Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition by David Pogue
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Book Reviews of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition
Book Review: Very good transaction
Summary: 5 Stars
Very good transaction. The book arrived promptly and in perfect condition. Better than I expected.Book Review: The Joy of Unix
Summary: 4 Stars
Look, if you get this book, you will probably not read it all. Not because it is wrong or badly written. But the sheer size...Over 750 pages, covering every aspect of OS X Panther that the author thinks would be useful to even the rawest newbie to a Mac. In some ways, the bulk is one answer to the question posed on the cover, "The book that should have been in the box". Yes, that is a statement, not a question. But implicitly, behind it is the question of why Apple declined to ship a comprehensive manual with the machine. Apple is trying to claw back the market share it once had. One way is to attract newcomers by offering something that is so easy and intuitive that it is self evident. Whereas a book of this length might scare them off.This leaves an opening that Pogue is readily trying to fill. There are screen captures on most pages, which in no small part adds to the book's heft. But the figures and text explain their subjects well.
Experienced unix users may well find joy here. If you worked on AIX, HPUX, IRIX, Solaris or others, you know that they have basically standardised on the Common Desktop Environment GUI, which is very nice. But OS X is also a unix. Eerie. An alternate universe where there are the familiar terminal windows and command lines. But the GUI has been totally reworked. Logically very coherent and polished, once you get used to it, perhaps with this book to help you.
Book Review: Not especially advanced
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a thorough book that covers all of the operating basics for the OS. Having just received my first Mac, I bought the book to bring me up to speed. Most of the first half was review for me. As a Windows developer checking out the Mac, I wanted extensive instructions on how to setup a new development environment and really get into the guts of the system. This book has a couple of chapters reviewing the basics of *nix commands which were great, but I wanted a lot more. The end of chapter 16 and some of chapter 17 were of use to me, but most of it was reviewing *nix basics that I already knew (navigating directories, listing content, copying, etc.).
Ultimately, I think the fault here lies with me. I should have bought a more advanced book, perhaps in ADDITION to this one. A good OS scarcely needs any explanation on the basics (ideally) and I've found that to be true with OS X. I guess I just thought many of the first ten chapters were for people who've rarely used a computer.
Concluding, I'm glad I have this book for general reference and I think it's a thorough survey deserving of 4 stars. But if you're a more advanced user looking to really get into the guts of the system, something more advanced would be better.
Book Review: A Big Book
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been using Macs since OS 6 was the operating system. Now, several years and many operating systems later, I finally broke down and purchased this "how-to" Mac book. It's gigantic and I certainly wasn't going to sit down and start reading. I put it on the night table and one night I looked up a topic and there was the answer to my query! That was encouraging. Then the next night, I picked up the tome again and started leafing through the topics in which I was interested. To my surprise and chagrin, I was learning new Mac stuff. You think you know it all and then another system comes along and screws with the status quo. Oh well...Book Review: Good overview but lacks depth
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is big and covers a lot of territory. It does a very good job describing how to use OS X, the pre-installed applications, and keyboard shortcuts. By far the best parts of this books can be found in highlighted and 'tips' sections strewn throughout the text.
Unfortunately I found this book lacking in details. For example the Keychain feature, which is like a lock box for passwords and other confidential information, is only given ~3 pages. Because applications can query this information and there's no real analog in other systems, I feel that more text should have been devoted to this feature. Fortunately the NSA had the information I was looking for in their "Securing OS X" document.
Over all this book has everything most users would want to know. However, if like me you're looking to get under the hood this book won't get you there. This book gets 3.5 stars; it's not a replacement for a tech manual, it's verbose and yet still misses details.