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Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Second Edition)
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is exactly what you'd expect if you've read any of Pogue's other books or columns: it's clear and straightforward without seeming dumbed down. His writing tends to be fairly light and often funny, making for particularly readable technical books. That's not to say it's without substance, though -- within the first chunk of this book (which is pushing six hundred pages) I'd already had a dozen of my existing questions answered as well as plenty I hadn't even thought to wonder about.
It seems pretty definitely directed at people who've been using Mac OS for a long time and are switching to OS X. Given what OS X is, it's not surprising that it takes some getting used to, despite vaguely looking like Mac OS. If you've never used OS 8 or 9 and don't have any existing Mac habits to unlearn, you might not even need a book like this -- but I suspect it would still be pretty useful. Pogue also takes time to address issues people might have switching to OS X from Unix or Windows, but the focus is on comparisons to older versions of Mac OS. As the title implies, Apple documentation tends to be slim to non-existent, and this is by far the most thorough OS X book I've seen yet. It functions exactly as promised -- I keep my copy on the shelf over my desk, and when I have a question about something I remember from OS 9 or why something I know from BSD doesn't work under 10.2, I can just look it up.
The second edition is more of the same -- the book is bigger, fatter, and covers Jaguar. It was published in October 2002, so it's not quite up to the minute, but it's certainly not outdated yet. I shelled out another twenty bucks when I first saw it, and I don't regret it -- the only major complaint I'd had about the first edition was that its usefulness was somewhat impaired when 10.2 came out. It's possible I'll feel the same way about the second edition when faced with 10.3 -- but maybe Pogue will write another book.
I would recommend this book for just about every OS X user, regardless of how recently you switched -- people who installed it back during the public beta will probably get just as much out of the second edition as those who just bought their first-ever Mac. However, you'll probably find it more useful if you're coming from older versions of Mac OS than if you've just switched from another Unix or Windows, but that's not to say it isn't worth reading in those cases. It's relatively cheap for an O'Reilly book (712 pages, list price is $29.95) so you can't really go wrong.
You can purchase OS X: The Missing Manual from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
After reading his review I think this might be a great book for me to start off learning the mac with. Nice Review. The book seams to be a great price too!
This is as bad as, "Mac OS for Dummies". Totally redudant.
I hope the book is longer than your review...
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
Given what OS X is, it's not surprising that it takes some getting used to, despite vaguely looking like Mac OS.
It's gotten a lot better, but the best description I've heard of Mac OS X DPs/10.0 was "it's kind of like a Mac, but a Mac built by people who've only had a Mac described to them over the phone".
There were a number of really quite spurious changes to the UI initially, which probably explains the demand for this kind of book - the change from 9 to X has been more confusing than any OS transition Apple users have ever had to do before, including the move to System 7 (when there was also plenty of grousing to start with).
For a good laugh, check out this link.
They do that to avoid the class action suits when all us mouse wheel twiddlers eventually succumb to RSI.
If the manual is missing, it is because nobody need a manual in order to use MacOSX !
To give small minded people like you something to bitch about instead of the normal gripes of trying to figure out the config file for XFree86. It is the marvelous design of the Mac OS that requires only one mouse button to utilize the system. Also have you ever tried to do telephone tech support?
"Mam, I need you to click the right mouse button."
"I am using the RIGHT mouse button!!!"
"No mam, the one of the right side of the left mouse button!"
"Well, why didn't say that in the first place?!?!?"
(Sounds of a tech banging his head on his monitor)
I cummed across Emmastory's site before, and happened upon the chat room. Lo and behond, who was there also but slashdot's very own CowboyNeal.
I sense some kind of conspiracy, but I'm unsure of the exact details.
I've been missing one of my Mac OS manuals for over a week! Give it back O'Reilly!
There was a clip of manual contents here
review
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
She doesn't see tech-minded people buying how-to books for the OS proper, or at least not when they first buy the computers. Personally I've never felt a need, and my 9-year-old kids were comfortable immediately in OS X, tweaked every setting they had access to without a blink.
