce each of the hacks in the book, and it's a practice that I'd like to see used more widely.
Favorite sections: Although certainly not the meatiest bits of the book, I thought the quick-reference keyboard shortcut and third-party utility lists were great, and I've used them fairly frequency since Power Tools took up residency on the shelf over my desk. As far as the more substantial content is concerned, I'd have to say Frakes's coverage of Classic is probably one of my favorite chapters -- oddly enough, since I never use Classic myself. That's part of the reason I liked his section on it, though: it does a good job of explaining why you'll want to avoid Classic whenever you can, while also pointing out some ways to make the best of it if it can't be avoided. The list of startup files necessary to use Classic is a good reference for folks who'd like to clean out their old System Folders without crippling anything. And of course Frakes's experience managing and troubleshooting OS 9 comes in useful here -- he points out classics like Conflict Catcher that users shouldn't be without if Classic is used with any degree of regularity.
Chapter 14, covering maintainence and administration of a Mac running OS X, is also full of sound, reasonable advice. Disk care and repair as well as how to recover lost data and prevent such mishaps to begin with are all covered thoroughly and intelligently in this section, as well the whys and wherefores of backups. Nothing surprising, perhaps, but nothing that should be left out of a decent Mac book, either.
What I Didn't Like
Although this is purely a matter of taste and I'm aware that there are many people who disagree with me, I just don't like Frakes's writing style. I have enjoyed some of his columns in the past, but it seems like his humor falls more than a little flat when stretched out over the course of a book. The alliterative titles were amusing for the first one or two chapters, but "Apple-ication Aptitude" is pushing it just a bit, I think. Although I realize that the first priority of a technical book is not to entertain its readers, exactly, is it too much to ask that it enthuse us? I was already interested in OS X before reading Power Tools, but I didn't find anything to excite me -- how would a new Mac user fare?
My least favorite chapter was probably Chapter 6, "Developing a Dynamite Dock." Despite Frakes's promise to assume that the reader is familiar with the basics, there's still the inevitable trot through the relevant Preference panel. Some good third-party software like Tinker Tool is discussed, but there wasn't anything that surprised me in this chapter.
The Bottom Line
This is a perfectly adequate OS X book, and you wouldn't be wasting your money by buying it. Indeed, if you're already a fan of the author, you should probably do exactly that. For me, though, while it does a decent job of accomplishing the tasks it sets for itself, the book just never quite cuts it for me. The bottom line is really that if I had enough money to buy only a single Mac book, this wouldn't be it. I'd spend my forty dollars (or so) instead on either Mac OS X Unleashed or Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. Frakes actually recommends the latter as an alternative for absolute beginners who would be lost in his own book, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's just for novices. It really is a complete OS X manual, covering topics for users at every skill level. As for Unleashed, I've reviewed this book already (more recently than I have the Missing Manual) so I'll just say that if you want a Mac book so complete that it will introduce you to web programming so you can use that default Apache installation, then that's a book you should consider. While I would prefer either one of these books to Power Tools if I were only able to buy one, it's also true that I'm not sorry to have added it to my collection (since, like most people, I'm not limited to one book per subject).
And Furthermore
Dan Frakes is a generally beloved Mac writer and developer and, my ambivalence about this book aside, his stuff is worth looking into. He contributes to the "Mac OS X Secrets" column in Macworld and is also involved in the 9th edition of the Mac Bible. His personal site is danfrakes.com, and the site for this book is at macosxpowertools.com.
You can purchase Mac OS X Power Tools from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
os x books (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:os x books (Score:2, Insightful)
The thing that is missing from BSD books (and every OS X book I've seen) is better information on managing OS X server, especially NetInfo. Apple has some OK docs, but they tend to be a little vague and absent of clear examples.
