Customer Reviews

Mac OS X Panther Unleashed (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This has to be the be all and end all for every book on Mac OS X. It has good coverage of the Mac and the iLife apps, but it stops short of Garageband - which was released early in 2004. The first 500 pages cover the GUI aspect of OS X, but I don't buy it for this. It is the next 1100 pages that cover the UNIX aspects and web technologies such as SQL and PHP, if you want to get into these things, but don't know much about UNIX, this book does a good job of hand holding you through the basic concepts. It's enough to wet your appetite, and if you want to get to know more, about PHP (for example) then you can get a book dedicated on just PHP (but a dedicated book on PHP won't tell you how to set up PHP on OS X - that's why you need this book).

This is definately a book for thoses wanting to get into the UNIX side of the system. For the casual Mac user, it is overkill, and for them I would recommend "The Missing Manual, Panther Edition" or "Mac OS X Panther Killer Tips".

This books dives into Mac OS X (Jaguar) with style and grace. The authors make a great
writing team; they balance between graphical and Terminal (Command-line) usage
quite well. The organization is such that any intro user will find a simple and clear
introduction to the new face of Mac OS and the blend of Administrative duties (thanks
to the underlying BSD Unix the administrative coverage is also splendid).
The index is well wrote, with categories where they should be found!

At 1580++ pages, this book is work the price listed, and then some. Trust that it is a proficient
stand-out technical reference for the bookshelf of any
administrator bridging the silent gaps between Mac and Unix; yet applicable to any
interested home user wishing to denounce the old threats and vulnerabilities that
abound in Winblows.

In short, tons of information, from a to itunes to zcat. A great reference AND introductory text. This review
surely doesn't suffice how informative the book is.
If you were looking for a one stop introduction to and admin guide for Mac OS X Jaguar;
This book does what it sets out to do!

One caveat, if you are strictly looking for a GUI reference; preview this book carefully somewhere else.

As an aside, this text reassures that SAMS Publishing has
truly come of age with the Unleashed series. "Kudos" to the authors as well-

hope this helped-

I have reviewed other books on Apple's Mac OS X Panther. Most notably by O'Reilly. They have been well done. But usually crafted with an eye towards brevity. For a possibly impatient reader. But this book may be unsurpassed in its comprehensiveness. It shows that while the Mac has a lovely and very intuitive UI, there is a vast amount under the bonnet that you can also access

Most readers may be attracted to Part 2 - Media Tools. They describe how to best use the Mac for audio and video, plus photography and image editing. Packages like iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes and QuickTime. These form the basis for a digital lifestyle, that tracks the huge rise in digital cameras, camera phones, iPods and other consumer electronics. Apple has done an excellent job with these software packages and the book gives them full attention.

Other parts of the book deal with important topics like the sysadmin details of what is a fully fledged unix box. (You knew that about the Mac, didn't you?) Yet these are specialised topics that only a few of you will really be concerned with.