Book details of 'Mac OS X in a Nutshell'

Title	Mac OS X in a Nutshell
Author(s)	Jason McIntosh, Chuck Toporek, Chris Stone
ISBN	0596003706
Language	English
Published	January 2003
Publisher	O'Reilly & Associates

---

Back to shelf Operating systems
Amazon.com info for Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Score:

Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Mac OS X in a Nutshell':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
The preface, on behalf of the reader, asks why there should be a need for this Nutshell series book, when a "Missing Manual" (another O'Reilly series) Mac OS X title exists. It concludes that the Nutshell books are for the power users who are "curious about what happens under the hood." The preface goes on to promise that this work is terse and without excessive verbiage. Overall, this commitment to consision is met, but the "under the hood" material seems to be missing. This volume is a good index in terms of where to look for a given operation, but gives little explanation of the underlying technology or functions that the power user could utilise. "Terse" should not just mean a command to "do this," without any exegesis. Part one is a general introduction. Chapter one presents the usual list of desktop GUI (Graphical User Interface) basics. File and application management with the Finder is covered in chapter two. The differences between Mac OS X, OS 9, and Classic are presented in chapter three. Chapter four is an index to functions and settings. Part two deals with system configuration. System preferences are outlined in chapter five. Chapter six has a listing and brief description of many applications and utilities shipped with the operating system. Dialogue boxes related to net connections are discussed in chapter seven, but there is little additional information. Printer control, in chapter eight, is reviewed with slightly more data. Chapter nine lists some file systems, and presents a few UNIX file system concepts, but is very disappointing in its lack of detail. Superficial coverage of Java related settings in Internet Explorer and MRJAppBuilder makes up chapter ten. Part three reviews system and network administration. Chapter eleven lists miscellaneous administrative tasks such as running commands with root privileges, mounting disks, and (oddly) the firewall. The explanation of network directory services and NetInfo, in chapter twelve, clarifies some items that were confusing in chapter eleven: a forward reference would have been helpful. Chapter thirteen talks about starting Web, email, and other servers, and fourteen discusses installing parts of Darwin, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, and Python (all under the acronym DAMP). Scripting and development, in part four, has a catalogue of development tools (in chapter fifteen), a brief description of AppleScript (sixteen), text editors and command lists for vi and emacs (seventeen), and a CVS (Concurrent Versions System) command reference (eighteen). Part five is, ostensibly, the long promised look under the Mac OS X hood. Chapter nineteen reviews terminal preferences, twenty takes a brief look at patterns and regular expressions (regex), twenty one lists some tcsh shell commands and operators, twenty two discusses settings in property list (plist) files, twenty three deals with some aspects of starting X, twenty four has an extremely terse mention of installing UNIX software, and twenty five is a UNIX command reference. Yes, this section does give a bit of background in UNIX, the operating system underlying OS X, but the look is fleeting, and the hood is slammed shut without much useful information being imparted. While this book is a serviceable guide for the general MAC OS X user, coming from the usually superior Nutshell series it is a disappointment. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004
Add my review for Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Book description:

In the tradition of O'Reilly's Nutshell series, this new title offers a thorough treatment of Mac OS X version 10.2, from its BSD Unix foundation to Aqua, the new user interface. The book's "Unix Command Reference" is the most complete and thorough coverage of Mac OS X Unix commands you can find anywhere. Each command and option in this section has been painstakingly tested and checked against Jaguar--even the manpages that ship with the system can't compete in accuracy. The reference incorporates the new command-line tools that come with Apple's Developer tools. It familiarizes readers with the Finder and the Dock, file management, system configuration, network administration issues, and more. Later chapters include bonus material for the Unix user, including advanced use of the Terminal and how to configure a DAMP (Darwin, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP) web publishing system. Mac OS X in a Nutshell provides a wealth of knowledge for anyone who wants to make the most of Mac OS X.