I would buy (even a pretty expensive, like $99) book on managing OS X server if it handled OS X Server's management tools, how they affected the environment, why they do things the way they do. And good examples of setting up various Mac OS X networks, with lots
Re:os x books (Score:5, Informative)
Mac OS X for Unix Geeks [oreilly.de] really digs into the BSD core of OS X and covers such interesting topics as rebuilding the XNU kernel and a little bit about hacking Netinfo (although I wish there were more).
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Re:Why read an OS X book? (Score:3)
Re:Why read an OS X book? (Score:2)
Why? Just cause.
What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like something that is worth checking out at the local bookstore anyway.
How many here us OSX everyday?
What are the things that you like about OSX?
Most of all pertinent to the above review what is your favorite OS X tool?
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2)
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2, Interesting)
The list of things I like about OS X would be far too long to post here.
My favorite OS X tool? Tough one. I love Terminal, of course, but I'd have to say the coolest thing around for OS X is LaunchBar [obdev.at]. Every app, url, email address, and file on your system available with a few keystrokes.
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:5, Informative)
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Its got to be Perl (Score:2)
I have macOSX a 200 gig drive for my scans. I wrote a perl scipt using imagemagick (gotten with fink) goes through my original scan directory tree and converts all my tiffs to jpegs on another drive. (basicially and incrimental perl backup)
Then I wrote a little apple script to launch the image convertion perl script. So whenever I need to back up I double click on the application and automagic backup!
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting question, and one that occured to me while taking notes for the review. My favorite third-party utility would have to be Key Xing [lumacode.com] - it's shareware, not freeware, but it allows you to set your own keyboard shortcuts for obvious things (like applications) and less obvious things (like copying full file paths from the Finder). Perhaps the only drawback is that I'm now so used to my own commands that I find myself using them on other people's Macs.
A close second would be CodeTek Virtual Desktop [codetek.com], w
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:5, Informative)
Ten favourite things:
1. Without anything needing configuration or installation, I can save to PDF any window I can print normally.
2. Awesome GUI, mainstream apps like Photoshop and Office, and tcsh and bash when I need them.
3. iTunes. (All of the iApps, really. I won't separate them here for the sake of padding.
4. A great X11 setup from Apple. Easy to install, and piped through OGL. (For the most part, anyway.)
5. Lots of great command-line tools installed by default. cURL, lots of text editors, screen, as well as command-line Apple utilities like hdiutil. (I know lots of stuff comes with Linux distros, but it's nice to see that Apple followed suit.)
5. Everything in
6. AWESOME foriegn character output and input support. Unfrickingbelieve how nice it is.
7. Stickies. Can't live without 'em these days.
8. Calculator. Big frickin' whoop, most say, but it's nice to have sci functions, a paper tape record, measurement conversions, and updatable currency conversions in one
9. UI consistency. Apple's made it really easy to respect important aspects of the UI conventions they've come up with, and it shows. Camino, Transmit, OmniGraffle--these apps could have HORRIBLE interfaces, not feeling like any part of the OS itself, but they avoid screwing up entirely. Good developers, good Apple for giving them:
10. Awesome development tools. Project Builder and Interface Builder are insanely cool, the latter being the nicest way of creating UIs I've ever seen.
This is just OEM stuff, too, all part of the OS (save the apps I cited as examples). It's scratching the surface, really, because the more you use it, the more stuff you find.
Some of you are gonna reply and say that this OS or this distro does x feature, too, and to that I say, "Yeah, but OS X does it all, sans configuration, out of the box, without fail, and I only cited ten things like that. Linux rocks hard, but I'll happily pay Apple once every year or eighteen months for this kind of quality."
So please don't hit me with -1s, mods. Just answering a question
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Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2)
2. No comments about Photoshop (I am a GIMP user), but as for Office I have serious usability-based reasons (apart of price ones) to prefer OpenOffice Office to Microsoft one on any platform I work. And OpenOffice Office is very bad in OSX (Linux and win32 versions work fine).
3. iTunes has very poor configurability comparing to xmms.
