Mac OS X in a Nutshell 95
Mac OS X In A Nutshell | |
author | Jason McIntosh, Chuck Toporek & Chris Stone |
pages | 768 |
publisher | O'Reilly |
rating | 8 - Almost excellent |
reviewer | Tony Williams |
ISBN | 0596003706 |
summary | An Excellent book on OS X for 'power users' that will remain useful. |
The Gist
The book is quite well structured, and organized into into 5 parts. The first is a quick overview of the Macintosh GUI. The second part, "System Configuration," is mainly devoted to getting the system running well (covering preferences, networking, the file system and Java). The third section, "System and Network Administration," is a good guide to several lower-level tasks, including an excellent chapter on directory services and NetInfo. The fourth is about development, including Apple's IDE "Project Builder" and CVS. The final part covers the Unix underpinnings of OS X and X Windows. This includes a Unix command reference of over 200 pages.
The Good
The book is also well written, with light, easily understood prose and some good screen dumps, tables and diagrams to make some of the more complex points easily understood. I appreciate the detailed contents section, good quality index and black chapter tabs at the side of each page for finding the information I need.Everything seems to be covered, though you may sometimes find yourself needing to go elsewhere for more depth, but this is really only to expected in a book that is trying more for breadth across an entire operating system than depth in one particular area.
Despite having used and developed on a Mac for over 15 years and OS X since the late beta stage I still found myself discovering something new and useful every few pages in the book.
The Bad
The section of the book I appreciated least was the Unix Command Reference. 200 pages, most of which are adequately covered by the online man pages or a quick 'command --help'. Not that it isn't useful having this information on paper, and not that this section isn't more complete than the man pages and less error-ridden. It's just that my favourite operating system has a large number of commands that are hard to find by name alone. Online, I tend to rely on apropos to find what I need. Back when you paid a large amount of money for a Unix license they came with hard copy manuals that included a permuted word index of the same top slug that apropos searches, which made them infinitely more useful. O'Reilly could improve the heck out of this book by giving us the same thing for what I felt was otherwise an almost totally wasted 200 pages (though I admit that the combination of the chapter on NetInfo and the command references for nicl and niutil etc. actually have me now understanding and using NetInfo well.)Once again O'Reilly have provided a web page for the book that is mostly marketing material -- though in this case the Errata page is useful. At the bottom of the page they have a number of links to "Related O'Reilly Articles" but have only listed three by the authors of the book, leaving out, for example, X11 and Open Office on Mac OS X by Wei-Meng Lee and Configuring sendmail On Jaguar by James Duncan Davidson to name two MacDevCenter articles I've found incredibly helpful.
Conclusion
This book is not quite in the "must buy" category. If you do want a book to help you with the more technical aspects of OS X or to help you move to OS X from Unix or Windows hacking then this one is worth a serious look. It certainly better covers the technical aspects than OS X Bible and others of that style (such as the Missing Manual or Robin Williams' Little Mac OS X Book.) The only other volume that really compares is OS X Unleashed and it has way too much coverage of the simple stuff and the various applications, is not as well structured and has a wordier, less terse and technical style. It's also more expensive and twice the size and weight.
You can purchase Mac OS X in a Nutshell from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
What?!?! (Score:1, Funny)
I thought companies were moving away from software boxes and to cheaper, downloadable formats, Putting software in a nutshell is outrageous!
Re:What?!?! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:coincidence? (Score:2)
Re:coincidence? (Score:1)
Re:coincidence? (Score:1)
Apple is a business... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a new system buy a new system. If you don't want one, stick with what you've got.
Re:Apple is a business... (Score:1)
Re:Apple is a business... (Score:2)
Getting the same smooth behaviour on Linux with an installable product would be a can of worms compared to simply shipping a pre-configured Darwin with OS X. This could dilute the brand if OS X Linux had major problems. There's no telling how much development time thi
Re:Apple is a business... (Score:1)
i know os x is no lindows, but it is still working on getting decent enough that it can someday compete.
Re:Apple is a business... (Score:1)
Not true. IBM has had this business model for over 30 years. I think their support for legacy systems has been a great thing for IBM, making them the most reliable and robust of all the hardware vendors.
People do have memories, you know. They will recall that they weren't required to upgrade in a few years.
Panther (Score:5, Interesting)
Missing Sample Chapter (Score:5, Informative)
(Blatant Kerma whoring, but I immediately "dug" to find is, so I thought I'd post it.)
