Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Jason McIntosh | Chris Stone

1 Aimed at Power Users....
I learned from this book, probably because I am curious, not because I will use most of the information presented in any of my computer tasks.

ÊMost people get in their new car and never read the manual to find out the things they could do with lights, door locks etc.Ê They also do not understand how pistons, spark plugs and fuel injectors work.Ê They do just fine.Ê They get where they are going and enjoy the ride.Ê

ÊUsing this book is a little like using your car manual?Ê You can learn all the tricks and bells and whistles of the Aqua interface.Ê The other part of the book takes you under the hood to the CLI (Command Line Interface) and the deeper OS layers.

ÊThe authors warn that this isÊ "a book aimed at folks with a more technical bent than the average user-the Power User."Ê So I asked my son-in-law to check it out. I wanted to find out if it would be useful at a high level of expertise.ÊÊ

*****Another view of this Book....

The book "Mac OS X In A Nutshell" is a very good reference guide. The book is full of detailed descriptions OS X commands, detailed documentation of system preferences, and network services, helpful tips, and overviews of the EMAC's and visual editor. The text is directed toward the computer savvy user.

This text assumes the reader is familiar with the MAC OS 9 and has a good understanding of computer applications and application requirements. I think the book has lots of useful information, tips, advice, and information for the experienced user but leaves the novice and intermediate user rather confused. The book is easy to follow to those that have the background but difficult to follow for the typical or novice Macintosh user.Ê For example, the in chapter on Networking, a novice Mac user have no idea why someone would use FTP file transfer protocol and feel that they need to know more about this transfer protocol. On the other hand, Chapter 8 Printer Configuration and Printing is well written for both the experienced and novice user.

In summary, I think the text is very useful for the experienced user but probably would be overwhelming to the novice and possibly intermediate Macintosh user.

Barbera Jackson & Daniel K. Angell, PhD - Michigan Apple User Group

2 Mac OS X in a Nutshell
The first ten things, I look up I found the answers I needed. This book gives the answer in a paragraph or two without getting too complicated. You are able to go back the computer and solve the problem. I think the hardest thing with is forgetting what we know before Unix. I try to explain why it works and the book has made that a lot easier. As Mac users, we got spoiled, because we could turn it on and it was self explanatory, but with OS X, you have to get started in the right direction. Apple has changed how things get done ever so slightly. There are dos and don'ts about the system as well as running OS9 with OS10. Installing applications and definitions of the strange new words Apple invents. There is printer instructions as well as pictures on those things you haven't a clue.

3 Excellent book for technical OS X converts
It must be difficult when writing a book for 'power users' to decide what exactly needs to be put in and what can be safely left out. This volume does the job quite well, covering the simple stuff quickly and early while devoting a great deal of its 750 pages to topics of more interest to serious users of Apple's new(ish) operating system. It also declares its audience early, the preface devotes a page to explaining the target audience and states it is 'aimed at folks with a more technical bent than the average user--the power user.

The Gist

Mac OS X In A Nutshell 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.

4 I was disappointed
Trying to nail a moving target like OS X is an ambitious undertaking and Mac OS X in a Nutshell falls short. Using many different styles and varying degrees of depth from one topic to the next, the book appears to have been rushed to print. However, even allowing the trade-offs between quality and currency doesn't explain why the book documents a snapshot of OS X 10.2 as it was in August 2002, although comments in the text say the time of writing was as recent as January 2003. Either it was completed in the few days just before MacWorld San Francisco or it was simply too late to include any references to the many significant developments presented by then. In any event, the book's timing is unfortunate as it appears dated and less relevant then if it were published four months earlier or a few weeks later. Having completed the book, I found myself with the same unanswered questions I had when I started it, and some new ones.

The book purports to target power users but I think they would find it too slow and shallow for the most part and, as a reference, too disorganized. A better audience would be newcomers to Mac OS X, particularly those who want to develop for the platform and need an overview of its capabilities. For that group the book serves as a reasonable starting point, however, readers should take care not to quote facts from the book without double-checking them; some outdated material, minor inaccuracies and vague wording will most likely land them on the losing sides of arguments.

More troubling than anything else about the book are the omissions. For example, there's no discussion of virtual memory nor the annoying havoc wrought when running out of disk space corrupts "Preference files" (and how these topics are related). In the "Dotfiles" section there is no mention of the most ubiquitous dotfile of them all -- .DS_Store. Things are brought up but not described. For instance, the Ruby language is listed numerous times along with Perl, Python and others but it's missing from the chapter that describes these programming languages and it's not even in the index. This is not to say the book must discuss Ruby but if it's going to refer to it multiple times then it needs to be addressed. These point out the problem areas -- information that's simply not covered, sections that cover a topic but miss key elements, and terms and concepts the text refers to but fails to discuss.

