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Mac OS X Power Tools
Here's the thing about book reviews: They're a lot easier to write when you either absolutely hated or absolutely adored the book in question. Once you've decided how you feel about it, it's easy to find a dozen examples of its mediocrity or excellence, as the case may be. However, I've been sitting on this particular review for a few weeks now, unable to finish it because I can't say that I feel very strongly at all about Power Tools. I recently decided, however, that being unable to form a definite opinion of it one way or another is itself a kind of opinion. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it or missing from it, but when it comes down to whether I'd choose to buy it over a different Mac book, I can't say that I would. I realize that this isn't a work of fiction -- its goal isn't exactly to suck me in with thrilling plot twists so that I read the whole thing cover to cover in one sitting. Nevertheless, there are some other books out there that do exactly that (I'll get to them later), and I think I've been spoiled by reading them.
What I Liked
Power Tools covers its bases in a thorough, informative way. It's a solid OS X book, intended for anyone who understands the very basics involved in using a Mac. The author makes very clear early on that he's not intending to show you how to log in, or how to launch an application, but that's about the extent of the proficiency required, I think. Frakes seems to understand his audience and to address it consistently, which is rare enough to be refreshing. One of my pet peeves in technical writing concerns authors who can't decide who they're talking to -- sidebars for beginners and power users are great, but when the body of the text itself waffles back and forth between skill levels, it can be both frustrating and confusing. This is a trap that Power Tools sidesteps completely: At the beginning of each section, you'll find a couple of lines telling you whether an Admin account is required for the techniques described, and whether the changes being made are system-wide or will affect only your own account. Mac OS X Hacks (which is, incidentally and confusingly enough, the Mac equivalent of O'Reilly's classic Unix Power Tools) uses a similar system to introduce each of the hacks in the book, and it's a practice that I'd like to see used more widely.
Favorite sections: Although certainly not the meatiest bits of the book, I thought the quick-reference keyboard shortcut and third-party utility lists were great, and I've used them fairly frequency since Power Tools took up residency on the shelf over my desk. As far as the more substantial content is concerned, I'd have to say Frakes's coverage of Classic is probably one of my favorite chapters -- oddly enough, since I never use Classic myself. That's part of the reason I liked his section on it, though: it does a good job of explaining why you'll want to avoid Classic whenever you can, while also pointing out some ways to make the best of it if it can't be avoided. The list of startup files necessary to use Classic is a good reference for folks who'd like to clean out their old System Folders without crippling anything. And of course Frakes's experience managing and troubleshooting OS 9 comes in useful here -- he points out classics like Conflict Catcher that users shouldn't be without if Classic is used with any degree of regularity.
Chapter 14, covering maintainence and administration of a Mac running OS X, is also full of sound, reasonable advice. Disk care and repair as well as how to recover lost data and prevent such mishaps to begin with are all covered thoroughly and intelligently in this section, as well the whys and wherefores of backups. Nothing surprising, perhaps, but nothing that should be left out of a decent Mac book, either.
What I Didn't Like
Although this is purely a matter of taste and I'm aware that there are many people who disagree with me, I just don't like Frakes's writing style. I have enjoyed some of his columns in the past, but it seems like his humor falls more than a little flat when stretched out over the course of a book. The alliterative titles were amusing for the first one or two chapters, but "Apple-ication Aptitude" is pushing it just a bit, I think. Although I realize that the first priority of a technical book is not to entertain its readers, exactly, is it too much to ask that it enthuse us? I was already interested in OS X before reading Power Tools, but I didn't find anything to excite me -- how would a new Mac user fare?
My least favorite chapter was probably Chapter 6, "Developing a Dynamite Dock." Despite Frakes's promise to assume that the reader is familiar with the basics, there's still the inevitable trot through the relevant Preference panel. Some good third-party software like Tinker Tool is discussed, but there wasn't anything that surprised me in this chapter.
