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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.
I have read several os x books and find that all have had little patch ideas or a vauge introduction. This disapoints me as someone who wants to get to the meat of the OS. Personally, I think this is a big hinderance of why people have not switched to powerbooks from their *nix workstation. If you want to learn about the OS, buy a freeBSD book and understand that there are a few differences
It might be worth the price for the keyboard shortcuts stuff alone. It seems like every other OSX search gives me another shortcut or so to add to my respository of marginally useful knowledge.
It sounds like something that is worth checking out at the local bookstore anyway.
How many here us OSX everyday?
What are the things that you like about OSX?
Most of all pertinent to the above review what is your favorite OS X tool?
ACK
X11 runs fine on macs and combined with fink, I have not found a linux app that did not have a suitable replacement.
As soon as someone ports all of the iLife apps, and the windowing to linux we will be set for buisness.
True to Slashdot form!
This may be borderline off-topic, but I wanted to elaborate on the poster mention of stupid puns in the book.
What's up with that? Why do people not think these lame jokes make them look like morons? I was watching a car show yesterday, and they ended with a bit on exhaust systems: "If you haven't exhausted your possibilites yet, you can pick up the acme muffler - it's a gas." Except it went on longer and was stupider. There were at least two more stupid puns, including "exhaust" being used again. With half the time being an advertisement of select aftermarket parts and the other half devoted to making me groan, I learned what a supercharger was, how it differed from Nos, and that's about it. In half an hour.
Make jokes, that's fine. If you want to say "how can the iPod be so skinny, yet sound so fat?" that's great, I'll chuckle. But "Apple-ication?" Don't be a dumbass.
c-hack.com |
When I want to do something complicated, I can launch Terminal.app and be greeted with tcsh or bash. That, to me, is the coolest thing about OS X compared with OS 9.
Now I can effectively do anything, and have it look nice too.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
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.
Ok, most of us don't give a shit one way or the other, so I am going to go off on a mildly relevant tangent.
I think that using an analogy to "Power Tools" -- and doing so in the context of a book about a Mac -- is kind of stupid. I mean, "Power Tools" does not go with the image that I have of Macs as these clean-running, quiet, beautifully usable machines. The image I have of my power tools is one of grease, dirt, and bugs that need to be patched.
Mostly, it's an image thing. Until Apple comes out with an iBandsaw, iDrill, and iLathe, 'Power Tools' is just a stupid name for this book. It's like "Power Tools for the Boeing 747" or "Power Tools for The Barbecue" -- it's not a good metaphor, and it doesn't make sense.
I mean, you do heavy work with Power Tools, things you can't do without them. These sort of books are more "Tips and Tricks" for tools you already own -- like "How To Get The Most Out Of Your Belt Sander", or "Did You Know That The Drill That You're Holding Can Function As A Small Hammer Drill, If You Twist The Head And Use This Bit?"
I must be having a sandy vagina day or something. Little things like this are making me want to go firebomb an orphanage.
Frakes assures the reader that anyone who's ever touched a computer before can make use of this book, and that even the most experienced user will find something new and exciting. Is he right? Maybe.
Way to take a stand there. Quick, what are your thoughts on fast food? Are you a BK guy or a Wendy's guy?
"Maybe."
Thank God.
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.
In what possible way is the concept of 'closed software' a moral issue? I can understand that it may be a business issue, or a technical issue, or both. If Apple had used KDE or GNOME for the windowing environment, I likely would have no interest in using OS X. But then maybe I'm not a real *nix guru.
Ha! That is good enough for me too. I found ls, df, ps, ssh, mkdir, rmdir, find and everything else I needed. As a long time UNIX CLI person I found I was right at home.
For any MS/Linux apps I fire up RDP or the X server to get to them. But as I found when I moved from Windows to Linux years ao, I'm needing less of Linux as I adapt to OSX.
As for day in day out usage it is perfect. So was Linux, but in a less polished way.
M.B.
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 |
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.
You know, it comes and it goes with me. (My thoughts on that, not the vagina thing.)
Apple's got a strange hybrid going here. On one hand, there's this elegant "it just works" machine with a great UI and this feature and that feature for all of us, and on the other hand, there's bash and X11. Power-user tools for those who like to get down in the trenches and get their hands dirty, so to speak.