4. X11 in OSX is harder to install than even in Cygwin and it works worse than in Cyg
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2)
You're on crack. I've install X11 in both OSX and Cygwin. The OSX install is basically download the package, double click on it, done. (admittedly the Cygwin install is also fairly easy).
More importantly rootless X in Cygwin is still experimental. rootless X in OSX is quite stable and seamless.
Re:What is your fav OS X tool? (Score:2)
"What are the things that you like about OSX?"
Unix command line tools, security, and file-system layout, plus, USEFUL software. I have 10+ years of legacy mac software that I can't run on Linux (or Windows), but I CAN run on OS X.
There's a lot of other things to like, and definately some things to NOT like. But those are what I like best.
"Most of all pertinent to the above review what is your favorite OS X tool?"
The Preferences Panel. Configuring an OS
Fav Tool: Launchbar, without a doubt (Score:2)
Here's the writeup from this year's innovators contest [macdevcenter.com]:
Black, white, and 10,000 shades of grey (Score:4, Funny)
True to Slashdot form!
Re:Black, white, and 10,000 shades of grey (Score:4, Funny)
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Humor in instruction material (Score:5, Funny)
What's up with that? Why do people not think these lame jokes make them look like morons? I was watching a car show yesterday, and they ended with a bit on exhaust systems: "If you haven't exhausted your possibilites yet, you can pick up the acme muffler - it's a gas." Except it went on longer and was stupider. There were at least two more stupid puns, including "exhaust" being used again. With half the time being an advertisement of select aftermarket parts and the other half devoted to making me groan, I learned what a supercharger was, how it differed from Nos, and that's about it. In half an hour.
Make jokes, that's fine. If you want to say "how can the iPod be so skinny, yet sound so fat?" that's great, I'll chuckle. But "Apple-ication?" Don't be a dumbass.
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
It isn't that I'm scared of getting sued, it's that I think he's a fucking dick for it, and I won't support his words.
Re:Humor in instruction material (Score:2)
What's the verdict again...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Way to take a stand there. Quick, what are your thoughts on fast food? Are you a BK guy or a Wendy's guy?
"Maybe."
From the book's author ;-) (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a couple comments about the review, and a couple comments in response to posts in this discussion.
First, a comment about the review's recommendation that really has little to do with my book, and more to do with recommending books in general. Writing style is a very personal thing, and unless you're David Pogue, it's impossible to write a book everyone will love ;-) So I have no problem with the reviewer preferring a different "style." However, I do disagree somewhat with the overall recommendation made in the review ("Get The Missing Manual or Mac OS X Unleashed instead"), and not because I wrote one of the books in question.
When recommending a book, the most important things to know are the reader's level of expertise and the reader's goals in reading the book. The three books mentioned here are aimed at very different levels:
There is undoubtedly a bit of overlap in these three books, but for the most part they are written for different audiences. In other words, it's difficult to simply say "get Book A over Book B" without knowing more about the reader. All three books are, in my humble opinion, great books -- I wrote one and own the other two -- and I recommend them frequently. However, I've rarely recommended one over the other two, simply because they aren't comparable substitutes, IMO.
I guess what I'm saying is to make sure you're buying, or recommending, the right book for the reader. I'd rather see you buy someone else's book than buy mine if it's not appropriate for you.
A few quick comments on messages in this thread:
jcsehak wrote:
Sorry you didn't like that joke ;-) Using alliteration in chapter titles is a bit of fun when you're writing 600+ pages on an operating system, and, from a pedagogical standpoint, a useful approach. However, it can admittedly get a bit cheezy after a while, and I was actually trying to make fun of that fact with the chapter title in question. The original title was "Application Aptitude" -- which probably wouldn't have generated any comments -- but as a joke I changed it to "Apple-ication," basically parodying the approach. OK, it was a very bad pun, I admit it. Maybe my brain was a bit fried after writing 600+ pages, but I thought it was funny at the time. Maybe it wasn't so funny after all -- you're not the first person to criticize it ;-)
mr_luc wrote:
The book belongs to a series of books from the same publisher called "Power Tools" that includes books on Unix, Linux, Windows, etc.; I didn't have much say in the title. In some ways I agree with you that it doesn't properly indicate what the book is about. On the other hand, as I mention in the book's introduction, hard
Re:From the book's author ;-) (Score:2)
Re:From the book's author ;-) (Score:2)
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Interesting)
X11 runs fine on macs and combined with fink, I have not found a linux app that did not have a suitable replacement.