The Bottom Line
This is a perfectly adequate OS X book, and you wouldn't be wasting your money by buying it. Indeed, if you're already a fan of the author, you should probably do exactly that. For me, though, while it does a decent job of accomplishing the tasks it sets for itself, the book just never quite cuts it for me. The bottom line is really that if I had enough money to buy only a single Mac book, this wouldn't be it. I'd spend my forty dollars (or so) instead on either Mac OS X Unleashed or Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. Frakes actually recommends the latter as an alternative for absolute beginners who would be lost in his own book, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's just for novices. It really is a complete OS X manual, covering topics for users at every skill level. As for Unleashed, I've reviewed this book already (more recently than I have the Missing Manual) so I'll just say that if you want a Mac book so complete that it will introduce you to web programming so you can use that default Apache installation, then that's a book you should consider. While I would prefer either one of these books to Power Tools if I were only able to buy one, it's also true that I'm not sorry to have added it to my collection (since, like most people, I'm not limited to one book per subject).
And Furthermore
Dan Frakes is a generally beloved Mac writer and developer and, my ambivalence about this book aside, his stuff is worth looking into. He contributes to the "Mac OS X Secrets" column in Macworld and is also involved in the 9th edition of the Mac Bible. His personal site is danfrakes.com, and the site for this book is at macosxpowertools.com.
You can purchase Mac OS X Power Tools from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Wow, I don't usually replay to flaimbait, but you seem to be a bit misinformed. You might want to rethink what it means to be a *nix. And what it means to be part of the opensource community. First of all, apple does provide an X11 server, so you can run all the *nix apps you want, and it is not "emulated" it is an OS X application that runs the XFree86 open source x11 server. Second, if an app is opensource, it should have no problem being compiled for an apple system using the OPENSOUCE GCC compiler provided by apple for their system. Thus discarding the proprietary Mach-O argument. I challenge you to provide a single application that cannot be recompiled and run using apple's X11 compatability interface that doesn't include something that relies on an x86 environment (ie assembly). So, if they can run any standards compliant unix app, and they use a standard opensource compiler, what exactly is the danger of OS X? The biggest problem I see is their proprietary API, which should not be avoided as it is intended to make life easier for application developers. Something rarely thought about on traditional free *nix environments. just my opinion, back to work now.
$12 less at Amazon!!!
KDE and GNOME are butt ugly. Why would Apple take the easy way out and use some crappy looking window manager like KDE or GNOME?
x treme.h tmle fe/www .apple.com/macosx/pdfs/Quartz_TB.pdf
/Users is not hard to do.
I don't think you've ever even used Apple's X11 program. First of all, it's beta 2 and it's not slow at all. It's compatible with virtually all X11 programs.
Quartz Extreme is not the window manager. It's what converts 2D/3D into OpenGL and sends them to the graphics card so that the CPU doesn't have to compute any scales etc of the windows.
Aqua is the window manager.
Why don't you read this link and familiarize yourself with how OSX works
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartze
You may also want to read this pdf file
http://a32.g.akamai.net/7/32/51/e3f09c3d615
The fact that you blame Apple for their DRM in the iTunes Music Store only shows your ignorance. It's the music lables that forced Apple to have some kind of DRM in their software.
The more I write in response, the more your post seems to be troll bait.
However, I will not start flaming away, but suggest you actually learn a little more about how OSX works before complaining.
Some things like the NetInfo database are not that bad like you say.
niutil -list .
In fact it's much easier than cding to some dir(if you can remember where the hell the right config files are) and loading the file in pico/whatever and searching for the right option you want.
Let's stop for a minute and deal with your inaccuracies.
.conf files by hand, using [insert your favorite *nix text editor here], and it works like a champ.
1.) X11 works just fine in OS X and it's *not* an emulation -- hell, I don't even have to use Apple's version. Until it came along, I was installing the X11 system via Fink and running a variety of WMs. Furthermore, X11 functionality is built into Panther (10.3) and not a standalone app as it currently is in 10.2.