I think it's the best kind of computer, really--you can write Perl scripts and use Photoshop's healing tool side by side. Power for the rest of us, so to speak.
As for that sandy vagina thing, you might want to talk to a doctor about that.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
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.
You've already been modded a Troll but some people already read your rubbish. I'll reply.
1 - You claim that MacOS X bears as much resemblance to "real" UNIX as Windows ME.
This is just hilarious. MacOS X is as real of a UNIX as Linux. You can compile a most POSIX source unaltered in both. Can you do that under Windows ME without add-on compatibily layers?
2 - You say Apple ignored X to write Quartz. There is an Apple branded FREE (beer) X server for MacOS X. It's based off XFree. It's not untested and it's not an emulation layer. I does integrate with the rest of the Desktop. While not final code, it's very stable.
3 - You claim Darwin is proprietary. It is not. Quite simply, you could also claim that the sky is green. Not true.
4 - You claim FreeBSD is moribund. This has nothing to do with MacOS X, and ridiculous. Free software is never moribund. It can't die. FreeBSD is alive and well, too.
5 - You claim Apple used Mach-O to break compatibily with ELF?
Why should they use ELF? They can do whatever they want, and they chose to use the Mach-O format for legacy reasons related to NeXTStep.
6 - You claim NetInfo is like the Windows Registry, and that it breaks compatibily.
Netinfo is just practical. Other vendors do similar things (like IBM) with they UNIXes.
It's legacy from NeXTStep. It's easy to use and it gets the job done. I see no problem with it.
7 - You claim Apple is shoving DRM down our throats. You should be glad that Apple cut the best DRM deal there is. Nobody else has a lighter DRM system. You forget that they are a company and they will be toasted by the RIAA and MPAA if they don't enforce some sort of DRM. They came up with something practical.
I do not like DRM, but if I ran a company, I couldn't have done better than Apple.
Don't you have anything else better to do than to diss Apple and MacOS X? What's your problem? You're 10 and can't affort one of those pretty shiny Apple computers?
-- askien
I have a couple comments about the review, and a couple comments in response to posts in this discussion.
First, a comment about the review's recommendation that really has little to do with my book, and more to do with recommending books in general. Writing style is a very personal thing, and unless you're David Pogue, it's impossible to write a book everyone will love ;-) So I have no problem with the reviewer preferring a different "style." However, I do disagree somewhat with the overall recommendation made in the review ("Get The Missing Manual or Mac OS X Unleashed instead"), and not because I wrote one of the books in question.
When recommending a book, the most important things to know are the reader's level of expertise and the reader's goals in reading the book. The three books mentioned here are aimed at very different levels:
There is undoubtedly a bit of overlap in these three books, but for the most part they are written for different audiences. In other words, it's difficult to simply say "get Book A over Book B" without knowing more about the reader. All three books are, in my humble opinion, great books -- I wrote one and own the other two -- and I recommend them frequently. However, I've rarely recommended one over the other two, simply because they aren't comparable substitutes, IMO.
I guess what I'm saying is to make sure you're buying, or recommending, the right book for the reader. I'd rather see you buy someone else's book than buy mine if it's not appropriate for you.
A few quick comments on messages in this thread:
jcsehak wrote:
Sorry you didn't like that joke ;-) Using alliteration in chapter titles is a bit of fun when you're writing 600+ pages on an operating system, and, from a pedagogical standpoint, a useful approach. However, it can admittedly get a bit cheezy after a while, and I was actually trying to make fun of that fact with the chapter title in question. The original title was "Application Aptitude" -- which probably wouldn't have generated any comments -- but as a joke I changed it to "Apple-ication," basically parodying the approach. OK, it was a very bad pun, I admit it. Maybe my brain was a bit fried after writing 600+ pages, but I thought it was funny at the time. Maybe it wasn't so funny after all -- you're not the first person to criticize it ;-)
mr_luc wrote:
The book belongs to a series of books from the same publisher called "Power Tools" that includes books on Unix, Linux, Windows, etc.; I didn't have much say in the title. In some ways I agree with you that it doesn't properly indicate what the book is about. On the other hand, as I mention in the book's introduction, hard
There are people who hack the chips on their honda accords, too. For every elegant, simple, user friendly industrial design out there, there will be someone who wants to tweak it under the covers. That doesn't mean that the design doesn't "get out of your way".
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001