Macintosh Systems Books

There are lots of good details in this book, which seems to go farther than the missing manual series. The 4th edition (hot pink cover) seems to have pretty even coverage of using an ipod/itunes with Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows XP. After a day examining ipod books in the bookstore, this is one I bought. The 5th edition is out due in December 2004.

Five stars; highly recommended. This is an excellent book for new users and experienced iPodders alike because the information is thorough, accurate, and fun to read. The author discusses not only each version of the iPod and iPod Mini, but also includes detailed discussions of accessories, cases, and iTunes. He also includes power-user information, such as setting up the iPod as a boot disk. This leads me to the best reason to purchase this book: time savings. The author covers so much information in such depth and in such a clear and easy-to-understand manner, that almost any reader will save an enormous amount of time as compared to searching for answers about the iPod on the Web. Although this book has been a big help to me with my new fourth-generation iPod, my hope is that Chris Breen will write an updated edition specifically including the Click-Wheel iPod and the latest iPod accessories.

Mr. Martin is back to his old tricks. I'm the author of Secrets of the iPod and also a moderator of Macworld magazine's forums. Mr. Martin and I had a disagreement and he was eventually banned from the forums for trolling. He chose to express his frustration by writing a negative review of my book (a book he has never read).

When my first remarks appeared revealing the true nature of his review, he edited his review to be positive in the hope that I would then be forced to change my remarks.

His review read:

"This work is so informative and so well written that it works on every level, and for both beginners and experts. Without doubt, Mr. Breen is the most trusted iPod expert, and has produced the "bible" for iPod users. You can't go wrong with this book."

Yet when my remarks were removed at my request, Mr. Martin changed his review yet again to the negative screed you now see. How could the same book (and its author) be so wonderful one day and wretched the next? Such is the logic of the trollish world Mr. Martin inhabits.

I'm sorry that Amazon's customers must be subjected to Mr. Martin's childish antics but until he's eventually prohibited from venting his spleen in such a fashion, there's nothing for it but to expose him for the kind of person he is.

That said, I would disregard anything Mr. Martin has to say about my book -- positive or negative -- as it's difficult to write a useful review of a book you refuse to read.

I thought this book was great! Finally, I have found a book that answers some of the nagging questions I have had about my ipod, for example hidden files. I had done research on the internet for answers to some of my questions with no luck finding detailed answers, until I discovered "Secrets of the iPod", by Chris Breen. I recommend this book to anyone who owns an iPod and wants to know how it "really" works.

If you can't make it to one of Mr. Breen's iPod/iTunes seminars which I highly recommend, this is the next best thing. Everything you need to know and more about your new iPod. First off, the iPod is a mini hard drive music player run by cool software. It does a great job. It is not a walkman or radio, it is a sensitive appliance. I own two and I found it's fairly intuitive and got it up and running in minutes. For those who want get into the innards, voila! Mr. Breen to the rescue!

I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly bacause it is very well written. OS X is very nice and cool. It is most bueatiful OS ever! I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete OS X UNIX course put on DVD. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. I can't overstate how much I have learned from them. Don't be naive, though. You will have to learn and memorize many things. The fact of owning neither book nor DVD will not make you knowledgeable, but if you will work it trough, there is a chance you will surprise many people around!

Really good product, absolutely to buy if you really want to understand how your Mac Os X works...interesting for everyone which like Unix-like systems!!
Be careful with the edition since I bought this one valid for mac os x 10.2 instead of the new one, good for version 10.4!

Learning new things aren't easy and studying UNIX isn't an exception. It takes great effort to go through all of the details, often unnecessary, to grasp the core subject. This book deals with the most difficult stage of getting into UNIX: the beginning.
UNIX as probably any other operating system is a system: it means it is complex and not really easy to comprehend. It is good book for a beginner.
Also there is Linux and UNIX for a beginner complete training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs ed.2008
Highly recommended!

Very good book to get up to speed with the unix side of OS X.
But: there are too many errata in the book, especially with figures or tables that contain inconsistencies with the accompanying texts.

I came to Mac OS X with almost 10 years of experience with mainly GUI operating systems; this book above all the others I looked at provided just the right all-round introduction to Unix on OS X. I cannot explain how a *Visual* QuickPro guide was so good at providing information about arguably the least visually rich aspect of the new Mac OS. It seems like an absurdly inappropriate format but somehow, it works perfectly - Mr Enzer gets things just right. There's no fluff and no overly chatty silliness to make the book an enormous doorstop. Nor is it ever tough going or unreadable - it's always well spaced, with excellent tips and notes sections and carefully paced.

It's probably about time that it was updated for Panther, which was released almost 7 months ago as I write this but the author has already provided the relevant information for bash users (a clean Panther installation uses bash by default) as well as csh and tcsh. (Don't worry if you don't know what these are - all becomes clear in the book.) Yes, there's a good Unix section for beginners in Mac OS X Panther Unleashed, too (Willam & John Ray) but this one easily tops it and provides much more useful information, good as the other book is on Mac OS X in general. There are other books that talk to Unix geeks about the Mac - this one is the best I've come across at doing the opposite.

I'm withholding one star only because so many errors made their way past the proof-reading stage. (Easily fixed - go to the Peachpit Press site and save a copy of the online Errors & Corrections page for this book.)

If you are new to Unix or have the most basic of skills and you use OS X, this will give you exactly the grounding you need using just the right kind of language. It's beautifully done. Just don't forget to visit the Errors & Corrections page at Peachpit.