(But "intensely thorough"? Is intensity really the quality you're looking for in a reference? I imagine cracking the binding in my haste to pore, hot-eyed, over some crucial command line syntax...)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The second edition is more of the same -- the book is bigger, fatter, and covers Jaguar. It was published in October 2002, so it's not quite up to the minute, but it's certainly not outdated yet. I shelled out another twenty bucks when I first saw it, and I don't regret it -- the only major complaint I'd had about the first edition was that its usefulness was somewhat impaired when 10.2 came out. It's possible I'll feel the same way about the second edition when faced with 10.3 -- but maybe Pogue will write another book.
This is a great reason to have open books that can be updated. The problems with printing said open books are obvious, but for simple reference purposes, this is an idea whose time has come. I think there was a story here recently about O'Reilly doing something like this. Good luck to them -- I am personally much more likely to buy/use a book that I know will have a longer shelf life than a head of lettuce.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
I did find it immediately useful to discover features I didn't know Mac OS X had, such as speech recognition. For that alone, I'm glad I received the book as a birthday gift.
In contrast, I absolutely adored the iMovie Missing Manual. I devoured it over a few weeks and found it fun, useful, interesting, and without all the "nudge nudge wink wink"s.
I can believe the argument that some might put forward that the single-button mouse is easier for the novice user. This O/S is significantly advanced that is is attracting geeks (myself included, even though it is a dog on my G3). Geeks need buttons on a mouse. Why doesn't Apple even have the option of a multi-buttoned mouse? Scroll wheels have proven INVALUABLE by end users. Apple considers them frivolous? Eccentric? Confusing to the end user?
Bah!
Oh... and I am well-aware that most after-market USB mice work on Macs, but why does Apple not even recognize this issue?
-Pete
This review told me practically nothing! What does this book have in it that is good for geeks?
Okay, so it's been updated and it's fatter and you like it and it's good for people who used pre-OSX Macs. Personally, I never used a pre-OSX Mac -- why is it good for me?
You describe it as a thorough book, but barely give me an idea of it's contents.
I got this when I got my imac - since I'd only used Windows for personal computing, I wasn't used to doing things the Mac Way. Well, the OSX way - I guess there are differences. It's a great book, but weak on command line stuff and not all that funny. I don't know why people who write manuals bother trying to be funny: it's almost never pulled off and is usually distracting.
I'd recommend it to anyone who is switching from Windows - Mac (OSX) stuff isn't intuitive if you're used to doing things One Microsoft Way.
Don't bother trying to talk about real world problems and logic and the like to the Mac zealots.
They don't seem to be able to deal with it very well and in the end they'll all start running around waving their hands talking about how thier Uncle still uses his first Mac that he bought in 1993 which proves they last longer and are a much better value than a PC which cost half as much running Linux or Windows.
I think Pogue is great. I and a colleague have been providing training/orientation for the university we work at since OS X appeared. As soon as Pogue's book hit the scene we grabbed it and began recommending it to our beginning and intermediate OS X session attendees. IN fact, we've now modeled our training sessions loosely around his first three chapters.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Well, flame me if you'd like, but I fail to see why anyone would write a comment about an old 300 MHz Mac running OS < X in a story pertaining to OS X.
Your comment is 100% offtopic, is a troll, and flamebait. Nice try.
To address your argument though. Yes, OS X has issues when you overload it with too many extensions just like a Windows machine does. Considering the OS < X architecture is really a hack on a hack on a hack of a not very well designed API from 1984 then I suppose it's pretty amazing that it works at all. NOTE: Win32 is actually in the same boat. The API is a hack on a hack on a hack of a poorly designed API from the 80s (Win16).
I'm sure if you knew as much about Mac OS as you did about Windows (and spent all of that time on Mac OS instead of Windows) then you'd surely know how to fix the problem you're having (disable unneeded extensions). Of course, I never was an OS < X user and even I know to do something as simple as that.
Good God, did you write this post in 1996 and save it for a rainy day?
I became a Mac user only after Apple moved to MacOS X - a modern, UNIX-based OS.
I have neither the desire, the time, nor the inclination to learn anything about Mac OS 9, 8, or earlier versions. I avoided these for many years ( because they were unstable, unpreemptive, un-interoperable, and unneccessary for an ungraphic artist like myself.) and it is even less neccessary for me to learn them now that they are legacy.
I love MacOS X. It gives me a great, pretty, powerful, easy-to-use environment that I don't have to think about 95% of the time, with the option of a CLI terminal/shell for those 5% of the times when I do. It would be fun to learn more about MacOS X, which is - as you know - a very very different OS than its predecessors.