As soon as someone ports all of the iLife apps, and the windowing to linux we will be set for buisness.
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Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:2)
As for quartz - sorry, but you are just addicted to the theme. Have you ever tried OSX themes in GNOME/Sawfish?
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:2)
This is pretty much a trick question. The answer is that there is no problem porting an application, provided that the application uses libraries available both in MacOS X and the new platform you are porting to. Of course if the programmer decided to link against a library that is only available on MacOS X then the program will only compile on MacOS X. This can be gotten around by writing your own code to act a
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:2)
Basically you can run a bunch of different type of programs on MacOSX
You can run Classic programs in Classic
You can run BSD terminal type programs
You can run Cocoa programs
You can run Carbon programs
You can run Java programs
You can run X11 programs
Plus all the scripting systems, Perl, etc
At the end of the day the "native" OSX programs are basically the Cocoa/Carbon programs, which are written to use all the OSX proprietry libraries and APIs.. such as
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank God.
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Re:HAHAHA (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you've ever even used Apple's X11 program. First of all, it's beta 2 and it's not slow at all. It's compatible with virtually all X11 programs.
Quartz Extreme is not the window manager. It's what converts 2D/3D into OpenGL and sends them to the graphics card so that the CPU doesn't have to compute any scales etc of the windows.
Aqua is the window manager.
Why don't you read this link and familiarize yourself with how OSX works
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartze
You may also want to read this pdf file
http://a32.g.akamai.net/7/32/51/e3f09c3d615
The fact that you blame Apple for their DRM in the iTunes Music Store only shows your ignorance. It's the music lables that forced Apple to have some kind of DRM in their software.
The more I write in response, the more your post seems to be troll bait.
However, I will not start flaming away, but suggest you actually learn a little more about how OSX works before complaining.
Some things like the NetInfo database are not that bad like you say.
niutil -list .
In fact it's much easier than cding to some dir(if you can remember where the hell the right config files are) and loading the file in pico/whatever and searching for the right option you want.
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Re:HAHAHA (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it's been beta 3 for a few months now, and can be had at http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/ [apple.com]. If you get it, make sure to get the SDK [akamai.net] too, so that you can compile new X11 apps (such as those provided by fink)
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Informative)
1.) X11 works just fine in OS X and it's *not* an emulation -- hell, I don't even have to use Apple's version. Until it came along, I was installing the X11 system via Fink and running a variety of WMs. Furthermore, X11 functionality is built into Panther (10.3) and not a standalone app as it currently is in 10.2.
2.) "NetInfo" may be a proprietary database...but I wouldn't know because I edit my
3.) Give the DRM thing a f--king rest, would you? You can't have your cake and eat it, too. The DRM in the iTunes Music Store was NECESSARY to get it going in the first place. Furthermore, no one is cramming it down your throat, and OS X isn't preventing you from installing Acquisition or any other P2P app. At least Apple has been decent enough to do DRM in such a way that it is unobstrusive. Take a look at shit like BuyMusic.com if you want to see DRM in a bad form. Given Apple's commitment to quality software and hardware, I don't foresee them ever stooping to those levels. (Don't give me that civil liberties shit -- it's still theft of intellectual property.)
Take your FUD elsewhere.
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Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Informative)
I've been a *Unix developer for about 12 years and have found your arguments wholly incorrect. Apple's BSD layer is true Unix and works just as well as other's I've used. They've only enhanced to to allow me much greated productivity than with other OSes. Have you tried hooking up a WIFI card to Linux -- give it a try - or how about a new USB peripheral? It just isn't the same.