Power users (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Power users (Score:1)
And hillbillies prefier to be called 'Sons of the Soil', but it ain't gonna happen. -Dr. Julius Hibbert
Re:Power users (Score:1)
Re:Power users (Score:1)
osxhints (Score:5, Informative)
Some really funky applescript stuff, some lame bash scripts & much gui tweaks, but I've found a lot of fixes for problems that no apple docs could help me with.
Re:osxhints (Score:4, Informative)
it's been said here before I think, but this [macosxhints.com] is a great site with tons of usefull (also sometimes stupid) osx info.
And, interestingly, that site's editor has written an O'Reilly book himself, that is due to come out shortly, titled "MacOS X Hints" [oreilly.com].
Re:osxhints (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally, he runs it without ad revenue, keeps it free of subscriptions. Quite an achievement.
I really, really hope his book sells well. He deserves it !
Re:osxhints (Score:4, Informative)
Nice Review (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with many of these books, though, is that they aren't where the masses will find them. I go into my local B&N and there may be a dozen or two titles tops that relate to the Mac, compared with the hundreds for Windows and other stuff.
And probably, the only people going to O'Reillys are people that probably don't need the book.
I think the Apple Store needs to go into the book-selling business as well and promote books like this on their site, or on the Switch site to that the masses who could use this type of information will know that it is out there.
Re:Nice Review-For whom the tome tolls. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but. Will that not destroy the "Ease of use" illusion? Here's your computer, and here's this thick book to read.
Re:Nice Review (Score:1)
Re:Nice Review (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? This isn't scientific, but I'd say that the VAST majority of people who need a Nutshell book already know who O'reilly are and don't equate a B&N bookshelf with what's available about computers.
Also, I've not been dissatisfied with Mac book selections at major booksellers. There's way more overlap in Windows books, and I prefer quality over quantity.
Re:Nice Review (Score:1)
Re:Nice Review (Score:2, Informative)
Well, the Barnes & Noble, Borders and Fry's here in Austin have the Mac well covered. Austin's a nice town, too.
Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:5, Interesting)
The argument for disconnected access with books is a bit tougher with a 750page book.. Not really a mobile tool.
I still like the book (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm usually in agreement - I find that google is nearly always the best reference for everthing...except computer how-to. Usually, what I find, is my searches turn up 1000 people with the same/related question as me, but usually, either no one answered, or the advice sucked. It takes me usually a lot of searching through google to find someone who had the exact problem adequately answered.
By then, with a good book, I have found the answer far sooner. Of course, the main advantage of google is it's free, so I end up repeating the above process a lot...
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:4, Interesting)
I own the book, and it is rather small and unassuming for a book with 801 pages. It is NOT a Wrox book. It is a bit thicker than other O'Reilly Nutshell books (Perl IAN, Java IAN, Python IAN), but it is not quite as thick as Oracle IAN. I suspect they are using slimmer pages than they used to do, but they also seem to be a bit more durable.
I can't really comment on the content yet, as I've been reading through Python IAN first -- which, by the way, is amazingly good!
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:1)
It's kind of weird, but in the last few months, my Wrox books have slowly faded away and ultimately disintegrated. It's as if someone came from the future and caused Wrox to have never existed at all.
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, learning from internet searches might prove useful because you collect form a multitude of authors -- when you only have one author, you only see one part, and s/he may, for example, not give much importance to templates (back to c++ example) as another author might. Choosing a multitude of authors circumvents the "paradigm bias."
OR you could just have the cash in the first place and go out and buy 10 books ;-)
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Goes Google obsolete these books? (Score:2, Interesting)
an apple a day (Score:1)
How big is this nutshell, exactly? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How big is this nutshell, exactly? (Score:1, Funny)
a little off-topic, but... (Score:5, Informative)
If you are indeed a Unix geek, go to macosxhints.com and you'll find a lot more useful information there for free.
Re:a little off-topic, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
With most technical books, I'll give them a cursory read-through, and then they go onto the shelf for constant referencing (referral? refferation? Whatever), but this one is just mouldering off in a corner somewhere. Pretty much that whole book can be summed up with "It's FreeBSD, more or less".
Re:a little off-topic, but... (Score:1)
concur (Score:2)
A better way (Score:1)
Among other helpfull things is a detailed explanation of OSX startup items (startup is totally different than other *NIX), A list of all the root folders and what OSX uses them for, and some caveats about symlinks and the
Book wide of mark (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, as a word of warning, my comments are based on looking through the book at a local bookstore, and confirming my conclusions by reading the review. I agree with the "Bad."