Won't someone write an indepth book on Mac OS X that doesn't contain uneccessary and often confusing references to obsolete virgins I know little (and care less) about.
the best OSX Unix book is 'Unix for Mac OX' by Matisse Enzer, If you're looking to learn Unix on the macintosh. It covers everything from commands, pipes, environment, editors, permissions, scripts... it's very thorough.
I probably wouldn't recommend it for people already comfortable with Unix, but for a beginner it's the best OSX Unix book I could find. Highly recommend it!
I mean christ, if you got OS X onto that machine you must have some inteligance, now why don't you apply it and realise that it isn't going to work properly if you put it on a machine it wasn't designed to work on.
Bob
Would it be rude for me to tell you to get a life? This EXACT spiel has been posted before, months ago...
I really shouldn't even be justifying this with a response, but if you're telling the truth, you've got some problems with your Mac. I could supply you with similar anecdotes about my experience with painfully slow PCs, but i won't bore you anymore.
I agree. I do get tired of this kind of thing. Slashdot itself is one of the worst examples of it, however. Consider how /. stories have a smart-assed commentary that is almost always anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux and Mac-snickering (to coin a term). I guess it goes over big with the intended audience - both for Pogue and for the editors of /.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I am a Mac user and I would never install OSX on a 300 MHz PowerPC 604, 64 MB machine. It is waaaay under powered and well below the operating requirements for OSX. OSX is a resource hog, but then again, the system you are using is perhaps 5 years old. Given the CPU and memory it requires, OSX runs fast.
Switch back to OS 9 and you will have good performance with that system.
Troll 94 of 210 from the annals of the Troll Library .
I've actually been to David Pogue's house, Twice. I knew their Nanny, and met him once. I really don't remember what was said, he did seem a little eccentric but nice. Anyway, I just remember watching "Fried Green Tomatoes" on their TV, (I had been outvoted.)
> Slashdot itself is one of the worst examples of it, however. Consider how /. stories have a smart-assed commentary that is almost always anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux and Mac-snickering (to coin a term).
Yeah, but Microsoft does suck though.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
In Soviet Russia, "Kathleen Fent" tries YOU!
is Mac OS X in a Nutshell. When I finally took the plunge and bought an iBook, one of the main reasons was for the bad-ass BSD core in OS X that I kept hearing about. Unfortunately, the official Apple documentation is extremely sparse, and coming from a heavy Windows background, OS X and Aqua were very foreign to me, and sort of intimidating.
/. crowd.
So I did some research, and began looking at good books to help me make the "switch". Although the Pogue book is well written and entertaining, there is really not much in there that I didn't figure out on my own in the first two days just playing around with the OS. There is absolutely nothing in there about the BSD core. OS X In A Nutshell, on the other hand, goes through the Aqua Interface, then goes in depth into AppleScripting, the BSD core, and even has little tidbits on Perl & regular expressions and the like. It doesen't wax poetic like the Pogue book, but it's definitely a much more concisely written, useful book for the
My point here is that the Mac OS, pre-OSX, was not very inneficient. I'm not surprised by what you're describing. And that 300MHz processor is not even a G3. What are you expecting?
You wanted reasons to choose a Mac? OS X. On modern hardware. I've always swore by Macs, but in retrospective, I honestly can't believe I put up with so much grief before OS X came along.
Try the Mac OS X Unleashed book from SAMS. It is also written by Mac OS 9 users, but the authors have certainly embraced OS X (with a few gripes about springloaded folders and the like which actually do exist in Jaguar now). I assume the book has since been updated for Jaguar, so most likely this extra fluff will be gone.
I don't know about you but I would not use any mouse that came bundled with a system... they all suck. I have OS X and the first thing I did was run to Comp USA and purchase a Logitech optical 3 button wheel mouse. Guess what? All the buttons and wheels and everything works the same as they do on wintel machines.
P.S.
I have a never used one button USB mouse for sale *lol*
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
uh.
you can go elsewhere.
that is the most disturbing thing i've ever seen in my life. is it possible to mod this user down to -2 ?
I have OS X on two boxes, one in the office and one at home, but I've been turned off by the hiding of the UNIX stuff. I use FreeBSD daily at work and at home and would like to get more out of OS X than I have so far, but it's been obfuscated beyond my willingness to dig.