When I picked up this text, I kind of expected it to be a bit sparse in some areas. After all, it's an ambitious book. With individual chapters on every database from DB2, Oracle and Sybase to MySQL, Postgres and SQL Server. In addition he also covers OS backups on Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, and Mac OS X.

Preston though, succeeds, and succeeds with flying colors. What I was struck by most of all, after reading it, is his clear breadth of knowledge in the subject of backups. Each of the different databases alone do things differently, and have a lot of different concepts, and vernacular to describe it.

He starts the book with the basics, what backing up is all about, why you do it, and what to consider. What are you backing up and why? How often, and using what method? Roll-your-own solution scripting with unix utils like dd, cpio, or tar, go with an open source solution such as Amanda, Bacula, or BackupPC, or consider various commercial solutions. And lastly, don't forget testing and verifying your backups. Preston doesn't let anything through the cracks.

I have worked on Unix for years and years, but my sweet spot is working with databases. So I read the chapters on Oracle and MySQL very carefully. In both cases I learned something new. For instance during an Oracle hotbackup, did you know that changes to datafiles are *NOT* frozen. Learn how Oracle reconstructs your data using a hotbackup, by reading his careful discussion on the topic. Databases are not simple beasts, and the backup considerations are not trivial. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book as your reference for doing database backups on any of these platforms.

Lastly I like the writing style. He calls it "champagne backup on a beer budget". Good stuff. You'll find this book interesting to read, full of detail when you need it and pointed when necessary. Go pickup a copy.

I am a programmer by trade, but don't have much experience with the server management side of IT. I have had scares with backups for my home PCs. Finally I decided to do something about it with this book. A few days of reading gave me a great deal of knowledge. The final solution I decided on was BackupPC, which is now automatically backing up 7 PCs in our house, every night. My stress level has been reduced completely. Worth the price many times over.

W. Curtis Preston is the king of backups, and his book Backup and Recovery (BAR) is easily the best book available on the subject. Preston makes many good decisions in this book, covering open source projects and considerations for commercial solutions. Tool discussions are accompanied by sound advice and plenty of short war stories. If the author addresses the few concerns I have in his next edition, that should be a five star book.

The best aspect of BAR is the author's obvious expertise in this subject. He does a good job sharing lots of his knowledge with the reader. Probably the most valuable conceptual framework I learned in BAR is the difference between backups and archives. Pages 696-7 summarize this nicely: "Backups are the secondary copy of primary data... Archives are the primary copy of secondary data." In this section and elsewhere, Preston describes how archives are the repository one should create when answering ediscovery requests and similar queries -- not backups. This is an extremely powerful idea and I plan to see how my employer deals with this issue.

The second best aspect of BAR involves multiple chapters on backing up various databases. One can usually find similar coverage in single books on specific databases, but having all information in one book is useful for purposes of comparison. Chapter 15 provides an overview of the entire problem by discussing terminology and features found in many databases. This chapter helps storage admins understand the database admin world. Of particular note was the coverage of Microsoft Exchange, which the book calls a specialized database. I had not thought of Exchange in this light, but it's true -- especially when Microsoft indicates future versions will have SQL Server replacing Extensible Storage Engine. I only read chapters on SQL Server, Exchange, and MySQL.

The third best aspect of BAR includes OS-specific chapters on bare-metal recovery. Although my OS of choice (FreeBSD) didn't merit its own chapter, I felt the material in the bare-metal section was robust enough to help me perform this work if necessary. I really only read the chapters on Windows/Linux and ignored Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and Mac OS X.

BAR is a good book, so why not five stars? First, I thought the chapters on open source backup options (especially ch 7 on "Open-Source Near CDP") were weak. I wanted to learn a lot more about rdiff-backup, for example, but the tool merited about 5 pages and introduced only the simplest possible invocation. Rsnapshot was also undercovered. It seemed like too many pages were spent on utilities I would probably never use (given newer options) like dump and cpio. I was also not confident I could get very far with Amanda, BackupPC, or Bacula given the detail given to each open source product. (Regarding BackupPC -- I had to guess it was open source and then only found out the truth when its Web site at sf.net was mentioned late in the chapter!)

Second, some topics never really made sense. For example, I still do not understand how snapshots actually work. Calling it a "picture" means nothing to me. Snapshots are mentioned throughout the text, and the explanation that finally appears near the end of the book in a miscellanea chapter doesn't help.

Third, I would really have liked to hear more about services offering backup to the Internet, like Amazon's S3 and others. This MUST be covered in the next edition.

Finally, although the book has lots of advice, it would have been nice to have had a case study chapter where multiple example enterprises demonstrate their backup and recovery solutions. After finishing the book I have lots of ideas floating around, but seeing how a one-person, 100-person, 10,000-person, and 500,000-person environment implement BAR would be greatly appreciated.

Short Summary:
This book's does not only teaches you have to create safe backup but it takes you to the next level where a large organization can save tons of dollars a year by making their backup and restore faster and more reliable process.

Detail Summary:
Backup and Recovery is the most interesting subject to me. I have always enjoyed reading and writing about this subject. I personally believe that without proper backup and ability to restore the backup to recover the system to original state, any organization is at great risk. Biggest change in the recent industry has been the proliferation of Windows, Exchange and SQL Server.

This book is aimed at the people who feel that the commercial software precuts aren't meeting all their needs. Almost everything which is discussed in this book is either included with operating system or application. This book vastly covers the tools which are open-source projects. This book covers how to back up and recover everything from a basic Linux, Windows, or Max OS workstation to a complicated DB2, Oracle, Sybase or SQL Server (my favorite) databases as well many other things.

