Mac OS X Leopard Edition: The Missing Manual

jsuda writes "The preeminent general reference source for Mac OS X has always been the Missing Manual Series written by David Pogue. The latest iteration in the series is its Mac OS X Leopard Edition, completely revised, and it is the biggest, most comprehensive, and most useful of all the editions in the series. It covers the Mac OS X desktop and file system, the free applications included with the Mac OS X installation, the system components and technologies, networking and online features and components, and includes welcome appendices on installation, troubleshooting, Windows/Mac comparisons, and a Master Keystroke list." Read on for the rest of John's review.

Mac OS X Leopard Edition: The Missing Manual
author	David Pogue
pages	893
publisher	O'Reilly Media Inc.
rating	10
reviewer	John Suda
ISBN	9780596529529
summary	Great Manual for all levels of users

Every one of the editions has been exceedingly well-designed and written combining serious treatment of subject content with style, wit, and humor, as well as honest evaluation and critique of features of the Mac operating system. All of the OS X Missing Manuals have addressed issues for a broad range of users, from the lightly experienced, the intermediate, and for power users. For the most part, however, the primary focus of each edition has been on the less experienced users. This has changed with the Leopard edition.

There seems to have been a deliberate effort to make the book more appealing and useful to upper-end users without losing any utility at all for others. There seems to be more material for power users- -there are more Power Users Guides providing advanced information and techniques, more UNIX references for those willing and able to take avail of the UNIX kernel underlying the operating system, more identifications of keyboard shortcuts, and more disclosure of undocumented and advanced features than in previous editions.

For example, Pogue itemizes and describes at least 20 UNIX utilities that only power users would want to use, explains how to configure preferences for the Terminal application, explains how to deal with the file and folder permissions system using UNIX commands, and even notes the existence of the venerable Eliza therapist emulator program hidden in a part of the emacs text editor. At each juncture of describing operating system features, Pogue explains from the perspective of different levels of users, including the power user, like himself. Unlike in many other books purporting to cover a broad range of users, this one does not short on the higher-end.

This is all well and good as casual users are still widely well-taken care of by the thorough and well-organized explanations of nearly every feature of OS 10.5. The book is illustrated profusely with screenshots of system features, configuration processes, comparison of the Mac OS X versions, comparisons of Mac OS X to Windows features, and more. Nearly every page is loaded with Tips, Notes, FAQs, lists, tables, and sidebars. Throughout, there are nuggets of insight and technical arcana that even Mac veterans will be surprised to learn about. I learned, for example, that the one-button Apple Mighty Mouse has a secret 2-button feature. Also there is a similar way to operate a laptop with a two finger trackpad technique. There are a lot of tips and tricks like that in the book. Even beyond description and explanation, Pogue provides useful recommendations for configurations of the Dock, recovery from common errors, and using Automator to design practical workflows for common tasks.

The subject content builds upon that of previous editions and updates it with material relating to the 300-plus new features of Leopard. Much of the new material covers the Leopard update highlights the backup program called Time Machine, a desktop switching application called Spaces, the Stacks organizing feature, the file previewer, QuickLook, and the feature enhancements in iChat, Mail, and especially Spotlight, the search tool.

Spotlight is much more than a mere search tool although it is a great one. A whole chapter is devoted to it alone. Pogue explains how to use it not just for casual and advanced searching (using over 125 types of data and metadata) but as a quick launcher of files, folders, and applications; as a calculator; and as a dictionary. Sophisticated query languages can be used and Pogue lists a series of power user keyboard shortcuts for Spotlight use.

I see the book as especially useful for those Windows users of all levels gravitating to the Mac platform. Not only is the treatment of the Mac OS done well, but at nearly every juncture, Pogue takes the perspective of a Windows user and provides practical comparisons and contrasts of operating systems.

Weaving all of these perspectives into a harmonious, readable manual is a fine achievement. The content discussions and explanations are never abstract but written from the viewpoint of the thoughtful and practical user and no one is better at this than David Pogue who has been cited before as one of the worlds best (technical) communicators. The denseness of the treatment of the subject content diminishes somewhat from the readability of the book compared to prior editions and there is a bit less wit, humor and style. That is the trade-off, I presume, for the increased breadth and depth of the content treatment but this Missing Manual is still as well written as a computer manual can be expected to be.

You can purchase Mac OSX Leopard Edition: The Missing Manual from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Re:I'd buy it...

[ZerocarboN]

You might want to try the Interference Robustness option to see if it helps.

http://www.macinstruct.com/node/213 [macinstruct.com]

Re:$21 for something you would expect to be suppli

[Toe, The]

They provide an entire website of documentation about Leopard.
http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/ [apple.com]
(and yes, they assume you can get to and read a web page).

I see ENORMOUS books on how to use Windows... or even Word for that matter. 600+ pages describing how to use a word processor.