Any books that approach OS X from a BSD user's perspective? I don't care for the OS X GUI interface myself (wish I still had Finder...), but it might be fun to get more out of BSD side than I have.
This book has too little technical info for knowledgable mac and unix users and for newbies... well there are just better ways to do things than the book describes. I'd skip this one on all counts. I do find Pogue amusing at times though.
And you can rise above your name, get an account and stand by your words.
I believe this site should adhere to it's "news for nerds" tagline site rather than being strictly a "news for Linx-zealots" site.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
For actual info about what's in the book, take a look here:
It has the table of contents, a sample chapter, and is the butt of a multi-tiered joke.
S. Ramsay I'd recognize your "voice" anywhere. Ha!
Right. Whatever you do, Do Not Buy Macs.
Ever.
Really.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this
You're unable to use Netscape. Well, if you're using an 8600 you're probably using some version of the Classic OS (8.x-9.2.x). If BBEdit Lite is choking "as you type this" how did you post your article? Using IE with the other 3 MB of RAM leftover?
The Pocket Guide is also great - just what you need when you're trying to remember a specific command. The nutshell book is superb in that it gives you the full tour and touches on all the portions of the OS that the average user AND the super-geeks will use. I also recommend it.
That's what I'd say is my biggest reason for not going near Macs.
Aside the speed problems I have noticed on evry Mac I've used (and yea, maybe I'm running a fairly fast PC, and can get it to run cleanly (I had a celeron 300 oc'd to 400Mhz for a few years that ran as well as most of my friends Ghz machines, it was only with games as recent as GTA3 that I had no choice but to upgrade if I wanted to play)) but the UI for all the Mac programs seriously puts me off.
Programs like BBEdit, just do not compare to Textpad which has all the options I want, and listen to most of the options it's users would like. It's front end is simple, and clean, and nice, whereas the UI for every Mac program I have ever used, just feels clunky, slow and nasty. Almost plasticy, just like XP (though OK, not nearly as painful).
I agree that in OSX is by far the best Mac OS yet, but I still feel, personally, that the Mac has too many letdowns for me to use seriously.
I have approached using a G4 for music purposes, or graphic design, but at every turn I have found a way to use a PC to do the same, faster and better, and that allows me to stick with a system that runs faster and more like the way I want.
It is a statistically provable fact that there are more gay men using PCs than Macs, through sheer marketshare.
Besides, how do you account for the gay man's superior sense of style?
And, how do you account for proving this point by cutting-and-pasting the same woefully pathetic incendiary letter on every single goddamned Apple post?
How, AC, do you reconcile the fact that you are somehow *threatened* by what is (by your own admission) the Mac's superior technology? How do you respond to that without looking, to all the world, like Jackass Prime?
Answer: you don't.
The 'single button mouse appeals to novices' argument just doesn't hold water.
Why doesn't Apple consider one? Good question.
I dislike Macs as they are nigh on impossible to use.
For starters: The maximise button does not work. Want an app to fill the screen? Tough, you cant. At best you'll get a highly annoying 10px margin all around the window, at worst it will go into some completely unwanted portrait-orientation that can even leave you with less of an app window size than you had before.
Similarly, the application's menubar is ALWAYS at the top of the screen. Right at the very top. You have to go out of the application, to go to it's menubar! Where's the sense in that?
Their keyboards and mice are utterly horrible to use, but they can be replaced so that's a short term problem.
Want me to use a Mac? Make MacOS user friendly then. All this guff about it being THE user-friendly OS applies only in the days when the alternative was command-line DOS.
but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
Cuz their 'l33t'
I'm opening a betting pool. My cash says it'll go for $30 plus the resulting moderation level of this post.
MacOS Y: The missing Operating System?
Scott
this site has nerds, and then mac using nut cases like you.
you aren't a real nerd.
remember that.
The things you complain about are actually features:
First, there is no "maximize" button, there is a "zoom" button. The zoom button increases the size of the window to be just big enough to show the -content- of the window, not to blow it up to the full screen with lots of useless white space inside the window. The way Windows insists on maximizing a window to make it larger than the content of the window is one of the STUPIDEST things in an OS that is filled with human interface blunders. The Mac gets it right.