This book suggests tools which are less than $100 or in most of the cases almost free. This book is for every developer or system administrator. This book tells users how exactly to choose which backup tool is best. This book stays away from ever changing product names. It focuses on concepts only - what a novel approach! I appreciate author for the same.

This book focuses on two people mainly - Database Administrators (DBA) and System Administrator (SA). Concepts for both the roles are explained in detail in this book. In author's own word "I explained the backup utilities in plain language so that any DBA can understand them, and I explain database architecture in such a way that an SA, even one who has never before seen a database, can understand it."

A book on Backup and Recovery are incomplete without discussing Bare-Metal Recovery. When operating system disk is lost and it is needed to recovered, it is called Bare-Metal Recovery. Out of hundreds of way to recover, this book focuses on best ways for Bare-Metal Recovery.

Working as SQL Server Principal Database Administrator, I have been involved with Database Backup since day one. In several years of my career, I have seen many large organizations ignoring backup of master database. I was very glad when I see in just three lines author has conveyed clear message about master database. These three lines explain the understanding of author for SQL Server.

"It is extremely important to backup the master database on regular basis. This database holds all the configuration information for the running system as well as all the configuration information for all databases and other information such as logon accounts. Without this database, the rest of the system is useless!"

Rating: 4 and 1/2 stars

In Summary, Backup and Recovery is not everything. This book takes you to highest level of the backup and recovery at conceptually strong working examples.

Pinal Dave
Principal Database Administrator
(blog.sqlauthority.com)

I have used many backup utilities in linux, Unix, Windows, and found this book to be only a very basic view of the backup, DR realm.

Despite the fact that I have been using .Mac for yesrs, this book has taught me a ton that I simply did not know. I never knew that there was this much to this program. This one is very solid and helpful.

Owen O'Meara

Apple created .Mac (dot Mac) as a suite of services to let subscribers share information online, yet it hasn't received half the notoriety of its I-cousins, despite features range from an online contact management system and storage space to a customizable personal web site and more. Chuck Toporek's Inside .Mac is the first and only manual to prove the riches of this new suite, providing a quick reference to the entire program and its modules. If you own .MAC, you owe it to yourself to include this essential desk reference in your collection: .MAC is too valuable to miss.

Title: Inside .Mac
Author: Chuck Toporek
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, 2004, $19.95
ISBN: 0-596-00501-6

Reviewed by: Curt Blanchard, Tucson Macintosh Users Group

I've had a dot-Mac account for a couple of years now and although I use it for many things, I haven't really taken advantage of it the way I could have. This is part sloth, but it's also because a dot-Mac account has features that I guarantee you'll never figure out on your own. With the new O'Reilly book, Inside .Mac by Chuck Toporek, you're going to find out how impressive dot-Mac really is! This isn't fluffy, light reading, it's 350 pages dense with information, that begin with a basic explanation, then take you straight through the dot-Mac's rich feature-set, module by module.

Toporek is quite thorough considering the amount of material there is to cover. There are lots of useful screenshots - sometimes unnecessarily too many, and in a few instances I found it frustrating to locate answers to specific questions even with help from the index. The only other nit is that it's pretty dry reading - no manual will ever be considered "light Summer reading", but other authors are a little better at keeping the reader engaged by lightening up from time to time.

This book could almost be divided in two; volume one would be a slim Getting Started guide and the second volume could deal with the deeper, more technical subjects. The two are fully blended throughout this book which may intimidate the casual user. I'm a better informed dot-Mac user after having read this book and recommend it to those who want to expand their knowledge.

If $99.00 per year for a dot-Mac account seems steep, read this book and you'll realize you get a lot for your money. It works out to only $8.25 per month.

--Curt Blanchard
Tucson Macintosh Users Group

Inside .Mac Making the Most of Your .Mac Membership - Book Review
John Nemerovski
Columnist, The Nemo Memo, Book Bytes
Thursday, 04/21/05

Inside .Mac Making the Most of Your .Mac Membership
by Chuck Toporek
O'Reilly Media
ISBN 0-596-00501-6, 360 pages
$19.95 US, $28.95 CN

Here we have one of the best-researched and most well written books ever reviewed by MyMac.com's Book Bytes. Author Chuck Toporek immersed himself in this topic so we readers and subscribers can take advantage of his endless energy and expertise. If I attempted to create a book such as this one, working every waking moment for over six months, I could not approach the breadth and depth of coverage Chuck provides. By now you probably realize that Book Bytes considers Inside .Mac - Making the Most of Your .Mac Membership to be is as good as it gets. Congratulations and thanks to Chuck and O'Reilly Media.

If you or someone you know has an active .Mac membership, please give us your thoughts on the service in our Article Discussion area below. This review deals with a book, not an account, and we value your personal comments.

I spent a long afternoon reading this volume cover to cover, and I was surprised and impressed with all the .Mac features offered by Apple. Most users take advantage of one or two of the components within .Mac, notably email and Backup or iDisk, and people are missing out on several others that add value to the annual fee.

Inside .Mac takes readers slowly and patiently from "Setting Up Your .Mac Account" on a comprehensive, detailed journey all the way through "Using Virex" and "Using iSync with .Mac" to "Blogging with iBlog" and ".Mac's Keyboard Shortcuts." Have you encountered the "Common iDisk Error Codes," or have a need to install the iDisk utility for Windows XP? Now's your chance, with Chuck as your time-tested tutor.

Turning to pages at random, we encounter:

* IMAP Versus POP - Which Is Best for Me? (discussing hidden ways to access your .Mac email)

* Blogging with iBlog (a third-party application Chuck recommends for integrating your account with a user-friendly blog)

* From GIF to JPEG in a Jiffy (explaining why JPEG is the only type of picture compatible with .Mac's slide publishing software, and how easily you can create JPEGs)

* Virus Scanning from the Terminal (if this appeals to you, I applaud your geek factor)

and dozens greater and lesser techniques and tips.

Screen shots are plentiful, all in '. At $20 US, the price of Inside .Mac is so loaded with reference and tutorial info that author and his publication team must have done this book as a labor of love, because I don't think the title is a bestseller. I hope I'm wrong, and I'll be using it on my daily rounds as a private computer tutor, urging my clients to find Chuck instead of Nemo when they need help with any aspect of .Mac.

The text is divided into four major parts, with the first dedicated to .Mac service particulars, email accounts, and iDisk; the second addresses Virex and Backup utilities; the third (now for some fun!) covers "Building a .Mac HomePage," the aforementioned iBlog, plus iSync, Slide Shows, and iCards; and, finally, an appendix containing .Mac's keyboard shortcuts and the error codes and Windows material mentioned above. Writing is clean and personal, like a long conversation with the most intelligent, articulate person you've ever met.

How else is an intrepid .Mac subscriber able to acquire the necessary instructions to do everything possible with the membership and its features? Not possible, says Nemo, wishing I had an extra couple of hours each day to dig deeper into Apple's .Mac service. Inside .Mac: Making the Most of Your .Mac Membership is such outstanding value and so high in useful content that it's at the top of our highest Book Bytes rating, 5 out of 5. If you are a .Mac member or plan to become one, run don't walk to your favorite independent or online bookseller to purchase this title.

I do not like the way the book is written (frankly). Maybe it's just me, but I like things explained better. I understand everything he is saying and he does give you a step by step list of how to do things, but he DOES NOT tell you the purpose of each of the features of .Mac, which to me is essential. It's almost as if he thinks we already understand what to do with each of the components of membership. He gives absolutely NO examples of what you'd use these things for and all he really would have had to do would've been include a couple paragraphs about it. As I read it's hard for me to follow along because he excludes essential information relevant to .Mac and the use thereof.

I bought this at the Apple Store in Downtown Chicago and on the train ride to Toledo kept waking up my traveling buddy to tell him about stuff I found in there. He'll be borrowing the book shortly. Cool tips getting into plist files and other fairly substantial tweaks.

I have been reading Rob Griffiths http://www.macosxhints.com/ since it came out years ago, and I am so happy he made this book. He has culled all the best hints from his web site, and rewritten them with plenty of photos, and extras. The stuff on customizing your OS X Unix Shell alone is well worth the price of the book. You don't know what you are missing on the Unix side of OS X until you start playing around with some of his advanced tips. I couldn't recommend this more!!!!

One more hit for the Pogue Press/O'Reilly team. This book is rich of real, useful, great hints. Just the ones about DVD snapshots, Add Ons, and some basic Unix hacks are worth the book. The truth is these are not hints that you will find elsewhere, and no useless tips made it into this volume. Worth every cent.

Written by Rob Griffiths and edited by David Pogue, Mac OS X Hints: Jaguar Edition is a 421-page burgeoning collection of tips, tricks, techniques, and secrets to improved performance and making the best use of Mac OS X 10.2. Ranging from putting six hours of music on a single CD; to making iDisk work ten times faster; to a secret emacs adventure game, and a great deal more, Mac OS X Hints is an enjoyable and very highly recommended supplementary resource for Mac OS X users who are already familiar with the basics and want to add some new twists to their computer desktop.

Probably not the best choice for someone who already has a some working knowledge of Mac OS X. Filled with many useful tips and hints the book contains lots of very trivial stuff that fills the majority of the pages.

Maybe useful for an OS X newcomer but certainly not for an intermediate to power-user. I would recommend "Mac OS X Hacks" instead which has lots more to offer than this book.

OS X UNIX is amazingly friendly and accessible. Some people who had never used it before type commands and work with the operating system directly as a "cool guys" in movies! This book is very helpful and well written and it is serves as a very nice reference on OS X server.
I paired this book with Linux and UNIX for a beginner complete training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs ed.2008 .
OS X server is most advanced and easy to manage UNIX server ever. It is a culmination of all efforts for all UNIX system managing software I ever encountered.
The book is very particular about the subjects that related to OS X and because there are some differences between OS X and other UNIXes it is nice to have a book that deals with it.

The manual has covered the basic setup of the entire suite of services, plus a slew of other utilities that help manage server settings. The author has done good work in organizing the book for services. I use it as reference for many server jobs. I am thankful for the concise written reference.

The book is not bad, but it only handles "simple" stuff, if I dare call any computer administration simple.

People entering server administration should, first off, be those that are already considered power users or geeks by the majority of their coworkers. Such a person will already know the truly simple stuff, have acquired bits and pieces of more advanced knowledge, but need considerable direction on the concepts and issues of server administration. On this latter point the book is, unfortunately, far too sketchy, and some things are, I feel, a bit too sketchy for this sort of audience.

I should point out, too, that the famed Macintosh ease of use is here somewhat of a hindrance. I.e., the Xserve and Mac OS X Server setup is deceptively easy, to the point that bad setups are easy to do. Was Unix administration always intentionally hard, in order to "idiot-proof" it? One has to wonder... Given this problem, the book screams out for an introductory chapter on what issues there are in setting up a server, what possible solutions are, what the implications pro and con of each of these choices are, what setups are prerequisites for others, and so forth. The wet-behind-the-ears administrator could then create a flowchart of needed tasks, which this proposed introductory chapter could then reference for details.

Furthermore, the book's organization leaves much to be desired. I should think that security issues should be set up first, not relegated to a late chapter as in this book. DNS is handled in Chapter 3 I believe, yet there are items with dependencies on DNS that are described in earlier chapters. It would make sense to describe setting up user templates before users are actually set up.


For my part, I've already read the book twice and am now proceeding with my 3rd read-through, taking notes as I'm going as to what I need to do and in what order. I'm also taking notes on the files that will be modified as I'm doing this, so that I can take care to back up their original versions. This kind of information is thankfully in the book but unfortunately not stated up front in each section. This (i.e. "read the book through before starting any work") should appear as an instruction in the first chapter.

As to detail, one example relevant to our own situation (and likely many others') should suffice. Having already set up a web site, we wanted to set up the Xserve so that web requests go to the off-site web service while email is sent to the Xserve. The basics can be accomplished with Apple's GUI tools, but the details have to be done by hand in the text-based configuration files. Granted, books can be bought on DNS and BIND; but I don't really want or need a library of 10-12 books on all aspects of Unix administration.

I've been waiting for a solid introduction to OS X Server book for some time and have long thought that the lack of such a book was a significant gap in many publishers' stables. Happily, this book filled that gap for me.

As is the style of the other Visual QuickPro Guides, the book is filled with very clear, step-by-step instructions. These lead you through the configuration of each service and are accompanied by a huge number of screen shots so that you can see where you are and easily match up what's happening on your screen. It could be argued, however, that this approach is too repetitive at times, with all the detailed steps and screenshots of getting to a certain point before moving into the meat of how to do a new topic. I suppose this is valuable if you use Server infrequently and pick up the book as a reference text the odd time that you need to make a change, but if you read multiple sections as an intro to what's possible then you'll probably want to skip the first few steps of each new section you get to.

As far as content goes, the book covers essentially every topic you can think of, and also provides many useful tips sprinkled throughout to help you configure and manage your server. The downside of this breadth of coverage is that many topics seem to provide just enough information to be dangerous, but not enough to really "teach" you about what everything means. I was hoping that the book would provide more explanation as to what each of the different options means and does, and provide more recommendations as to why I might choose one option over another. In the DNS chapter, for example, it mentions "A records" and "PTR records," but doesn't explain what these are or how to choose which records you need (yes, there is a valid counterpoint to this, see the next paragraph). Another example is the choice of logging options - it would be helpful to more clearly indicate this process and why I might want to choose one level of logging versus another. A brief primer on how to read the logs would also be valuable.

In the book's defense on the breadth issue, the title is "QuickPro Guide," suggesting that it'll be enough to get you going, while spending relatively little time on detailed explanation. The book does fulfill this objective, but I just think that additional explanation would make the book even more valuable and reduce the need to reference other networking and server books to get a basic background. In those cases where there is a call for more detail than "should" be provided in this particular book, quite possibly such as my DNS example above, the book should provide a weblink or two or recommended reading suggestions for more information. Perhaps it's a matter of focus and the book should choose to either be oriented to beginners and provide them with enough information to enlighten them or else tell them where to find foundation references first, a set of prerequisites say, and then concentrate on a more experienced audience.

A couple of final thoughts includes a caveat that the structure seems a bit disorganized, with some key topics being put off. For example, security is pushed to the end of the book, as many other books do as well, although at least parts of the chapter would be useful closer to the front, such as the creation of private keys, which is relevant to securing Web services, sending and receiving email, etc. Another suggestion for a future edition would be the inclusion of a flowchart of the key tasks that you need to do when setting up a new server from scratch. The book gives good advice in this regard, but it's all text-based. A graphic to lead off the Intro or first chapter as a jumping off point would be great.

Overall, I did find the book very helpful, but more as a reference tool than a learning guide. If that's what you're after then look no further, but otherwise be prepared to do some additional reading - of course, it's unrealistic to expect one book to do it all anyway. I am looking forward to O'Reilly's soon-to-be-released Essential Mac OS X Server Administration book.

NB. I accessed the book via safari.oreilly.com - an excellent service I might add (if you're not the type of person who needs to feel the paper).

After reading through this book, I had no trouble at all setting up a small office server with mail & web services. Schoun Regan has written a book that is easy to read and easy to follow. I hope that an update to this book is written right after Tiger is released.

Very good book. It gives you a clear understanding about OS X 10.3 server and its utilities. You need to have a little bit of experience with OS X before you jump into this book, but other than that... this book is great.

As a fellow author and a technical services provider as well as an ACTC four times over, I feel somewhat uniquely qualified to provide perspective on this work. This book doesn't purport to be the proverbial equivalent to "Everything But The Kitchen Sink." It is not one of those literary anachronisms of a book that goes feature by feature, droning on and on, burying any useful content in a sea of verbosity. Rather, this is a task driven book and if you've really done IT support; then you'll know Charles Edge has done it too. The content is original, well balanced and interesting. The style of writing is clear and well edited. In other words, this book is tight and that's how I like to roll.

I read this book after taking the ACHDS because I was interested in setting up Apple Servers in different environments as well as taking the Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.4 Exam (9L0-507). It was one of the easiest reads I've had in a long time. I came from the Microsoft side of IT, and some of the material from that area is dry. This book was helpful, and I enjoyed the real life examples. I still use it on occasion as a guide, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know about Mac OS 10.4 Server, and how to apply it in the field.

'Mac Tiger Server: Little Black Book' by Charles Edge is a nice text that will assist all Mac Tiger users in better understanding and using this piece of hardware and software. There are a lot of screenshots but that's never a bad thing in this reviewers opinion, as the more easily I can see how things are laid out, the better!! If I want lines and lines of black text on white paper I will get the Wall Street Journal, if I want a book that I can use and learn from, this is a great one to have on your desk!!

**** RECOMMENDED

Are you a user or system administrator that needs to get the most out of Mac networking with Tiger Server? If you are, then this book is for you. Author Charles Edge, has done an outstanding job of writing a cool book that will help you tap the unused potential of your server.

Edge, begins by describing the concepts and terminology of basic network communications. Then, the author takes a look at what requirements are needed to run Tiger Server. Next, the author covers the management utilities that are used in maintaining and working with Tiger server. He also covers the various services that the Tiger X Server can offer to administrators to help in managing networks. The author continues by covering the concepts required to build a good backup plan for any organization. Then, he provides an introduction to many of the command line utilities used in managing a Tiger Server and Mac network environment. Finally, the author explains the various other aspects of managing a long-term Tiger Server and the network the server lives on.

After reading this most excellent book, you should end up with the ability to find your way around an OSX Server. Perhaps more importantly, you'll enjoy the process.

I bought this book after reading the other 5-star reviews, so I thought Wow! This must be it! Well, it's almost 'it'. The book gives a well-written and useful explanation of what RAW is all about, and also shows some good examples of what you can do with RAW. It also helps you to decide when to shoot in RAW or when you'd better just switch to JPG.

Unfortunately, the images used in the book are of poor quality, both in terms of press and art. Actually they are just ordinary snapshots, for which JPG would be enough. The photos don't contribute so much to the text, because they are quit messy. Often it was not very clear what a certain change in Photoshop really does with the picture. The images are quit dull and smudgy.

Text however is clearly written, and after reading this book you have a very good impression about the power of RAW and how you can greatly enhance your photos by using Camera Raw and PhotoShop CS2. It gives you enough starting material to go on. Too bad the author didn't use more appealing pictures to show what awesome things you can do with RAW. From a award-winning professional, I expected high quality images and print.

Nevertheless I can recommend this book to anyone who wants to use RAW and who can work with Photoshop. You are able to master several important techniques with this book by your side. Then proceed to the next step: enhancing your finest pictures to exceptional pieces of art.

Hi,

Short about me:
I'm new to Adobe Raw/Photoshop and knew almost nothing about it. Very little knowledge about digital photography, however have extensive background in computers and film/SLR photography.

I absolutely hated this book, and I'm returning it now.

The wording is confusing, the terms are barely explained, sometimes not explained at all, I had to use Internet extensively to decipher the book.
Author keeps repeating the same things again and again, using the same abstract and confusing language.
The illustrations are small, really small, there is no way to see what is pictured, forget about seeing the supposedly shown effects.
Author many times refers to tools in Camera Raw/Photoshop, without clearly show where those tools are located, so for novice like me, it took some time to find out what is he talking about.
Author description of histogram and clipping is disastrous. I had to spend some time online to finally understand the terms.
The book needs another revision badly, or may be it should be rewritten from scratch.
Any way if you are new to it like me, you won't find clear definition and descriptions. If you know what you are doing, this book will teach you nothing, get more comprehensive book

I must admit, I took a long time switching to digital for photo work, and then I thought I was set. It appears that not only do a I have to master the camera for settings, but in those instances where the money talks, I have to learn about RAW format rather than the high res JPG format I thought was dealing me a good deal.

If you shoot professional photography in digital format, you best scurry on down to the local bookstore for this one (or order online d'oph).

RAW gives you the ground base to build and perfect the data that results in great photographs. Of course you have to be a great photographer to begin with, so that said, this is why professional photographers need this. Alright, its important for photo illustrators too, but if you photographers do not understand why its important to shoot RAW, then the illustator, or yourself cannot do diddly with the jpg in terms of coverting to RAW again.

Must for professional digital photographers and illustrators. Handy for designers dealing with photos. Not relevant to non photo centric people. Printers will have an intrest in this as it relates to client work.

Minimum text balanced with excellent sidebar explanations, examples and illustrations made the book easy to read and understand, and to fully exploit the many features or RAW. Of particular interest was the coverage of colour balance, High Dynamic Range and Black and White conversion in RAW

In the field of digital photography, capturing and developing "RAW" files is a hot topic, largely because this is usually the route to the highest image quality attainable. The subject can be a bit opaque because each manufacturer mechanizes in-camera RAW files differently. Also, there are many different RAW converters (software packages for developing the RAW files into optimized images) from both the camera manufacturers and third parties. One of the most popular RAW converters is Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), originally released by Adobe as a plug-in for Photoshop 7 and Photoshop Elements, and now integrated into both products.

Adobe Photoshop is the undisputed king-of-the-hill in digital image editing software and has spawned an entire industry of "how-to" books. The subject is so vast and so technical it's nearly impossible to put it all in one book that is actually readable, though many have tried.

In this case I believe the author tried to accomplish too much in too little space. To thoroughly cover the topic of digital RAW would require many more pages, and would be better served, in my view, by taking a more narrowly focused, more studious approach to presenting the information. The target audience is questionable too: too much complexity for beginners; too little real meat for advanced users.

I also found the layout of the book disconcerting. It's bright and colorful with lots of white space, and is visually attractive from a graphic artist's perspective, but primary topics are presented as snippets of information followed by a host of screen shots and illustrations and sidebars with explanations. This disrupted the continuity of the ideas and I had to keep backtracking to pick up the main thread.

There's no doubt that the author knows his stuff, but the book left me unsatisfied. If you're really looking to understand and use Adobe Camera Raw to its fullest capability, there are better texts available.

I've known about this book for a while now, but I've never bothered paying attention to it given it's somewhat ridiculous price tag. Necessity forced me to forgo my earlier conclusions however, and I'm now angry at myself for not picking it up sooner. However much you think you know about Quartz, there's always more to learn, and this book is a whole lot easier to pick new tricks up from than Apple's scant free documentation. It's a bit dated when it comes to the XCode specific info, but unless you're a total newcomer you should be able to fill in the proverbial gaps there without much trouble.

This is the second book on OS X programming that I have felt is truly worth owning; the first being Amit Singh's "Mac OS X Internals." This one's not as thick, nor is it hardbound, but there are lots of color plates. Good stuff.

If all of the Apple frameworks were explained as well as CoreGraphics/Quartz is in this book, life would be so much better for independent programmers. I am not writing code in XCode, but one where I need to port calls to custom classes. This book has helped me so much. I have not located the link on the publisher's site (maybe I'm just missing it), but my only complaint (a very minor one) would be that they don't have a contact email for the authors to report errata or thank them.

Well written, to the point, good code examples and does not duplicate the Apple documents. Covers Carbon and Cocoa calls. The chapters on axial and radial shadings were the most helpful for me.

Great programming guide to Quartz. This book really sets the example for how to provide the combination of concepts and code to get the new user over the hump. The XCode projects are beautifully organized. This is the best book I have bought on Macintosh Programming that I can recall. Well done!

This is an extremely comprehensive guide to drawing in Mac OS X with Quartz. I was a little disappointed in the lack of Cocoa (with objective-C) ties. You can do anything with Quartz, but sometimes it would take much less time to use the Cocoa equivalents when programming your OS X applications.

That said, it's well written, and easy to follow so long as you do the examples as you go. You can certainly hop around in the book, but I found I had to read the intro chapters twice to really get the terminology.

Quartz 2D is the primary graphics library in Mac OS X and is based on version 1.4 of Adobe PDF. It supercedes QuickDraw, which was used in earlier versions of the Mac OS. In Quartz 2D the coordinate space is an abstract concept defined by real values in 2 dimensions. Points in this space can be connected to form paths, such as straight lines, Bezier curves and so on. To create actual graphics on the display, the paths are rasterized as needed to generate the pixels at the display device's resolution. This permits the same graphics commands to yield the same output on any device using the best resolution available.
This book is full of clear explanations for mere mortals of how Quartz has packaged the state of the art in graphics programming. The book starts out with Quartz 2D drawing basics such as drawing and filling basic geometric forms and drawing lines. With the basics out of the way, the author goes on to show how you would use Quartz 2D both in Cocoa and in Carbon. Next there are chapters on basic computer graphics intertwined with performing these tasks in Quartz. Included topics are coordinate systems, affine transformations, and parametric curves all within the framework of performing graphics in Quartz. The book then moves on to working with images including creating CGImage objects, and importing and exporting data to PNG, JPEG, and Quicktime formats. Another chapter is devoted to working with text. There are two chapters devoted to working with PDF data, including a chapter on handling PDF images that is very thorough in its descriptions and the issues that are raised. The book is very well written and covers many complex topics in 2D graphics clearly and at a level appropriate for all programmers, and I highly recommend it for all programmers interested in Quartz.

This is one of those tough ones. On the one hand, there's a lot of good stuff here. On the other hand..

The problem here is that a LOT of this book was written about early versions of Mac OS X. Too many things talked about have changed and either work differently or don't work at all. In fairness, there is a section at the end that is newer than the rest of the book that does cover most of that, but if you are reading front to back you will have some disorientation.

Some of the problems just come from lack of basic Unix knowledge. I don't mean that there's anything too horrible here, just a few minor misconceptions and a general feeling that the author wants to avoid the command line at all costs. On the other hand, if you share his apparent dislike of command line work, you'll be pleased to find his more graphical workarounds.

The focus of this boook is troubleshooting, and even with the problems I have mentioned, it does cover all manner of problems, and attempts to give enough technical background to be interesting and educational - it's not just "Command Option blah blah fixes that"; the author does make the effort to explain what's going on underneath.

So, while I can't heartily recommend that you drop everything and rush out to buy this, it is a book you will find value in.

When I was using OS 8.x and 9.x, I always referred to Ted Landau's Sad Macs, Bombs and Other Disasters for troubleshooting. About 95% of the time, my answer was there. Well, Mac OS X Disaster Relief is the OS X equivalent. And this updated version includes a "special Jaguar supplement," dedicated to solving problems in OS X 10.2.

I noticed on Amazon.com, that they mention the third edition of this book due out in September of 2003. I wonder if it will contain info on "Panther," OS X 10.3, which is supposed to be released around that time?

Many of you may know Ted as the creator of the MacFixit web site. In Mac OS X Disaster Relief, he covers the gamut from how to solve common problems, to rare ones, to geeky things like editing your preferences files to turn off blinking cursors. Or make files invisible (or vice versa). Though this is definitely an OS X book, he does tell you how to troubleshoot a few OS 9 things that may affect your OS X.

He devotes some pages to solving OS X crashes, and to the various disk repair utilities like Drive 10, Norton Utilities, etc. Interestingly, he seems to think it is safe to use Norton Speed Disk to optimize your hard drive (page 255). He also explains that this kind of optimization is entirely different from the kind of optimization that happens as part of an installation of software.

There is also a good section on internet and network troubleshooting. In that section, I think I may have found a solution I've been looking for. AppleTalk does not work when it is active on multiple ports (page 471). That may explain why I'm having trouble printing over ethernet.

In one section, he talks about backing up your OS X boot volume using `ditto,' an app built into OS X. He further explains that Carbon Copy Cloner is just a GUI front end for ditto, for those who don't want to use the Terminal. And he tells you about other apps like `psync' that will do the same thing.

This book tells you how to do a lot of very basic troubleshooting. If you want to get under the hood and dink around (technical term), customize, or troubleshoot at a deeper level, it will help you do that, too.

I usually have a tall stack of books in the [Mac] review pipeline, and new additions are added to the bottom of the pile. Sometimes it takes titles a while to surface, but when Ted Landau's Mac OS X Disaster Relief arrived, it went promptly to the head of the pile.

When I began reading the actual troubleshooting sections, I began to worry.

"Did I make a mistake upgrading to Mac OS X?"

When I was half finished with the troubleshooting sections, I worried some more.

"Maybe I made a mistake owning a Macintosh."

By the time I finished the book, I was really worried.

"Maybe I should just get rid of all my computers!"

After reading page after page of gruesome OS X problems, I felt spooked. But after a cup of warm milk, I remembered that I'd never seen many of these gremlins, and probably never will. My OS X installation runs well most of the time. But I have had troubles that took quite a while to eradicate. I wish I had Mac OS X Disaster Relief close at hand before my last experience with a disk I could not unmount.

Mac OS X Disaster Relief is not the kind of book you buy to get a warm and fuzzy feeling about OS X's incredible stability, and how its bulletproof Unix foundation never crashes. You won't find any of the marketing happy-talk that spews from the depths of Apple's PR machine.

What you will find is page after page of specific and detailed fixes to both common and uncommon OS X problems. Ted Landau knows his stuff; he is probably best known for the creation of the MacFixit web site, and for his Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters. Sad Macs dealt with OS 9 troubles, and Mac OS X Disaster Relief is a more-than-worthy successor.

There's no fluff in this meaty book. My brain was working overtime on many pages, thinking about the variety of different problems and solutions. Landau devotes comparatively little space to OS X overview, except in places where a fundamental understanding of OS architecture is needed. While there is the usual discussion of Aqua, and OpenGL, the bulk of Chapter 4, Understanding Mac OS X, is spent on a thorough exposition of the contents of /Library and /Users/"Home"/Library. Each folder, beginning with Application Support, and ending with StartupItems, is covered in detail. While this information could be found by consulting MacFixit, Macintouch, Apple's KnowledgeBase, Mac OS X Hints, and Google.com/Mac, your Mac would be obsolete before you found it all. Mac OS X Disaster Relief is the best compendium of "what part does what job" I have ever seen for OS X.

Before reading Mac OS X Disaster Relief, I thought I knew a bit about OS X. I should, after plowing through over a dozen OS X books, each one saying it is the best in the field. But Landau is the first to say OS X has at least 7 ways of crashing at startup. (Apple does like to give the user flexibility...) Chapter 5, Crash Prevention and Recovery presents the startup sequence in slow-motion detail, and you learn exactly what happens (and what can go wrong) at each step in the process.

Crash problems are mercifully left behind when you arrive at Chapter 6, Problems with Files: Open, Copy, Delete, and Beyond. One of the first "gotchas" that drives an OS X newbie to run screaming from the room in frustration is the inability to empty the Trash, or to even put files into the Trash. Fixing Trash headaches is kid's play for Landau, and you'll learn several ways to solve this problem.

The best part of Chapter 6 is the lucid discussion of aliases, symbolic links, and hard links. Not being a Unix geek, I never understood the differences between these three "pointers to files" and how they differed from Mac OS 9 aliases. Landau set me straight in less than a page.

I could easily recite how useful the Troubleshooting Printing, and Troubleshooting Networking, File Sharing and Internet sections are, but that would be redundant. Every section is good, with golden nuggets of knowledge throughout.

Obviously, I love this book; its the best OS X book I've read since I reviewed David Pogue's OS X The Missing Manual. My copy of this masterful work is already dog-eared, and I've had it only three weeks. Mac OS X Disaster Relief is a MUST addition to any OS X user's library. You can read it straight through, from start to finish, as I did, or you can use it as a reference for when you encounter trouble. Either way, it will be worth far more than what you paid for it, as Landau will certainly save you time, probably save you money, and maybe save you some hair loss.

MacMice Rating: 5 out of ...

This Is An Old Edition!!! It is from July, 2003. Don't make a mistake and get this.

Make sure you get the 2nd edition of this book called Mac OS X Disaster Relief, Updated Edition. It was released in December, 2002. Do a search to find it.

This is a tremendous book. It guides you through troubleshooting problems with your Mac so that you don't have to be at the mercy of over-priced, snot-nosed computer technicians with attitudes. There is a lot of good solid information to get you going and lots of tips and advise. You could call the book a survival guide to the latest phase of the computer age. Things always go wrong with computers (even Macs!) and this book is a great guide to getting out of trouble.

Highly recomended