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Mac OS X Hints
Addressing the Obvious
The most immediate question I had when I heard that O'Reilly would be publishing a book containing hints from macosxhints.com was, of course, Why I should get the book when the hints are already on the site for free? Both the author and the publisher also thought of this, understandably enough. Here's how Rob Griffiths answered the question in a post on the site, when the book was first announced: "The book isn't just a 'cut and paste' job from the site-to-print form. Every hint was rewritten and retested from scratch, and hundreds of screenshots were added to help clarify and explain the hints. In addition, many of the scripts and programs posted here are included (the author of each program was contacted for approval to include their original work in the book -- thanks to each of you for agreeing!)."
The response included in the O'Reilly press release for the book is along the same lines: "'The 500-plus hints in this book are based on tips published in the Mac OS X Hints web site,' explains Griffiths. 'But it's not just a rehash of what's there. Every hint has been rewritten, expanded, organized, indexed, tested for compatibility with the latest version of Mac OS X 10.2, and in many cases, illustrated, making the book an even better resource than the web site."
So the question then becomes: is this really the case? Are the differences between the hints as posted on the site and as printed in the book really significant enough to merit shelling out $24.95?
The short answer is that, in my opinion, the book is worth its price. The long answer is (predictably) a little more complicated. There are, of course, people who are more than willing to do the extra digging on the web to get the relevant content for free -- they'd rather do without the little perks (increased readability, revision, testing, screenshots) than spend potential beer money for a glossy O'Reilly book. And that's fine -- I'm more than sympathetic with this position, being frequently hard up for beer money, myself. But of course there are also people for whom the convenience is just as important as the cost, and who consider the price of the book well worth it in terms of the time saved. If you fall into the former category, don't bother buying the book -- but then, you weren't going to buy it anyway, were you? As for the latter group, rest assured that your investment will not, in this case, be wasted.
What I LikedI've read several other books on Mac OS X. The one I believe everyone should start with is still David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual . If you've already read this book (and enjoyed it) or didn't read it but are confident you've already got the equivalent experience, then Mac OS X Hints is a good next step.
Griffiths assumes you're comfortable using OS X for basic tasks: he doesn't tell you how to log in, or what the Dock is. If you're fuzzy on those kind of basics, you're not quite ready for this book (but you're positively crying out for a copy of the Missing Manual). Additionally, he pushes some not-entirely-obvious processes to the introduction, so you don't have to read the same instructions over and over in the meat of the book itself. After all, once you've been told the first time how to view the contents of a package, you're probably all set in that regard. This is one of the aspects of Mac OS X Hints that I found most appealing, actually - Griffiths just explains in the beginning that he's assuming certain things, and then doesn't bother dumbing anything else down.
I've been a fan of macosxhints.com since I first installed OS X, but it seems like Griffiths's style has really improved for the book -- this may be a function of Pogue's role as editor, as the writing in Hints displays the same familiar, comfortable tone while not skimping on depth or details. Like other books Pogue has been involved in, this one is highly readable but not oversimplified.
It seems like the revision process the hints went through during their transition from site to print has been pretty successful, as well -- despite being familiar with the site, there was a great deal of material in the book that I had never seen, even after reading other OS X books. Additionally, the testing involved in the book's creation removes a great deal of the frustration inherent in the site. As much as I like the site, there have been several hints that have mysteriously declined to function on my own system for whatever reason -- but everything I've tried from the book worked without a hitch.
I also enjoyed the fact that this book, like Mac OS X Hacks , is made for sampling. Each article is short and to the point, and while related hints are grouped by chapter, no single tip depends on the reader having already performed one of the others (unless otherwise specified). You don't have to read the book cover to cover -- you can flip around at will without getting lost.
Incidentally, another plus is that 15% of all Griffiths's profits from this book are being donated to the Doernbecher Children's Hospital. That in itself isn't a reason to buy the book, but it's good to know.
What I Didn't LikeIf I can be nitpicky for a moment, I was bothered by the frequency of purely typographical errors. Little things like "than" being used instead of "then," or the bottom edge of a line in a sidebar getting cut off. It didn't keep me from enjoying the book, and I'm sure it's the sort of thing that will get corrected in future printings, but this sort of error occurred often enough that I noticed it, anyway.
Another little thing: I wish URLS had been included whenever a third-party shareware program was mentioned. Of course I know I can Google for DragThing and find it immediately -- but if I'm paying for a book, it seems to me that I shouldn't have to.