X11 has a long history behind it and is well-supported by Mac OS X through several tools - Apples X11 Toolkit and the Darwin X11 project. I've used both KDE and Gnome and while I find them very intriguing, they don't match up to Aqua and additionally to Apple's Human Interface standards. Apple as the first to champion this kind of technology in the first place.
ELF is but one standard for compiled objects, COFF is another, and Microsoft has even more. These don't guarantee compabitility, just a standard by which code binaries and libraries are encoded in.
Netinfo was not invented by Apple, but it is a Unix standard (along with NIS, LDAP, etc) all of which Apple readily supports.
How the f..k does iTMS violate my civil liberties? It actually gives me these liberties back that the music industry was trying to take away because of threat to their market. Why don't you stay off topics you don't understand.
Parent
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Mac OS X is as much a bastardized Unix as any other currently available Unix you might like to point to: Linux (er, which Linux ?), Solaris, IRIX, BSD, System V, FreeBSD...
Thank heavens Apple didn't use KDE or Gnome. Theirs is IMHO the best desktop available on any Unix: it's fast, optimised for the hardware and ubiquitous. Apple has design guidelines that result in consistent behavour between apps. "Quartz Extreme" is not the equivalent of the Unix window manager: it's an even more accelerated version of "Quartz", the rendering layer.
You want X11 ? Download Apple's implementation from their website. Oh wait, don't bother, it will be part of the install in the next release. "but it is emulation" WTF ? Do you have a clue what you're talking about ? Emulating what ? Like every other X11 implementation it is a software renderer for X commands.
"moral issues with closed software ?" Oh gimme a fricking break !
"other *nixes use standard ELF binaries" Plenty don't thank you very much.
"It uses Mach-O, an unproven format that is proprietary to Apple." Not proprietory to Apple. Very much public domain: developed at CMU, what 20 years ago ? "Unproven" ? a value judgement. What's your evidence for this ? There's a lot of good software that uses it quite succesfully for real world applications. (Granted, I don't like Mach-O's linking method and subroutine branching overhead is rather excessive, but I'm nitpicking. That's not to say it's unproven - it's been used for approx 20 years.)
"Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel)" Darwin is a complete cross platform unix implementation. It's far more than the kernel. EVERYTHING in Darwin is Open Source, freely downloadable, and anything but "proprietory".
"with Mach-O [it is impossible to run most of their Lunix apps." Take a look at PORTS and FINK. Much of your precious linux code is just a recompile away.
"Additionally, Apple has moved most configuration info fromhuman readable text files into a proprietary database called "NetInfo", which is much like the Windows registry we all loathe." Actually Apple has moved some of the [technically aware]-human readable configuration files into xml files that are readable by various applications and [technically aware]-humans. Netinfo presents a common and somewhat simpler, but definitely safer interface to those files. Sure, if you and I want to stick a new CNAME into the hosts file, netinfo is overkill, but if I had to get my mother to do it, I'd be glad of netinfo.
The thing you should be comparing with the windows' registry is the IORegistry. Which avoids the pitfalls of the windows' registry, by being completely dynamic during the boot time of the system, and built from scratch during each boot. It's less a means of setting system parameters than a reflection of the current state of the system. Most importantly, there is NO PERSISTENT REPRESENTATION of the IORegistry.
" When we factor in the threat to users' civil liberties that is posed by the DRM included to support the iTunes Music Store (do you really think it will end there?) it is obvious that real *nix gurus should give OS X a wide berth. Caveat emptor." As is well attested, iTMS has the most liberal DRM implementation available in any legal means of obtaining music. In short, I can legally burn as many CDs of my purchased music as I choose.
I do not understand why "real *nix gurus" should give a damn about your complaints about Apple's DRM policies.
The "real *nix gurus" I know are joyfully buying Powerbooks and *at last* running a complete, fast, powerful, optimised, Unix on their laptop.