Why doesn't Microsoft give those third-party books away for free?

You do realize this is a third-party book, right?

Bad ISBN

[Anonymous Coward]

A valid ISBN has either 10 or 13 digits. The listed "780596529529" has 12. Perhaps it is a UPC?

Re:Bad ISBN

[OldeTimeGeek]

They just missed a number. From O'Reilly's site: ISBN 10: 0-596-52952-X | ISBN 13:9780596529529.

OK, I'll Bite

[Hellad]

the book doesn't tell you how to make it work when it doesn't. It is a comprehensive guide to all of the features that may be missed by users who aren't paying attention. I gave the tiger edition to my mother in law. While she could use the machine out of the box, she wouldn't figure out the more complex aspects of the finder on her own. In addition, the book contains a basic guide to the ilife programs as well as iChat. While she could likely figure this out on her own, having a resource has been great for her. It gives basic users a more advanced knowledge than they would otherwise have.

Re:I'd buy it...

[WinkyN]

You might want to check out this link from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (http://www.tuaw.com/2008/02/25/potential-fix-for-an-annoying-macbook-air-wireless-issue/) to see if it addresses your issue. The link says it's for MacBook Airs but some users have reported success with other models.

Re:$21 for something you would expect to be suppli

[Altus]

if it was called "Secrets of OS X" instead of "The Missing Manual" nobody would bitch. People are more than happy to take any opportunity they can to take a shot at apple. My girlfriend recently bought a vista laptop. It didn't come with a vista manual (or even install/recovery disks)... but there is no "Vista: The missing manual (and recovery disk)"

Re:$21 for something you would expect to be suppli

[Altus]

OK... I stand corrected [amazon.com]

There most certainly is a missing manual for vista.

Re:Jump to End of Line

[Anonymous Coward]

apple + left arrow (home)
apple + right arrow (end)

get a mac before you complain about how its not a "real" computer.

Re:iPhone edition

[monomania]

In fact, this book is available on the O'Reilly Safari Books Online (no relation to the web browser) service, and I do read them on my iPhone. Low-end subscriptions are relatively cheep, and well worth it; I keep 10 books on my bookshelf at any one time for about $20 a month. I just added this one to my bookshelf.

Wrong ISBN !

[malaba]

on Amazon:

ISBN-10: 059652952X
ISBN-13: 978-0596529529

Re:Jump to End of Line

[jrothwell97]

On older keyboards it's command+left / command+right. Alt+left/right goes between words.

I think the newer keyboards do have end/home keys, as well as an fn key and better-labelled page up, down and command keys.

^E: simple emacs bindings are supported

[igb]

^A and ^E. Handily, every text box that's a product of the standard libraries on a Mac supports (albeit not desperately, or at all, well documented) basic emacs binding. It's a NeXTStep legacy. So I'm typing this into a standard browser text box in Safari, and ^A, ^E, ^T, ^B, ^F, ^K, ^Y, ^O, ^P and ^N have their expected meanings. The meta/escape versions don't work, and there's no marks (^@ or ^-space), kill ring, and so on. But it's enough to be going on with, and makes typing slashdot posts far more civilised.

Re:Jump to End of Line

[Yaztromo]

Does the master keystroke list tell you how to jump to the beginning or the end of the line without using the mouse?

Command-LeftArrow, Command-RightArrow has always worked fine for me.

Yaz.

Re:Mouse Acceleration

[SydShamino]

I've had my mac for a month. I had Mac-style mouse acceleration for 2 days.

Then, I installed Logitech's all-in-one OSX utility (the Logitech Control Center). It recognized my Logitech USB mouse and - voila - the awful acceleration was gone, swept aside by using the hardware vendor's driver instead of the one that ships with the OS.

Re:Does OSX documentation go out of print so fast?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Does OSX documentation go out of print so fast?

No, but it does become obsolete that fast. Features new to Leopard that were not in Tiger include:

• The ability to create Widgets by selecting portions of Web pages
• Stacks - folder icons that dynamically change to indicate what is in the folder
• A system-wide grammar checker and the system-wide spelling checker/dictionary/theasaurus expanded to include wikipediaand more dictionaries (include non-English languages)
• A new type of viewing in the window/file manager that lets you pan through giant preview "icons" of files
• Updates and new features for most of the consumer applications (mail, calendar, IM, Web browser, Media players, and PDF viewer/image viewer)
• Remote desktop access and sharing integrated into the IM client
• New supported file systems and improved remote filesystem server/client
• Parental controls that include application specific restrictions (no Web browsing after 11pm for little Jimmy)
• Virtual desktops
• Expanded, indexed system-wide searching
• Automated backup/versioning from the GUI
• Completely redone UI for the handicapped (braille boards, audio interface, etc.)
• Dtrace ported from Solaris for developers, and a bunch of other dev tools and new APIs
• Application layer firewall
• Built in mandatory access controls/sandboxes and app signing for security
• A guest account that resets itself to a clean default state each login

Does OSX really change that much from version to version?