Second, the menu bar is at the top by design. You never have to wonder which menu bar to access. Also, according to Fitts law, putting the menu bar at the top and having only one of them visible at a time greatly speeds up user interaction with the program.
The reason that the windows UI has "maximize" is to do two things: (1) cover up the plethora of menu bars to relieve the confusion of the poor user, (2) to force the menu bar to the top of the Window! The Mac gets it right on both counts without the collateral effect of useless white space in "maximized" windows.
It was meant to be a joke.
I think the title says it all. But incase not, I'll elaborate. Some games are clearly games you want to play with a mouse. And some games you clearly want more than one mouse button.
However, to apply to the larger theory about multiple mouse buttons and ergonomics, it is more desirable to put more buttons on the mouse. Like all things, too few or too many
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
This illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the "maximize" button, which in MacOSX is NOT a "maximize" but a "zoom" button. It switches between the default and the user-resized sizes of the window. In specific situations (such as the Finder) it resizes the window so the most content is displayed WITHOUT HOGGING THE WHOLE SCREEN. Why you would want to waste valuable screen real estate on blank space in a "maximized" window is beyond me...
There is a fundamental tenet of interface design that says that targets on edges of the screen are "bigger", that is, quicker to reach than targets at some random location in the screen space. It is faster to reach a menu for a relevant app that is along the top of the screen than if it is off in the middle somewhere, even if the top of the screen is farther from the cursor.
Another reason for having one menubar at the top is so there is only one application's menus visible at the same time. This eliminates screen clutter and user confusion - you don't have to think about which menu to go to. Again, more efficient.
This is purely personal preference. The Apple pro keyboard and mouse are some of the nicest I've used. The older, condensed keyboard has it's problems, but types really well. As you said, any old USB kb/mouse will work if you need more buttons or some other form of keyboard.
Not to feed a troll, but these things are the way they are for a reason, and actually serve to make the UI MORE useable.
Mac Zealots, Please Note: I'm not knocking OSX, and I'm not knocking this book, and I'm not knocking the review. It's just not front page material. Let me explain.
;-)
It doesn't apply to people who don't use OSX, and it doesn't really apply to experienced users of OSX. It only applies to a very specific subset of a very small userbase, ONE WHICH HAS THEIR OWN SECTION.
It's like having a filing cabinet marked "Apple Stuff" and then putting all your files into "Miscellaneous" instead. If the article is of WIDESPREAD GENERAL INTEREST, then put it on the front page. If it is IMPORTANT or URGENT (like security alerts), put it on the front page. Otherwise, put it ONLY where it belongs. We ARE smart enough to find it.
Slashdot Editors: PLEASE use the system YOU yourselves have created. The main page should have LESS superfluous junk on it, and the sections should be more specific and detailed. If we want to read about Apple, we click the Apple link. If we want to read about BSD, we click BSD. It's easy. It's logical. It works. Unless YOU don't let it work. Please be discerning. I don't see a book review as a "Headlining Story".
Or are you going to have a Slashdot Platinum Supreme(tm) plan, where we pay to have things sorted correctly?
Bah. Don't ask me - what do I know, anyway?
Yours Truly,
J. Jonah Jameson
Daily Bugle
My eMac decided to lose its hard drive for no particular reason. Held down the Option key on boot, and nothing showed up. Zapped the PRAM. Booted from an OS X CD, ran Disk Utility, found a minor issue, repaired it. Still couldn't boot.
Booted from an OS 9 CD, opened the Startup Disk control panel, selected the System folder, rebooted, and everything is magically back to normal.
Macs are usually painless and simple, but they do have their quirks. Mac OS 9 is built around these quirks. Mac OS X is not.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
It could also cause more confusion. You need to pay attention to which window is active before selecting the menu, but the name of that window is not shown on the menu (you'd have to search the screen to find the active window name). If the menu is on each individual window, you'd know exactly which menu you're accessing without thinking about it.
This is something that can be argued either way, so making it a user preference might be a good idea. IIRC, KDE allows you to select between having one menu at the top of the screen, or having a menu on each window.
because there's a new release of OS X comming this summer, and I'm sure there will be a lot of changes that will require a new edition. It is an excellent book. BTW.
