| OverviewMac OS X Hacks reflects the real-world
know how and experience of those well steeped in Unix
history and expertise, sharing their no-nonsense, sometimes
quick-and-dirty solutions to administering and taking full
advantage of everything a Unix desktop has to offer: Web,
Mail, and FTP serving, security services, SSH, Perl and
shell scripting, compiling, configuring, scheduling,
networking, and hacking. Add to that the experience of
die-hard Macintosh users, customizing and modifying their
hardware and software to meet their needs: System
Preferences, GUI mods and tweaks, hardware tips, vital
shareware and freeware, AppleScript, AppleTalk and
equivalents, keyboard modifiers, and general Macintosh-style
tomfoolery. Editorial ReviewsBook DescriptionMac OS X is a marvelous confluence of the user-friendly and highly customizable Macintosh of yesteryear and the power and flexibility of Unix under the hood. Those coming to Mac OS X from previous incarnations of the operating system recognize much of the friendly face of the Macintosh but they are also plunged into a whole new world. Unix converts to Mac OS X find a familiar FreeBSD-like operating system at the core and many of the command-line applications that they're familiar with. This presents a unique opportunity for combining traditional Unix hacking and Mac OS know-how. Mac OS X Hacks goes beyond the peculiar mix of man pages and not-particularly-helpful Help Center, pulling the best tips, tricks, and tools from the Mac power users and Unix hackers themselves. The collection reflects the real-world know how and experience of those well steeped in Unix history and expertise, sharing their no-nonsense, sometimes quick-and-dirty solutions to administering and taking full advantage of everything a Unix desktop has to offer: Web, Mail, and FTP serving, security services, SSH, Perl and shell scripting, compiling, configuring, scheduling, networking, and hacking. Add to that the experience of die-hard Macintosh users, customizing and modifying their hardware and software to meet their needs: System Preferences, GUI mods and tweaks, hardware tips, vital shareware and freeware, AppleScript, AppleTalk and equivalents, keyboard modifiers, and general Macintosh-style tomfoolery. Each Hack can be read easily in a few minutes, saving countless hours of searching for the right answer. Mac OS X Hacks provides direct, hands-on solutions that can be applied to the challenges facing both those meeting the Mac for the first time and long-time users delving into Mac OS X and its Unix underpinnings. Mac OS X Hacks is the third in O'Reilly's new Hacks Serier which aims to begin reclaiming the term "hacking" for the good guys. In recent years, the term has come to be associated with those nefarious black hats who break into computers to snoop, steal information or disrupt Internet traffic. But the term originally had a more benign meaning, and you'll still hear it used this way whenever developers get together. Our new Hacks books are written in the spirit of the true hackers -- the people who drive innovation. |
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Reader Reviews From Amazon (Ranked by 'Helpfulness') Average Customer Rating: based on 18 reviews. Great book albeit already dated, 2004-02-10 Reviewer rating: I am coming back to Mac after 8 years of unix and linux, so it's cool to have a book like this. It has a lot of good tips about using the Macintosh applications (iPhoto, iMovie, Mail) as well as ways to integrate them with the unix stuff (cron, apache, mysql,...). I also loved the information about dynamic domain name service for your broadband connection. I devoured the book in a weekend. One caveat: the book covers OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) and we're up to 10.3 (Panther). Some of the iApps have changed since the writing. Interestingly enough, some "hacks" are now easy-to-use features. There are a few notes about this fact, but it would be nice to have a new edition for a new OS. All in all, though, it's a book that makes me feel smart for buying a Mac, and helps me to realize its full potential. | Unix and Mac Hacker's Paradise, 2004-02-06 Reviewer rating: I'm a Unix guy from way back, having worked on TENEX and TOPS-10 systems in the late 70s, on SunOS and Solaris during the 80s and 90s, and having been introduced to Linux in the early 90s. I've worked on Windows PCs mainly for office work (but never on Macs), and when Mac OS X came out, I was in computer geek heaven. I bought a PowerBook G4 with Microsoft Office X, and then I had a laptop with Office, Unix, the command line, and the beautiful Mac look-and-feel and the stunning display. I thought I probably knew quite a bit about Unix and the Mac already, given my background, and I didn't really anticipate how much a book on OS X hacks would have to offer. "Mac OS X Hacks" proved to be a great buy for me! The book has 100 hacks spread across 9 chapters, one for each major area of interest to the authors (Files, Startup, Multimedia, etc.), and almost every chapter contained a hack that was valuable to me. I skimmed the entire book and marked out many hacks for later study, some of which I intend to implement and/or play with immediately. The hacks in which I have initial interest include #8) ejecting jammed CDs, #13) getting a glimpse of the boot process, #21) built-in image conversion, #22) multiple library management for iPhoto, #23) making your own documentary, #24) how the iApps work together, #41) capturing screenshots, #45) speakable Web Services, #58) installing Unix applications with Fink, #59) mirroring files and directories with rsync (for backup), #77) using a cell phone as a Bluetooth modem, #78) using dynamic DNS services to set up an externally-accessible web server at home, #79) working with the Entourage (Outlook for Mac) database, and #88) using the built-in Apache server on the Mac. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in hacking OS X on their Mac. This book should have exciting new information for all but the most experienced hackers of Mac and OS X. | Great book for hobbyists, 2003-11-24 Reviewer rating: Nowadays it's harder and harder to find Mac books /mag articles that serious hobbyists can really enjoy... but this is absolutely one! "Mac OS X Hacks" is not like other disappointing "tips" books which only tell you what you already know or can easily find out yourself. Full of nice surprises; highly recommended. | Great book for becoming a power user, 2003-07-14 Reviewer rating: I just finished going through O'Reilly's Mac OS X Hacks. This is a great book. It shows you in detail how to become a power user on the Mac. More important, it has clear, detailed instructions (with lots of screen shots) of how to set up software including networking, DNS, IMAP and POP servers, Bluetooth through iSync, and a whole lot more. There's even a section on how to setup Linux on the Mac hardware. I stayed up last night reading it. Originally, I just wanted to figure out more about Mac Mail but I ended up reading through the whole book thinking, "Wow, I have to try that". | Good book for ambitious neophytes, but..., 2003-06-19 Reviewer rating: This is a good book for people who are curious about what MacOS X and it's BSD unpinnings can do, but it is of little use to anyone who's already comfortable with the MacOS X Unix underbelly. While the editing is better than average for an ORA book, organization is lacking- the level of subject complexity varies wildly from chapter to chapter, indexing is poor, and the choice of topics is best described as eclectic. |
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