2.) "NetInfo" may be a proprietary database...but I wouldn't know because I edit my
3.) Give the DRM thing a f--king rest, would you? You can't have your cake and eat it, too. The DRM in the iTunes Music Store was NECESSARY to get it going in the first place. Furthermore, no one is cramming it down your throat, and OS X isn't preventing you from installing Acquisition or any other P2P app. At least Apple has been decent enough to do DRM in such a way that it is unobstrusive. Take a look at shit like BuyMusic.com if you want to see DRM in a bad form. Given Apple's commitment to quality software and hardware, I don't foresee them ever stooping to those levels. (Don't give me that civil liberties shit -- it's still theft of intellectual property.)
Take your FUD elsewhere.
blog |
There's actually a book that's right up your alley and it's evidently a popular one as every time I've gone to the Apple store downtown to attempt buy it, they've been sold out.
Mac OS X for Unix Geeks really digs into the BSD core of OS X and covers such interesting topics as rebuilding the XNU kernel and a little bit about hacking Netinfo (although I wish there were more).
I use OS X every day, and it's amazing.
:))
/Applications/Utilities. (Network Utility, a GUI front-end for a ton of CLI-based tools like traceroute, nslookup, and whois; Key Caps, the most awesome-est way to see what key does what when you hold which modifier; and Apple System Profiler, for seeing what's what in your rig when you need to, easily and all at once.)
/simple/ app without installing anything extra.
;)
Ten favourite things:
1. Without anything needing configuration or installation, I can save to PDF any window I can print normally.
2. Awesome GUI, mainstream apps like Photoshop and Office, and tcsh and bash when I need them.
3. iTunes. (All of the iApps, really. I won't separate them here for the sake of padding.
4. A great X11 setup from Apple. Easy to install, and piped through OGL. (For the most part, anyway.)
5. Lots of great command-line tools installed by default. cURL, lots of text editors, screen, as well as command-line Apple utilities like hdiutil. (I know lots of stuff comes with Linux distros, but it's nice to see that Apple followed suit.)
5. Everything in
6. AWESOME foriegn character output and input support. Unfrickingbelieve how nice it is.
7. Stickies. Can't live without 'em these days.
8. Calculator. Big frickin' whoop, most say, but it's nice to have sci functions, a paper tape record, measurement conversions, and updatable currency conversions in one
9. UI consistency. Apple's made it really easy to respect important aspects of the UI conventions they've come up with, and it shows. Camino, Transmit, OmniGraffle--these apps could have HORRIBLE interfaces, not feeling like any part of the OS itself, but they avoid screwing up entirely. Good developers, good Apple for giving them:
10. Awesome development tools. Project Builder and Interface Builder are insanely cool, the latter being the nicest way of creating UIs I've ever seen.
This is just OEM stuff, too, all part of the OS (save the apps I cited as examples). It's scratching the surface, really, because the more you use it, the more stuff you find.
Some of you are gonna reply and say that this OS or this distro does x feature, too, and to that I say, "Yeah, but OS X does it all, sans configuration, out of the box, without fail, and I only cited ten things like that. Linux rocks hard, but I'll happily pay Apple once every year or eighteen months for this kind of quality."
So please don't hit me with -1s, mods. Just answering a question
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
First of all, it's beta 2 and it's not slow at all.
Actually, it's been beta 3 for a few months now, and can be had at http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/. If you get it, make sure to get the SDK too, so that you can compile new X11 apps (such as those provided by fink)
I think the other replies have sucessfully voided your trolling, but I need to make some things clear.
I've been a *Unix developer for about 12 years and have found your arguments wholly incorrect. Apple's BSD layer is true Unix and works just as well as other's I've used. They've only enhanced to to allow me much greated productivity than with other OSes. Have you tried hooking up a WIFI card to Linux -- give it a try - or how about a new USB peripheral? It just isn't the same.