Parent
FUDing MacOS X (Score:5, Insightful)
1 - You claim that MacOS X bears as much resemblance to "real" UNIX as Windows ME.
This is just hilarious. MacOS X is as real of a UNIX as Linux. You can compile a most POSIX source unaltered in both. Can you do that under Windows ME without add-on compatibily layers?
2 - You say Apple ignored X to write Quartz. There is an Apple branded FREE (beer) X server for MacOS X. It's based off XFree. It's not untested and it's not an emulation layer. I does integrate with the rest of the Desktop. While not final code, it's very stable.
3 - You claim Darwin is proprietary. It is not. Quite simply, you could also claim that the sky is green. Not true.
4 - You claim FreeBSD is moribund. This has nothing to do with MacOS X, and ridiculous. Free software is never moribund. It can't die. FreeBSD is alive and well, too.
5 - You claim Apple used Mach-O to break compatibily with ELF?
Why should they use ELF? They can do whatever they want, and they chose to use the Mach-O format for legacy reasons related to NeXTStep.
6 - You claim NetInfo is like the Windows Registry, and that it breaks compatibily.
Netinfo is just practical. Other vendors do similar things (like IBM) with they UNIXes.
It's legacy from NeXTStep. It's easy to use and it gets the job done. I see no problem with it.
7 - You claim Apple is shoving DRM down our throats. You should be glad that Apple cut the best DRM deal there is. Nobody else has a lighter DRM system. You forget that they are a company and they will be toasted by the RIAA and MPAA if they don't enforce some sort of DRM. They came up with something practical.
I do not like DRM, but if I ran a company, I couldn't have done better than Apple.
Don't you have anything else better to do than to diss Apple and MacOS X? What's your problem? You're 10 and can't affort one of those pretty shiny Apple computers?
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Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I can effectively do anything, and have it look nice too.
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Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
For any MS/Linux apps I fire up RDP or the X server to get to them. But as I found when I moved from Windows to Linux years ao, I'm needing less of Linux as I adapt to OSX.
As for day in day out usage it is perfect. So was Linux, but in a less polished way.
M.B.
Re:The TRUTH about OS X (Score:2)
By the way, Cygwin is also the coolest thing about Windows NT/2k/XP comparing Win-3.1
Re:I would mod you: (Score:2)
You are kidding, are you not? Apple ][ used software instead of an FDC chip, and needed speed-matched floppy drives. Tradition of quality...
The video for the Apple ][ was so cheap that hi-res was, well..., special. Certain colour sequences just could not be produced.
Then, (years later), I purchased a Mac CX. Turns out that the power supply wasn't shielded, and external drives kept getting their contents corrupted and erased... Of course the SCSI cables weren't sheilded either, giv
Re:I have nothing to contribute to this discussion (Score:3, Funny)
I think that using an analogy to "Power Tools" -- and doing so in the context of a book about a Mac -- is kind of stupid. I mean, "Power Tools" does not go with the image that I have of Macs as these clean-running, quiet, beautifully usable machines. The image I have of my power tools is one of grease, dirt, and bugs that need to be patched.
Mostly, it's an image thing. Until Apple comes out with an
Re:I have nothing to contribute to this discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's got a strange hybrid going here. On one hand, there's this elegant "it just works" machine with a great UI and this feature and that feature for all of us, and on the other hand, there's bash and X11. Power-user tools for those who like to get down in the trenches and get their hands dirty, so to speak.
I think it's the best kind of computer, really--you can write Perl scripts and use Photoshop's healing tool side by side. Power for the rest of us, so to speak.
As for that sandy vagina thing, you might want to talk to a doctor about that.
Parent
Feeling whore like today? (Score:2)
Any self-respecting geek is not going to buy at Amazon and I would hope especially not after following your affiliate link in.
If you want to find good prices on tech books try Bookpool [bookpool.com] or All Book Stores [allbookstores.com].
BTW bookpool is $6.04 cheaper than your beloved amazon.