Customer Reviews

Mastering Mac OS X

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

 

 

I've seen a fair number of books for OS X and they range in target audience from the raw beginner such as Mac OS X for Dummies and Robin William's Mac OS X Book through to those for technical readers such as Mac OS X In A Nutshell (IAN).

Mastering Mac OS X falls firmly in the middle. Unlike IAN it spends a fair amount of time on the GUI and a major section is devoted to QuickTime and the iApps. Unlike Robin William's volume it covers high end topics such as AppleScript and the terminal and has a good section on troubleshooting. One thing lacking that I applaud is that it does not have IAN's large chapter summing up Unix commands.

The Good

The book is well structured, divided into 7 sections, 5 of increasing complexity, 'The Mac OS X Basics', 'On The Internet', 'Multimedia: Images Sound, Video', 'Networking, Coonectivity and Portables' and 'Advanced Mac OS X topics' - which covers AppleScript, the Terminal, and various servers including QuickTime, Samba and Sendmail. These are followed by a hardware and troubleshooting section and finally the appendices. The index is good and it has the by now traditional two level table of contents, the first listing just the chapter heads and the second listing all the sub sections as well.

Given that structure, the book touches all the bases and covers all the required topics well.

The writing is not bad, I think a stronger hand with the editing would have done wonders as it tends to the wordy.

The Bad

Once again a certain amount of the early stuff is either below the needs of the target audience or not really required. Oh, and Sybex do have a page for the book...!OpenDocument which includes a Table of Contents, sample chapter, index and errata but get a load of that URL and the author has a web page for the book but he hasn't touched it in over a year, since before this second edition was published.

Conclusion

It should be said that among all the books in this genre none are badly written, or badly structured. Personally I don't like the style of the 'Dummies' books and so I put it at the bottom of my list but others may not have the same feeling. That said, how do you choose among them? The choice boils down to two things, how close you are to the target audience for a particular book and how well it addresses the target audience. Mastering Mac OS X is targeted at "intermediate beginners (those who have some experience with a graphical operating system) and solidly intermediate to advanced users" according to the Introduction. I think that it covers the needs of the first group well but will probably fall short if you are already an "advanced user." For these people I'd recommend Mac OS X In A Nutshell. If you are a total newbie, then I'd recommend Robin William's Mac OS X Book.

Todd Stauffer's Mastering Mac OS X Second Edition is a worthy addition to any OS X user's personal library. Updated with lots of new information for OS X 10.2 "Jaguar," this book (hereafter referred to as MMOSX2 to save my fingers) covers the waterfront for the intermediate and advanced user. While the back cover bills the book as suitable for users of all levels, I think that the raw Macintosh novice would find this book a bit intimidating, with the section Macintosh essentials being swamped by the huge amount of more advanced topics.

Stauffer is exceptionally thorough, with the 804 pages of text covering almost every facet of Mac OS X theory and practice. Rather than recite the various sections from the Table of Contents, you can be assured that almost any question an advanced or power user may have is covered. While not targeted at the hard-core, extreme geek, MMOSX2 does have a good basic introduction to the Unix underpinnings of OS X. Part V Advanced Mac OS X topics spans 100+ pages, and held my attention for page after page.

To my mind, the best sections in MMOSX2 are those on networking and cross-platform operations, as well as the two new chapters on troubleshooting system-level problems and typical OS X problems and solutions. Stauffer provides a well-rounded discussion of these topics, which are not often well served by other general-purpose OS X book, especially the troubleshooting sections.

Unfortunately, MMOSX2 was a bit hard to read, with text just a bit small for my 46 year-old eyes. While a larger type size would have caused the book to balloon to an even greater page count and greater weight, I would have preferred a larger type size. MMOSX2 is not alone, as other "boat-anchor" books often sacrifice readability for portability. Perhaps the publishers should begin to bundle a pair of cheap bifocals with any book over 500 pages.

Mastering Mac OS X Second Edition is clearly a reference book. Stauffer's style is a bit dry, to put it politely, and MMOSX2 will not keep you up into the night, unless you are using it while troubleshooting an OS X problem. But this book is clearly worth buying for its comprehensive collection of OS X information; you'll have all you need in one place on your bookshelf.

MacMice Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This book (the second edition) is quite comprehensive and well laid-out. The chapters on the Terminal and on Darwin (chapters 23 and 24) are really good and written with a nod to the traditional Mac user and the traditional Unix user. My only minor negative comment is that the screenshots are in black and white. I understand that color screenshots would increase the printing costs but the Aqua interface is so nice, a black and white picture just doesn't do it justice. However, the lack of color screenshots should not deter anyone thinking of getting this book. It will be a valuable reference to anyone's library.

I put this desktop reference and basic "how to" OS X book to work immediately, as I attempted to connect from an internet café and couldn't figure out how to override my computer from continually attempting to connect to the ethernet as opposed to my Airport connection. I quickly found the chapter and section of this 800 page plus book, and focused in on the information I knew was going to assist me. If it wasn't for the graphic on the page, I would not have been sure if I was in the correct place. I skimmed through, and quickly was able to achieve my first task with my new Mastering OS X 2nd Edition reference book. I could tell we were going to get along just fine. I quickly went through the other OS X questions that I had been saving in my head for this exact moment. With a quick perusal of the Table of Contents, and the graphics used in the book, I have had my deepest OS X mysteries solved and my ibook signing to my personal preferences. In the back binding of the book, there is also a chapter reference that anticipates your next move. It seems to have been designed consecutively so that you can also begin to see the natural progression of your own personal network, and to perhaps judge what is missing from it as well. For example, it lists topics such as "Backing up your Mac" (okay- some of us need to still be reminded to do this, and to get advice as to what the best way to do so is!), and "Maintaining and Repairing Disks". Topics that otherwise would may have not crossed my mind are outlined right before me.

Now in a substantially revised and expanded second edition which is updated for OS X v10.2, Mac OS X is a comprehensive and definitive guide which offers a straightforward tutorial on everything to do with the OS X operating system for the Macintosh including troubleshooting, security precautions, installation, networking, data recovery and much more. Screenshots, thorough examples, and easy-to-follow, step-by-step, expert instructions fill the pages of this first-rate, confidently recommended resource and reference.