Even with the issues described above the book still contains a lot of useful information. I've picked up a couple new things and referred back to it on occasion. But the pay-off doesn't justify the reading effort. The book needs some serious editing work to smooth out the presentation consistency, better fact checking and an eye toward precision of wording. If this were turned into a true reference book O'Reilly could publish additional volumes such as Changes for OS X 10.3, Panther and bi-monthly mini-volumes that could refer back to the base volumes. That would be a useful collection.

5 A geek's delight
Other reviewers have claimed that this is a great book for all levels of Mac users. Not. If you don't have an informed opinion about the relative merits of vi vs. emacs or don't even know what that means, there are far more appropriate OS X books for you. Pogue's "OS X Missing Manual" or Williams' "Little OS X Book" come to mind.

Consider this; while the Unix command chapter takes up nearly a quarter of the volume there's not a single mention of iTunes. This is not a general purpose Mac book. It is clearly aimed at advanced to expert user who wants to dig into the Unix underpinnings of OS X. At that it is great. The writing is clear, the explanations straightforward. It is well indexed. And it doesn't weigh 10 kg. It is an excellent addition to O'Reilly's Nutshell series, mostly aimed at programmers or system administrators.

6 A geek's delight
Other reviewers have claimed that this is a great book for all levels of Mac users. Not. If you don't have an informed opinion about the relative merits of vi vs. emacs or don't even know what that means, there are far more appropriate OS X books for you. Pogue's "OS X Missing Manual" or William's "Little OS X Book" come to mind.

7 Best I've seen so far
This is one of the better Nutshell books. At close to 800 pages, it's jam packed with everything you would want to know about OS X. It's current through 10.2, and seems to have been updated as late as January 2003.

This is a techy style book. It's not a hold your hand book, but it isn't an entirely dry reference work either. It's something in between, and it is very well done.

In addition to a detailed command reference and an extensive faq-like how-to section, there are complete chapters on networking, printing, scripting and development, X windows and more. Very complete, very well written.

The command reference section is extensive and seems to be very complete. This isn't just a rehashing of man pages, and doesn't just pick up the most common stuff. I checked for a number of the more obscure Mac OS X specific commands that nobody ever mentions: this book has them.

The Development section is more than 100 pages itself. Although I really haven't even started to look at OS X development tools yet, this looks like a very good introduction.

Overall, this is the most complete Mac OS X book I've reviewed to date. I definitely recommend it without any hesitation.

8 IDEAL FOR MOST USERS
The nice thing about this "Mac OS X in a Nutshell" is that it used consistent and unclattered narration throughout its chapters. Its goal is to familiarize 'OS X' users with the fundamental mechanism of the Operating System. Every aspect of the software was discussed.
With over 750 pages, this book's coverage is vast. It includes substantial directives on how to optimize all the new Desk Accessories, (DAs), which were introduced in 'Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar'. Also, there are guidelines on how best to configure the software and the search engine, in order to enhance networking.
This should be an ideal book for every user-level (from beginner to advanced). It contains some information that will interest Unix users. However, if you are an advanced Mac user who wouldn't compromise superlative texts, then, you should note that "Mac OS X Unleashed" offers a better depth and value than this book.

9 If I Only Could Buy Just One Book On OS X
This would be it! Being a big fan of O'Reilly and the Nutshell books, my expectations were very high. And, after reading the blurbs and seeing the table of contents, my expectations rose. Needless to say, my expectations were met, and perhaps, exceeded. This approximately 800pp tome is chock full of information. If you are using OS X purely as an end user, to run apps like Photoshop, and have no inclination to dig deeper, than this book isn't for you. But, if you consider yourself a Power User, or are looking to become a Power User, or just want to have a deeper understanding of what is going on behing the pretty GUI, than this book is for you.

The book covers everything from system configuration to UNIX command line interface. It may not be the most complete reference for everything is discusses, but it goes into enough depth to achieve a modest level of comprehension, and if you want more, it points you in the right direction. It gives tips on installing X Windows, recommends some window managers (note, this was written before Apple's own X11 software became available in beta form), and even talks about how to get, install, and use Fink.

It also covers Netinfo, and how it differs from regular UNIX config files. And, not only does it discuss when, how, and why, but also how not to use Netinfo.

Bottomline, I heartily recommend this book for anyone wanting to really understand what is going on, and how to effectively manage your OS X system. I just hope they make an OS X Server version as well.