There is also the fact that this book is undeniably a book, and that limits it in certain respects (at least when compared to the site). The index is comprehensive and useful, but it's just not as useful as the ability to search the entire text of the book. It's also inevitably dated to a certain degree -- new hints posted to the site, even if they're infinitely more fabulous than ones already present in the book, just won't show up in print for a long time to come. Similarly, if a new version of the OS breaks one of the hints, you'll be able to find out somewhere on the web, but it won't be immediately obvious when you're just reading the book. Of course, these are problems shared by all print technical books, and not just Hints.
One final note: there's a lot of overlap between this book and Mac OS X Hacks, although each book has a significant amount of unique content. If you own one, you probably don't need to get the other, but it's difficult to say which I'd buy if I had to choose. Hacks contains only 100 articles, but they're more in-depth and the tasks they cover are often trickier or less obvious. Hints contains over 500 tidbits, but they're much shorter and often deal with things like key commands that allow you to increase your efficiency, and things of that ilk.
The Bottom LineIf you're the sort for whom time is at a higher premium than money -- maybe you're the kind of person who would buy a boxed *nix distribution instead of downloading it -- then I'd say go ahead and get this book. It's well worth its price as long as you understand that what you're paying for is ease of use and reliability, as well as content. If, on the other hand, you're living on Top Ramen for the foreseeable future, you're probably better off sticking with the site. If you do buy it, I think you'll find it will make a happy addition to your bookshelf -- stick it next to the Missing Manual and dip into it whenever you're sitting through an install or reboot.
You can purchase the Mac OS X Hints from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Some OSX Books in pdf format here.
P.S. I just bought a new Power Mac(1.25GHX x 2) and I love it! Install an X windows server and you can run just about any existing X app. Really impressive.
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
Sorry to pick nits, but "MAC" is an acronym for Media Access Control and the "Mac" is the abbreviation for Macintosh. Sorry, but it bugs me to no end when I see people spell it that way.
Actually, Windows does use the scroll button, and its rather handy. If you've got a massive virtual area in the window, its much easier to click it and scroll the contents by moving the mouse around than just wheel for the next 10 minutes because its a popular /. story (for example).
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
did you try google (lazy ass) uconrol
I use the middle mouse button in Mozilla to open a link in another window, just as Netscape has done for years in *nix. Aside from that, you can "drag-n-scroll" using the middle mouse button, which can be useful.
I really like the OReilly's Safari online bookshelf. There are some definite advantages to using it over pdf's.
I have always been shocked at OS 9's inabililty to multitask with any speed
This is because the multi-tasking architecture in System 9 is cooperative, not pre-emptive.
In other words, System 9 does not multi-task any better than Windows 3.0 did in 1990.
This has been my biggest complaint of Apple up until the release of OSX. No matter how fast the PPC chip, if System 8 or System 9 was running the system, just playing an MP3 and doing something else would skip the music. Or do something in Finder and watch the rest of the system literally stop responding until Finder was done. (And the concept of playing two MP3 files at the same time was just crazy talk for System 9 users.)
OSX is the first (desktop) Apple OS that has true pre-emptive multitasking. This and its new memory management model (System 9 and lower memory management was just archaic) are two big reasons that if you are a Mac User still using System 9, you should Run to get OSX.
With System 9 and older Mac System software, you are basically using an OS technology that is a technically on the same level as Windows 3.0. (Not something people want to hear, but true none the less.)
(And please donâ(TM)t post about Windows95 having a 16bit Mutext. This is not a flame war of OS relgion. We all know that when running 16bit applications, the 16bit mutext in Win95 would also be cooperative. However when running only 32bit (WIN32) applications, it was fully preemptive. And yes, WindowsNT and Linux were designed to be and are pre-emptive multitasking OSes that are more than 10 years old.)
Again I repeat if you are a Mac user running System 9 â" run, do not walk, to get OSX.
you need uControl. You're welcome.
Anyone else with a similar experience?
The most interesting one (one that I use myself and one that I believe is shown on the example pages on the O'Reilly site) is the entry in the com.apple.Dock.plist file that allows you to specify that hidden applications should appear as transparent icons in the dock. I find that kind of visual feedback useful and cannot image why Apple would have created such a feature and then fail to include a simple checkbox to activate it in the dock preferences pane.
Weird. And there are quite a few hints like that. Enough that programmers routinely release software to put a GUI on them. (Tinkertool and several Safari-related apps come to mind, but there are several others.)
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."