Yes. 10.n to 10.n+1 is major upgrade akin to going from XP to Vista. As one of those people who doesn't read the manual before diving into something, I'm still finding new features and I've had it for months. Just yesterday I noticed in an e-mail a friend sent me about a concert he was going to downtown "next friday at 9:00", that right clicking on the time, gave me the option of automatically creating an event in the calendar program for that day at that time labelled with the concert name. That's exactly the kind of stuff a book about Leopard is nice for finding out about.

Re:Mouse Acceleration

[Firehed]

System Prefs - Mouse - Acceleration slider... move to 0.

"secret 2-button feature"????

[mattack2]

That has been prominent in the advertising all along. It has a scroll wheel and is/can be a two-button mouse.

http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/ [apple.com]

Touch-sensitive technology under Mighty Mouse's seamless top shell detect where you're clicking, transforming your sleek, one-button mouse into a two-button wonder.

Also, it's prominent in the picture at the top of the page.

Re:Jump to End of Line

[foniksonik]

Additionally you can use option+left/right arrow to jump to beginning/end of words and option+shift+left/right to highlight words... while apple/command + shift +arrows will highlight the rest of the sentence to the left or right of your current insertion point.

I'd say that's enough *real* features whatever that means...

Re:Does it explain...

[mveloso]

Yuk yuk yuk. Your wit is painful to witness.

Yeah, remove Application Enhancer before installing Leopard. That always does the trick.

Re:Jump to End of Line

[keytoe]

• option - left/right arrow: Beginning/end of word
• command - left/right arrow: Beginning/end of line
• command - up/down arrow: Beginning/end of document
• Add shift to any of the above to do selection modifications

Additionally, most standard EMACS key bindings are supported. Is that 'real' enough for you?

Re:OK, I'll Bite

[ArAgost]

Sadly, this is the kind of things in OS X designed to be coherent. If you order by class, things get ordered by class. If you sort by name, things get sorted (guess what!) by name. You can't have "sorte by name but also not", sorry.

VideoTips and Guided Tour too

[Lord Satri]

I found these one useful too: http://www.apple.com/business/videotips/ [apple.com]
you can subscribe to the videocast. While most video tips are things I knew about, some are truly useful and well hidden features (oops?). The best part is probably the short length of the videotips themselves: 1 minute per week is something I can afford.

And let's not forget the Guided Tour. 30 minutes, but worthed: http://www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/ [apple.com]

And while I'm a it, there's a new section this year: http://www.apple.com/findouthow/ [apple.com]

Re:I'd buy it...

[harlows_monkeys]

If by Airport you mean a wireless connection to an actual Apple Airport router, then skip this reply. If, on the other hand, the wireless router is not an Apple router, check to see if the router has some kind of "turbo" or "speed boost" or similar mode. Those modes do some things that are outside the standard but often work (especially with wireless cards made by the same manufacturer as the router!), but sometimes don't. If the router has such modes, try turning them off.

Re:OK, I'll Bite

[KURAAKU Deibiddo]

You could always check out Path Finder [cocoatech.com], and use that instead of Finder. It offers this feature. I've been using it in place of Apple's Finder since 10.1 or 10.2. It offers a lot of things Finder doesn't. The only minus, if you're attached to Cover Flow, it does not have this feature yet (which is the only feature I'm aware of that Finder has and Path Finder does not). QuickLook works.

Although, you can use QuickLook from Terminal, also. Just add this to your ~/.bash_profile for added laziness:

function ql
{
(qlmanage -p "$@" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
local ql_pid=$!
read -sn 1
kill ${ql_pid}) > /dev/null 2>&1
}

Then use 'ql whatever' in Terminal. You can also find a ton of third-party QuickLook plugins here [quicklookplugins.com] and here [qlplugins.com].

Re:Does OSX documentation go out of print so fast?

[anagama]

Re: Virtual Desktops

Trust me, if you expect "Spaces" to be like the virtual desktops you're used to in Gnome or KDE -- it isn't. It's practically useless in fact being based on the notion of application partitioning rather than task partitioning. This means if you try to spread out windows from one program over several desktops, you're in for some confusing behavior. And if you used forwarded X sessions over X11 via ssh -- get ready for really crazy behavior unless you keep all your windows on one desktop, and DO NOT open any other terminal windows from your login terminal window -- you'll find you can't even click on previously opened windows if you do that. Of course, it sort of defeats the whole purpose of multiple desktops if you have to keep every application related to X11 open on the one desktop.

I like OS X (Tiger and below), but I'm totally burned with Leopard. The 3d party desktop managers don't even work anymore. I'm ticked and I plan to be noisy about. How many years have I waited for an integrated solution for multiple desktops? And this is what I get? Utter crap that reduces functionality.