David L. Hart
1 A real disappointment
The first 128 pages of this 395 page book are worthless. Even the author seems to agree. He begins page 129 by writing "Now we've come to the chapter you've been waiting for, or perhaps skipping ahead to...".
The first 6 chapters have little to do with using OSX for a Web Server. One chapter covers basic OSX and Internet concepts. If you are buying this book, you already know everthing in that chapter. Then there is a useless chapter on goals and planning. Chapter 4 is about Networking and how DNS works. That was kind of interesting and I learned a few things (none of which I really need to know in order to setup and run a web server on OSX). Then again back to OSX 101 in Chapter 5 to discuss backup, server management, firewalls, etc.
Chapter 6 is devoted entirely to using OSX as a client! It has absolutely nothing to do with running a web server on OSX.
Unfortunately the world of Apple is full of difficult to use online help and very little documentation. The best alternatives are the many good books out there that help explain it all. Unfortunately this is not one of them.
2 More like bathroom paper than a handbook
There's nothing in this book that's either complete or concrete or even finished. The author goes on and on and on about nothing. He needs help in paragraph structure. Because he never ever finishes a paragraph, he just moves on to something else. He talks about what can be done, but never explains how to do it. This book is a waste of a good tree. How can anyone develop a web server with this?!
3 Controversy
Actually, this book is a controversy.
It looks like people really liked it or hated it. And this depends on whether what they were looking for was in this book or not.
The book's title is misleading because the book will NOT teach you how to actually manage a Mac web server.
Instead, it will tell you everything you need to know about Mac servers and will give you weblinks to deepens your search.
I didnot know anything about Mac server and now, I am pretty knowledgeable about all possible options to choose from for how to use a Mac server.
What I really appreciated was the panel of options Hart describes of web software.
This is a general book with only horizontal knowledge.
A great first time user's book!!!
4 Mac OS X Web Server Handbook - the web server part..
I picked up this book, because as you can probably guess.. I am planning on running the Apache Server so I can develop web applications and test them on my local machine. Either I misread the back, or I thought this book was going to teach me everything about setting up and developing on a web server.. however the author tends to just glide over the good stuff and spend oodles of time telling you about the millions of things you can add to your server, but fails to go into any real detail on anything. Oh well, live and learn.
5 More like a catalog than a handbook
There's nothing in this book that's either complete or concrete. For example, the Apache web server comes standard with X, but this book spends only 6 pages with it; 2 of those pages explain how to use the GUI to turn the web server on or off. (The book is called "Web Server Handbook", right?)
When you're talking Unix and mail servers, the first thing that comes to mind is the freeware Sendmail program, which is available for OS X. Oops, "Sendmail" isn't even in the index of this book.
On the other hand, the book does devote 12 pages to "Choosing a Browser". 12 pages about choosing a web browser? This isn't something I couldn't figure out for myself?
So, what fills the rest of the pages? Glossy catalog style descriptions of Real Player and Quick Time, iTools and Communigate Pro. With less information than you can get from their respective web pages. There's a quick (surprisingly short) overview of network security. A nice introductory writeup of what TCP/IP is all about. You'll find a few reasonable snippet code examples. There's a good but overly brief introduction to databases. And there's some lightweight filler material about XML, XHTML, HTML, PHP, Java, and other buzzwords.
If you're new to all of this, this book jumps over too many topics to make it worth bothering with. If you're experienced, this book doesn't really cover anything you don't already know.
6 A primer for providing internet services under Mac OS X
David Hart updates his Web Server Handbook to Mac OS X. His text touches on all the issues you would need to address to host a web site on you Mac OS X machine, or to provide other internet services like FTP, email, et al. This book doesn't cover all the details, but it points you in the right directions to get all the answers to any questions it brings up. I highly recommend it for anyone considering using their Mac OS X box to serve a web site. This book also touches on the client applications available on the platform.
7 Not a handbook, not about Web servers
This is a classic puff piece of a book. There is very little real, practical information provided. Most of the material has little or nothing to do about Mac OS X specifically, and the little there is will not prove helpful, except to provide the most basic overview of Mac OS X. The only people who should buy this book would be those who are not very conversant with even the basics of the Internet. For example, if you need an entire chapter devoted to Web _browsers_, then buy this book. The only redeeming feature about this book is that the writing is not too bad, for a technical book, but the marketing is downright deceptive. This book is not a handbook, and contains material that only tangentially concerns Mac OS X, to no practical good effect.