From an Addendum to the linked article:
"ADDENDUM III (4/20/2002): Another reader (it has been busy today!) has informed me of another link between Apple and the forces of darkness that my initial research missed. Apparently the Darwin OS is not the original creation of Apple Computers but is instead based off of an older, obsolete OS called "BSD Unix". The child-indoctrinatingly-cute cartoon mascot of this OS is a devil holding a pitchfork (pictured right). This OS -- and its Darwin offspring -- extensively use what are called "daemons" (which is how Pagans write "demon" -- they are notoriously poor spellers: magick, vampyre, etc.) which is a program that hides in the background, doing things without the user's notice. If you are using a new Macintosh running OS X then you probably have these "daemons" on your computer, hardly something a good Christian would want! This clearly illustrates that not only is Macintosh based on Darwinism, but Darwinism is based on Satanism."
heh...this site is almost as good as Landover Baptist
Oh, don't get me started on System 7. What a hog that was.... I mean, they wanted you to have 4 megs of RAM. Four whole megs! Suddenly, you couldn't opt to run with the finder, or the multi-finder, they forced being able to run multiple applications at the same time on you!
Oh...and aliasing...big deal, I had that in 6.0.4
from some shareware system extension. [hey, wait a minute....isn't this that point when they sprung that foul 'balloon help' on us? Oh, yeah, 350k of extra crap in the system folder... and thanks to them, we get today's 'tool tip' crap.]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I've been a Mac user since 1991. I'm also a creationist and a Christian. I've read this site before. While I would never deny there is a pro-evolutionist slant in the world today, I hardly think that the Mac is a satanic platform. People like this, while no-doubt well-intentioned, sound so ridiculous that they water-down legitimate points of contention. This allows evolutionists to discount valid arguments, pointing to ludicrous web sites like this as reasons to distrust the lot of us. Very sad.
It could also cause more confusion. You need to pay attention to which window is active before selecting the menu, but the name of that window is not shown on the menu (you'd have to search the screen to find the active window name). If the menu is on each individual window, you'd know exactly which menu you're accessing without thinking about it.
You might try actually using a mac before complaining about the interface. The top-of-screen menu bar always displays the name of the topmost application on the far left; the situation you complain about simply never arises.
I was looking at several books to have as a reference last year (still on 10.1) and I decided I preferred J&W Ray's "OS X Unleased" over the Pogue book and Jesse Feiler's one. There's a second edition out now also covering Jaguar and I can find little wrong in the book. It seems to be written for the more advanced Mac user, since it seems to assume certain GUI actions are known. Its section on the BSD core however is excellent. Although Apple made some changes going from 10.1 to Jaguar, most things in my book are still relevant and I'm sure the 2nd edition will have the updated stuff. (Apple switched from wget to curl at one point)
If you're interested in OS X and using a mouse is a known thing, I'd think this book will help you more to get the BSD core. It includes chapters on Apache (including the webDAV and MP3 mods), sendmail, FTP and more very useful things.
It's a niche effect. Mac users are what, 5% of the user base? They can either feel like losers being left out, or like the elite. So they choose to feel like the elite.
(A Mac user, though not at the office).
If you weren't so fixated on The Microsoft Way It's Done, you'd find it is actually easier to have the menu bar Always On Top and at the top of the screen. And the "maximize" button (it's called a zoom button) does something different from what it does on a Windows computer, it changes between the default size and the largest size you've chosen.
What I got was some very basic Unix tutorials. My NextStep 0.8 documentation (circa '87) is MUCH more helpful than this book.
While there is some pretty basic stuff about using the shell, I think this comment is a bit unfair. The stuff about fink and other package management, building packages, and the xnu kernel are not what I'd call "very basic." I liked the book not so much because it taught me anything new about Unix, but because it told me the things I needed to know about Darwin's quirks, like its directory structure for example. It helped me get some stubborn source code to compile.
The stuff about X11 is a little dated, though, coming as it did just before Apple's X11 betas hit the net. I'd say this book was OK, but not exhaustive by any stretch.
I couldn't agree more. A one-button mouse might be nice for a (very) new user, but that's about it. Why does the Mac come with a keyboard and why does this keyboard have more than one key? Because lots of people are capable of using more than one finger.
Now THAT is funny....
post
This "Ridiculously Brief" explanation was brought to you by the letter "A" and the number "9".