X11 has a long history behind it and is well-supported by Mac OS X through several tools - Apples X11 Toolkit and the Darwin X11 project. I've used both KDE and Gnome and while I find them very intriguing, they don't match up to Aqua and additionally to Apple's Human Interface standards. Apple as the first to champion this kind of technology in the first place.
ELF is but one standard for compiled objects, COFF is another, and Microsoft has even more. These don't guarantee compabitility, just a standard by which code binaries and libraries are encoded in.
Netinfo was not invented by Apple, but it is a Unix standard (along with NIS, LDAP, etc) all of which Apple readily supports.
How the f..k does iTMS violate my civil liberties? It actually gives me these liberties back that the music industry was trying to take away because of threat to their market. Why don't you stay off topics you don't understand.
Utter rubbish.
Mac OS X is as much a bastardized Unix as any other currently available Unix you might like to point to: Linux (er, which Linux ?), Solaris, IRIX, BSD, System V, FreeBSD...
Thank heavens Apple didn't use KDE or Gnome. Theirs is IMHO the best desktop available on any Unix: it's fast, optimised for the hardware and ubiquitous. Apple has design guidelines that result in consistent behavour between apps. "Quartz Extreme" is not the equivalent of the Unix window manager: it's an even more accelerated version of "Quartz", the rendering layer.
You want X11 ? Download Apple's implementation from their website. Oh wait, don't bother, it will be part of the install in the next release. "but it is emulation" WTF ? Do you have a clue what you're talking about ? Emulating what ? Like every other X11 implementation it is a software renderer for X commands.
"moral issues with closed software ?" Oh gimme a fricking break !
"other *nixes use standard ELF binaries" Plenty don't thank you very much.
"It uses Mach-O, an unproven format that is proprietary to Apple." Not proprietory to Apple. Very much public domain: developed at CMU, what 20 years ago ? "Unproven" ? a value judgement. What's your evidence for this ? There's a lot of good software that uses it quite succesfully for real world applications. (Granted, I don't like Mach-O's linking method and subroutine branching overhead is rather excessive, but I'm nitpicking. That's not to say it's unproven - it's been used for approx 20 years.)
"Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel)" Darwin is a complete cross platform unix implementation. It's far more than the kernel. EVERYTHING in Darwin is Open Source, freely downloadable, and anything but "proprietory".
"with Mach-O [it is impossible to run most of their Lunix apps." Take a look at PORTS and FINK. Much of your precious linux code is just a recompile away.
"Additionally, Apple has moved most configuration info fromhuman readable text files into a proprietary database called "NetInfo", which is much like the Windows registry we all loathe." Actually Apple has moved some of the [technically aware]-human readable configuration files into xml files that are readable by various applications and [technically aware]-humans. Netinfo presents a common and somewhat simpler, but definitely safer interface to those files. Sure, if you and I want to stick a new CNAME into the hosts file, netinfo is overkill, but if I had to get my mother to do it, I'd be glad of netinfo.
The thing you should be comparing with the windows' registry is the IORegistry. Which avoids the pitfalls of the windows' registry, by being completely dynamic during the boot time of the system, and built from scratch during each boot. It's less a means of setting system parameters than a reflection of the current state of the system. Most importantly, there is NO PERSISTENT REPRESENTATION of the IORegistry.
" When we factor in the threat to users' civil liberties that is posed by the DRM included to support the iTunes Music Store (do you really think it will end there?) it is obvious that real *nix gurus should give OS X a wide berth. Caveat emptor." As is well attested, iTMS has the most liberal DRM implementation available in any legal means of obtaining music. In short, I can legally burn as many CDs of my purchased music as I choose.
I do not understand why "real *nix gurus" should give a damn about your complaints about Apple's DRM policies.
The "real *nix gurus" I know are joyfully buying Powerbooks and *at last* running a complete, fast, powerful, optimised, Unix on their laptop.