In aiming a book at the power user for Mac OS X, it's safe to omit almost everything about the GUI. It's not too difficult to learn the GUI in the first place (after all, it's supposed to be intuitive). I think what would most interest the power user is the UNIX underneath.
Now, the so-called "power user" really comes in two forms: one, power users coming from the old Mac OS, and two, UNIX power users. Both of these groups could benefit from a book that concentrates on how OS X's UNIX works. (Note, I'm not talking about an introduction to UNIX, covering grep and piping one command into another, and so forth.)
Besides on essentially wasting so many pages on the GUI (in my opinion), the book falls short in just the way the reviewer noted: namely, thin documentation of the UNIX base and how it differs from others. There is some good coverage; but what is needed is more than a "nutshell"; what is needed is a fuller explanation of the commands.
What is needed is more than what goes only slightly beyond being printed manpages.
Re:Book wide of mark (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, all the stuff you *need* is easily discoverable in the GUI, but lots of people will use a GUI for years and never notice that option-dragging this or that does something different and useful. A true power user knows these things too.
Re:Book wide of mark (Score:1)
I agree with you, and these kinds of tips and tricks certainly belong in such a book. It's the obvious stuff that I find not only unnecessary, but even tedious.
Is /. going buggy? (Score:1)
Re:Is /. going buggy? (Score:1)
Nice Review (Score:1)
This is not the case with this particular review. Both good and bad aspects were covered. As well as a conclusion that compares this book with others of the same ilk.
Also, it's very interesting that OS X gets so much attention from the publishing industry. Coincidence? I think not.
And in related news... (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, if a nutshell guide is over 700 pages...
That's nothing! (Score:3, Funny)
re: nutshell (Score:4, Informative)
is there *any* must-read OS X book? (Score:1)
I was going to get OS X for unix geeks but everyone is saying it's lame. Any suggestions?
750 pages, in a nutshell? (Score:2)
No, *this* is OSX in a nutshell... (Score:2, Funny)
Must be from the folks who brought us a webserver in a fly and a network switch in a teddy bear.
Re:Why I hate Mac OSX (Score:2, Informative)
Do you mean that you don't want to have to got to the Finder application to get to the Applications folder to find a list of your applications? You'd rather have something like Windows' Start but
A few replies (Score:3, Informative)
2) Shart cut keys are pretty universal across mac applications. Learn them once in general. Its not like Unix or Windows
3) If you want to understand file formats go to the developer website on www.apple.com. The file system is fairly complicated since its a compromise between the old apple unix, next and OS9 file system. However there is no such thing as a
4) In terms of the finder do a websearch on
Re:Why I hate Mac OSX (Score:3, Interesting)
Drag your applications folder or your hard drive to the right side of the dock. This will give you a 'start' menu.
Keyboard equivalents are all SHOWN in macintosh menus. The keyboard shortcut is on the right side of the menu selection. e.g. save is ALWAYS apple-s. The apple k
Re:Re:Why I hate Mac OSX (Score:1)
Re:Why I hate Mac OSX (Score:3, Informative)
2) This works just fine. Make sure "Always open folders in a new window" is checked in Finder Preferences, and hold down the Option key while double-clicking a folder if you don't want the previous window to stay open. But that's just my recommendation as a long-time Mac user - I think it should work without that checked.
3) Yeah, this kinda sucks. Each application usual
Re:Why I hate Mac OSX (Score:1, Insightful)
1) There is no 'Menu' button. I do not want to have to run an Application to get a list of programs which I then have to click through. Mouse-over opening menus is nice. It doesn't have to be called Start, or 'K', or anything fancy but a button that has menus and sub-menus listing my appications would be a start.
Quick easy way to achive this is to drag the entire 'Applications' folder to the dock. Or you can create your own unique shortcuts folder with on the applications you want and drag this to the
About the author (Score:2)
Jason McIntosh [jmac.org] has done many Cool Things (tm), including co-authoring Perl and XML [oreilly.com] and defining ComicsXML [slashdot.org]. He worked at O'Reilly for awhile in the now defunct Tools group, helping to build programs to convert author manuscripts into a formats amenable to the Production workflow. When not hacking code, jmac finds and plays obscure games [looneylabs.com] from impolitely named companies [cheapass.com]. Buy his book and encourage him to write a second edition about Panther.
Mmmm... nuts.... (Score:1)
What? What do you mean, "It's an operating system" ?