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I bought the first version of the Missing Manual when I was considering a Mac rather than a new PeeCee (for Linux, not Windows) just before Christmas. It was a really good introduction to the Mac way of doing things, and together with a couple of afternoons wasted on demo machines in PCWorld and a stray copy of MacWorld convinced me to switch. (At least for my primary desktop. The server boxen still have Linux on, although not all of them are x86, thank $deity!)
It's been of a lot of use since for the few bits and pieces that aren't immediately obvious and some tricks / shortcuts that I wouldn't have thought to look for without knowing they were there.
From the way it's presented, I imagine it's aimed at people coming from pre-OS X Macs, but it's still pretty useful for Mac virgins. (Or at least for me!)
Regards,
Tim.
Seems the real problem is sitting infront of the keyboard, as usual. Tried an 11MB file (system) on a 100MHz 603E, 64MB memory. Time= 15.5 seconds...
It's official; Creationists confirm: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when Objective: Christian Ministries confirmed that *BSD is satanic propaganda, part of a larger campaign by powerful & evil subversive forces such as PBS and Pokemon. Coming on the heels of recent evidence which plainly shows that *BSD is the work of the Devil, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD and it's evil ilk is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by the dominance of Microsoft and Forces of Good in computers.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. As many of us are already aware, it is written that in the coming Armageddon we will see *BSD and it's many daemons vanquished. Red ink will flow like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Hippie Apple Computer founders Jobs & Wozniak sold their first computer for $666. Their newest computer system is based on 'Darwin' - an open source system named in reference to Charles Darwin. Not only is evolutionism evoked but we all know that open source is just another name for communism. Further, as noted theobiologist Dr Richard Payley states, "Darwin OS is not the original creation of Apple Computers but is instead based off of an older, obsolete OS called 'BSD Unix'" While the clear alignment of *BSD, Apple, & open source with evil might be shocking, Dr Payley says that this is "well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans" This is consistent with the strife and 'flame wars' this elite often delight in spreading.
Due to the troubles of evil, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by something even more sinister who sell another troubled OS. Now according to a consensus of media analysts they will also soon be dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
How long will *BSD continue to shake it's trident in defiance of God? *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be only among evil OS dilettantes. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
It's a joke, laugh.
Unfortunately, there isn't a "pro-evolutionist slant" in the world. There is, however, a "pro-moron" slant in the Christian and creationist world. As in, prefers to believe what somebody wrote in a book thousands of years ago to what you discover when you actually look around at the world and pay attention.
Luckily for creationists, the world has always been a comfortable place for stupidity.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I use a MacAlly two button optical mouse with a scroll wheel. Absolutely bullet proof.
I agree that Apple should think about making the two button mouse standard, but doubt it will happen as long as the monomaniacal genius Jobs is in charge.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
A search on netcraft for crossspot gave the following
The site crossspot.net is running Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) PHP/4.0.6 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 on Linux.
I wonder if Dr.Payley knows this?
I apologize, because I'm pretty sure this is an off-topic post. However, I hope it's at least educational.
Science and religion are mutually exclusive. Science attempts to describe how things work, not debate why they are here. Evolution is not a religion nor an attempt to refute religion, just a description of a biological process over generations of a species.
Evolution can't be a religion. Religion is the belief (or non-belief) in the nature of existence and the great question of "Why are we here?" (answer: 42). Evolution is a description of a process that takes place within the universe, not without. Describing a scientific process does refute the existence of a Creator because, by definition, any creator exists outside of his creation. The theory of evolution only postulates that biological evolution takes place within the physical universe that we can measure, i.e. within that creation, and therefore does not encompass God.
If it makes you feel better, you could consider it God's way of getting the job done. It does not exclude instantaneous creation of matter and energy or Creationism, it merely describes one facet of how species survive and are affected by their environment. It's really not as earth-shatteringly profound as people make it out to be.
Fact: Darwin was a devout Christian his entire life.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Crap. Checked the post and still missed the typo. Should read, "does not refute the existence of a Creator."
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
For better or worse, that is David Pogue's style. He use to write like that for MacWorld, which is where I know his name from. People who buy this book already knowing him will expect that it contains his "jab here and there" style of writting. That's exactly what many Mac user want.
Believe it or not, he has other books out as well which include Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual. The XP Home books seems to be a hit as well.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans