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OS X Hacks 179

Posted by timothy from the be-nice-now dept.
honestpuck writes "'Mac OS X Hacks' is a good grab bag of tips and techniques for getting the most from your Mac. While the tips are not as universally appealing (even among Mac owners) as those in 'Google Hacks' most people will find some value in the selection; experienced users may find it a little thin." Read on for the rest of honestpuck's review.
OS X Hacks
author Rael Dornfest & Kevin Hemenway
pages 380
publisher O'Reilly
rating 7 - Good
reviewer Tony Williams
ISBN 0596004605
summary Good grab bag of tips and techniques for getting the most from your Mac

The book is split into 9 chapters; 'Files', 'Startup", 'Multimedia and the iApps', 'The User Interface', 'Unix and the Terminal', 'Networking', 'Email', 'The Web' and 'Databases'.

For my money the last chapter is a complete waste of space since it only covers installing MySQL and PostgresSQL, and if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them. A number of the other tips would come close to that level, I feel their only use may be to encourage people who would otherwise stay away to make some use of the terminal and similar tools.

Over a dozen people have contributed 'hacks' to the book, among them some major geeks such as James Duncan Davidson (Tomcat author) and Jon Udell (well respected O'Reilly blogger.) This accounts for the wide number of areas covered by the hacks.

When I first started reviewing the book I would have complained about a large number of the tips being too application specific, too general or too low in skill level. Since then I've had a friend who wanted to edit a movie and we both found the chapter on iApps useful, one with a brand new Bluetooth phone who liked the couple of tips on Bluetooth and another who found the cross platform Windows-Mac stuff useful. so I have to say that while some of the tips might seem useless now you may come to appreciate them later.

Overall the book is well written, well laid out and well cross-referenced and covers a wide range of information. My one major beef is still that there are too many 'tips' that are well covered by other material. Since you shouldn't really get this book until you are at least Mac proficient and probably own a basic Mac book or two then perhaps a tenth of the hundred tips will be covered in most Mac books and perhaps another five to ten you will have discovered on your own.

While O'Reilly doesn't offer a sample chapter of this book online they do have a page at Hacks that lists all the hacks and allows you to read eight of them. There is also a page in the catalog with the Table of Contents, Index and Errata.

Reading over my notes I feel split between raving about how good the book is - well written with a bunch of useful tips and tricks for any Mac user - and complaining about the useless nature of some of the tips. After taking another look at 'Google Hacks' and my review I realised where the conflict lies -- in my level of experience on the Mac. If you already feel comfortable with getting your hands dirty on your Mac then this book may well not satisfy you. If, on the other hand, you still have some trepidation about hacking at your OS X Macintosh then you'll probably love this book.

You can purchase OS X Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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OS X Hacks

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  • Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JUSTONEMORELATTE ( 584508 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:03PM (#5955957) Homepage
    The reviewer writes "if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them."

    And people wonder why geeks don't have more non-geek friends.

    --
    • that's not elitism, it's true. if you can't figure out how to install a program as complex as mysql, which isn't that hard to install in osx, there's a good chance you can't use it.
      • Right, because all software out there requires an intimate knowledge of MySQL in order to run them. Er, no. Most if not all of the MySQL-based software I've seen automatically sets up the tables and handles all the queries in the backend. Very easy on the user.

        Now if you're a sys-admin, and you're running a series of boxes, then I'd probably agree that you should implicitly know or be able to figure out how to install MySQL, amongst other things. But for average joe "I have a website" user, such knowledge
        • that's not elitism, it's true. if you can't figure out how to install a program as complex as mysql, which isn't that hard to install in osx, there's a good chance you can't use it.

          The reviewer said " if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them" (emphasis added). That surely is elitism of the worst sort. You can be very smart and still not have the knowledge and experience necessary to use MySQL. The word "smart" is horribly elitist in this c

      • Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:26PM (#5956165)
        that's not elitism, it's true. if you can't figure out how to install a program as complex as mysql, which isn't that hard to install in osx, there's a good chance you can't use it.

        The reviewer said " if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them" (emphasis added). That surely is elitism of the worst sort. You can be very smart and still not have the knowledge and experience necessary to use MySQL. The word "smart" is horribly elitist in this context. If he had chosen to say "arent' yet knowledgeable enought to..." then it woldn't be an issue.

        If I were a non-geek reading that review I would be offended. Hell as a geek who happens not to have learnt that much about administering databases I'm offended.
        • Try it again, with different emphasis:

          [I]t only covers installing MySQL and PostgresSQL, and if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them.

          I read it as "If you need to be told how to install them, you need to be told how to use them. How is simply giving installation instructions helpful?" I agree that phrasing it terms of "smart enough" is obnoxious, though.

        • The reviewer said "if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them" (emphasis added). That surely is elitism of the worst sort.

          In some cases, the word "smart" is actually very appropriate given the drooling bib-wizards that often end up in IT. I agree, though, that it is overly general, in the context of a Mac OS book.

          However, how many projects fail, because someone drags some boxes around in a GUI and, then, calls themself a database architect

        • If I were a non-geek reading that review I would be offended

          If you were a non-geek, then you wouldn't be installing a database! And yes, that's exactly the point.

          I'm all for making things as simple to install, understand, and use as possible; I hate some of the elitism that you get in tech circles, especially where Open Source is concerned. But you have to bear in mind your audience. Databases can't be compared to consumer apps like browsers and music players, or even to window managers and simple com

      • Of course it's elitism. "Smart" equates to "intelligence", not education, background, training, interest and aptitude. This is just unwarranted geek ego tripping.

      • Pure Elitism (Score:3, Insightful)

        by VividU ( 175339 )
        I know musicians who can compose film scores on the computer but don't know a thing about setting up a midi/sequencer system themselves.

        I know accountants who are stone cold Excel experts but barely know how to turn on their computer.

        This is elitism pure and simple.
      • I've seen questions (e.g. on http://forums.macosxhints.com) many times from people who are installing mySQL merely because it is used by some other software that they want to use. They have no intention of defining their own tables, composing their own SQL queries, etc. They just need mySQL to be there for the other software to use.

        There is an analogous situation with the C compiler. On Mac OS X, the C compiler is installed as part of the Developer Tools and that is easy enough- but suppose it was harder t
    • I vehemently oppose elitist geek attitudes (despite having a streak of it myself), but I have to agree with the reviewer on this point. MySQL and PostgreSQL aren't toys -- they take a certain level of expertise to use effectively. If you can't install them, it's not that you shouldn't use them, but you probably wont be able to. It's about capability, not status.

      • Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jat850 ( 589750 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:38PM (#5956268)
        I'm just not sure that I agree with you here. A good DBA may not need to know very much in terms of system administration, but can probably walk all over a good sysadmin in terms of database design and management. A sysadmin will probably not be as familiar with MySQL as a good DBA will.

        It seems to me as though what you're saying is sysadmins, because they can install these programs, exhibit a "certain level of expertise" that a person unfamiliar to a UNIX command line might not. A good DBA can always fall back on his/her SQL standards-compliant syntax and feel right at home, regardless of whether or not he or she can set up MSSQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2, or whatever.
        • You deserve a gold star for your insightful comment.
        • Actually on second thought, I agree with you. Our Oracle DBA can run circles around the rest of us in SQL but ask him to set up a share, or do any halfway complicated grepping, and he'll just stare blankly. In any event I think the appropriate installation process for Pg on a Mac is a regular package (which, not coincidentally, is how I installed it on my PowerBook).
        • Though I agree with you, I think the whole argument is something like this (though this is a Debian example):

          1) Provided you are experienced using Debian, if you can't figure out that you need to type "apt-get install mysql-server" to install MySQL, you probably won't get very far in actually using it.

          2) Using the word "smart" in the context that the reviewer did is pure elitism, plain and simple.

          Although I see both these points, I think the reviewer could've been more tactful and instead said "If you kn
    • Heh-heh. And they also wonder why the majority of people out there just don't 'get it'. I've always said the computer industry should really follow Apple's lead and make the computer more of an appliance for the dolts and a super machine for the experts. Amazingly Apple has managed to do this with Mac OS X. A 5 year old can use the GUI, and the crudgy old smelly *nix hacker can go hog wild on the command line. Now that's something I'm waiting for Windows to copy...

    • 1994? (Score:2, Funny)

      by DreadSpoon ( 653424 )
      Hell, I still run into this constantly today.

      My favorite is the idiot yelling about how much he hates newbies and corporate support in Linux, on a mailing list operated by Intel for Intel supplied Linux software. The "smart" people are such morons, sometimes. ;-)
  • If there is a book on the same level as
    "The Complete FreeBSD" but for OSX instead.
    Having a book like this to read would go a long
    way towards helping me decide if it's worth paying
    the hardware tax associated with running it OSX.

    • it's not a hardware tax (Score:4, Interesting)

      by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:38PM (#5956267)
      yes, there is a ~$200 price difference for a similar dell. but the differences from quality hardware to softeare is more than worth it. everything really just works. i have an ibook, and wouldn't trade it for anything. i plug in my dv camera, zip drive, anything. plus, i can keep it on my lap for hours and not have roasted chestnuts.

      it's not like you can hose the hard drive of a dell and install os x like you can with linux. macs cost more, but it's not apples to apples. if price is that big a deal, get a dell, hose the drive and take one for the team, courtesy of billy g.
      • it's not like you can hose the hard drive of a dell and install os x like you can with linux. macs cost more, but it's not apples to apples.

        No, it's Apples to Dells!

        [RIMSHOT!]
      • if price is that big a deal, get a dell, hose the drive and take one for the team, courtesy of billy g.

        nay.. don't get a Dell.. Buy a motherboard which is a few generations behind (say a Asus a7v266) and a cheap AMD Duron ($30). DDR ram is cheap, get 512 MB for $50. Then assemble a system from all the x86 hardware you got sitting in your closet, you may not have to buy the mobo/processor/memory even, depending on what you got in there.

        Some of us are so entrenched in x86 hardware, that it will always b

    • Re:Does anybody know... (Score:2, Informative)

      by yorkrj ( 658277 )
      You must to purchase the G4. The G4 is your zen friend. Darwin came to me in a dream and he said "Pools of Aqua and wide Open Source await you. Run with the Jaguar."

      It all depends on what you want out of your *nix. OS X is a stable, secure, highly usable port of Free BSD. Great for novices and hackers alike. If you want an OS that has all of the GNU you may be used to if you run Linux and the like, then steer clear because the mamoth porting job is not complete (for instance, there are some CPAN modules th
    • Buy a Mac (I used an iBook to tip my toe in Apple's waters) and if you don't like it, sell it on eBay. You'll probably get 95% of your money back out of it. Consider the sunk 5% a rental fee.
    • Nothing quite at the level as complete FreeBSD but two guys last name of Ray wrote the closest OSX book and it is published by SAMS. These are UNIX guys who spend a LOT of time on using OSX as a UNIX system - and presenting the aqua GUI to UNIX geeks.

      Surprisingly, Todd Stauffer has written the other book that I can recommend the second best.

      Finally, I havn't bought the Hacks book but I thumbed it heavily at B&N two weeks ago. The reviewer is right on the point that it has disparate hacks that don't

  • Bookless OS X Hacks (Score:5, Informative)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@yahoo. c o m> on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:08PM (#5955999) Journal
    http://www.macosxhints.com/ [macosxhints.com] rocks for searching, and if you're unclear on the concept, you can post a query and get an answer from someone in the know. Ad free, and on a decently fast server too. Highly recommended if you want to save a tree.
    • Or if you don't want to save a tree, you might check out his book [amazon.com]. It's chock full of the same Mac OS X Hints dot com hintiness, with a bunch of extra information attached to all the hints. And yeah, I'm using my associates version of the link.


      =Brian

    • This book is going to teach me how to abUSE my new custom Mac compatible PC [2khappyware.com].

    • Re:Bookless OS X Hacks (Score:2, Informative)

      by pldms ( 136522 )
      http://www.macosxhints.com/ rocks for searching, and if you're unclear on the concept, you can post a query and get an answer from someone in the know. Ad free, and on a decently fast server too. Highly recommended if you want to save a tree.

      And if you want to kill a tree they even made a Mac OS X Hints Book [oreilly.com]. O'Reilly seem to be cornering this corner of the market...

  • Hacks? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by HvacControls ( 656689 )
    I hate how "Hack" has become such a buzz word. In the past just the mention of the word hack could strike fear into the hearts of average computer users. Now its just a way to describe settings that can't be found in the manual.

    • Re:Hacks? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sevensharpnine ( 231974 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:24PM (#5956149)
      Agreed. The media has run wild with the term and PR departments are putting the final nail in the coffin. "Hacker" is also now a term of endearment for computer users. "Power users" are those who use windows explorer and know what a boot disk is. "Hackers"--the true experts of computing--are now people that use such non-standard programs as regedit and emacs. I'm thinking of writing a book called eXtreme Hacking. I don't know what I'll put in it yet, maybe windows keyboard shortcuts and a guide for configuring IE. I'm sure it will sell to the l33t wannabe crowd.

    • No (Score:4, Informative)

      by DreadSpoon ( 653424 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:52PM (#5956383) Journal
      That's what hack _always_ meant. A hacker has always been another word for coder. The media started using "hacker" where they should have been using "cracker" or "computer vandal" or similar (mostly because, I'm guessing, in the beginning you had to be a hacker to break into a system) and now the negative version of the term has stuck.

      I'm a hacker, proud of it, and may you people who keep thinking that means I break into computers all get beaten with wet noodles. ;-)
      • Language evolves, and I'm fine with that, but the evolution of hack is a bit shady, as it harms "real" hackers.

        After all, sure, the word gay has evolved to mean of low quality in many circles, but using the word that way is unfair to homosexuals.

        Of course, one could argue that there's more to being a hacker than just knowing some stuff which isn't well documented.
      • That's what hack _always_ meant. A hacker has always been another word for coder

        Well I'm not sure of the etymology of "hacker" but going pretty far back it also meant "practical joker with a technical bent" as in the "hacks" at MIT most of which have nothing to do with computers (I seem to recall that a group responsible for many of them was called the The Technology Hackers Association).

        Going back further most sources I have seen think it's current techy usage comes from a "hack" as in "a hack journa
    • Now its just a way to describe settings that can't be found in the manual.

      That's more or less always been the case...granted to a far lesser extent...but what gets me is the number of "hacks" on this book's list that can be found in the manual. Or that are fairly obvious to anyone who's used a similar feature before. (i.e. everything they talked about in hack #1, obvious to anyone who's ever used a system with multiple user accounts before)
      I'm not saying that people for whom these things are obvious do

  • not for all mac users (Score:2, Informative)

    by w3weasel ( 656289 )
    This book looks nice, but it seems like there are just a load of references to third party apps and what they do rather than actual 'hacks'.
    Seems like "Intro to OS X and Assorted Utilities" might be a more accurate name for it.
  • Would the co-author Rael Dornfest be the same Rael of the Raelians [rael.org]? You'd be amazed what an experience like being abducted by aliens and having your way with their beautiful female robots will do for your OSX skills.

  • See also MacOSXHints.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by kriegsman ( 55737 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:16PM (#5956086) Homepage
    I've seen this book a couple of times, but I have not bought it because Web sites like Mac OS X Hints [macosxhints.com] seem to cover much of the same material.

    The book looks pretty good for people beginning to explore what they can do with their Mac beyond iTunes, iPhoto, Mail and Safari. However, "experts" will probably be more satisfied with on-line sites like Mac OS X Hints, which have other benefits over the book as well: they have search engines, offer discussion forums, and are lighter to carry in your knapsack than a book -- even a paperback.

    -Mark

  • Lame review. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:50PM (#5956372) Homepage Journal
    This review is lame. Here's why.

    "if you can't figure out how to install [MySQL/PostgresSQL] then you aren't smart enough to use them"

    On the contrary, many web developers and web application programmers that are not familiar with installation of DB systems (on UNIX-ish systems or otherwise) are probably "smart enough" to use them. What makes them so incompetent in the first place? Cause they're Mac users? Thinly veiled elitism is so easy to identify.

    while some of the tips might seem useless now you may come to appreciate them later."

    Uhm, no shit? I need only to look at my personal library of O'Reilly books and/or API manuals to know that 99% of the information contained therein is absolutely fucking useless to me *right now*, but I'm certainly going to need them. That's why I bought the books, instead of going to the library to take notes.

    "My one major beef is still that there are too many 'tips' that are well covered by other material."

    Why should the author of the book expect the purchasers of his work to own the complete works of his (many) competitors? Can't the book stand on its own merit? Where is your analysis of this possibility?

    The gripes presented have absolutely no credibility, and this whole "review" seems to be based on the premise of stating the painfully obvious.

    Note: I'm an OS X user.

    • If You Don't Know How to Butcher a Cow... (Score:4, Funny)

      by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @01:21PM (#5956637)
      ...you're too dumb to eat at McDonald's.

      Makes as much sense as this review.

      Along those lines, why do so many book reviews here read like a vegetarian reviewing a a steak house?
    • On the contrary, many web developers and web application programmers that are not familiar with installation of DB systems (on UNIX-ish systems or otherwise) are probably "smart enough" to use them. What makes them so incompetent in the first place? Cause they're Mac users? Thinly veiled elitism is so easy to identify.

      I've often wondered how many Linuxen really want *nixes on the desktop for everyone, just due to the fact that it kinda destroys "street cred" in the same way that the cult following of

  • Support for UDF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oravecz ( 543740 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @12:57PM (#5956426)

    I'm still waiting for the OS X Hack that will allow me to read and write to a UDF-formatted CD-R. You know, the kind that Direct CD and Windows XP create that allows you to treat a CD-R/CD-RW as a big floppy disc.

    Despite OS X having a mount_udf command, it seems that it doesn't support these types of discs yet.

    • Re:Support for UDF? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tenton ( 181778 )
      Are you sure XP supports this? The last time I used XP's built in burning program, it was just like using Apple's DiscBurner. Basically, you copy the files you want to a cache (on your hard drive), but it looks like you're copying it to the CD (you go through a CD icon). When you're ready to burn, you select the burn option and then it records from the hard drive cache to the CD. Granted, it's been at least 4 months since I've used XP's burning program (I prefer Nero myself).

      I have had trouble mounting CD-

  • Another review (Score:3, Informative)

    by emmastory ( 660486 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @01:01PM (#5956467) Homepage
    I posted a review of this book today as well, available here [caoine.org] . I came to similar conclusions - a lot of it is great, although some of it will be old news to experienced users.

  • Jon Udell (Score:3, Informative)

    by PineHall ( 206441 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @01:35PM (#5956769)
    Jon Udell (well respected O'Reilly blogger.)

    Jon Udell is lead analyst of the InfoWorld Test Center. He is a blogger, and he is the reason I used to subscribe to Byte Magazine. He does write articles for O'Reilly from time to time, but he works for InfoWorld now. His weblog is here [infoworld.com] at InfoWorld.

  • Or..... (Score:2, Funny)

    by caffeinex36 ( 608768 )
    BSD for dummies ;)

    -Rob
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I looked this book over it bit, and frankly, it seems pretty lame. Basicallly, it is just various ways to incorporate a google search and results in your page, something which can be done without having to buy a book.

  • Remote screenshots! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Wednesday May 14, 2003 @01:57PM (#5956961)
    Did anyone read the remote screenshot hack [oreilly.com] (scroll to bottom)?

    If you allow say a friend to log in remotely, they could technically snap a shot of your screen while you were on your machine.

    At the least only those who can log in can do this but still, ouch!

    Of course it may not work at all, I've tried it on my machine, and it produced a blank white tile.

    Anyone else got this to work?
    • I've done it a lot on other UNIX systems, but I typically just use the magic keystrokes on macs.
    • Is it just me or do many of these appear to be tips rather than hacks? A tip is some obscure way how to do stuff. A hack is modifying binary files to do something. For instance, I consider this [macosxhints.com], and this [macosxhints.com] to be tips, with the latter bordering on a hack; but this [macosxhints.com] is a hack in my book. Of course, this is an "easier" hack than some, like taking out copy protection and the like. But we then border on a crack.
  • Check out CNN [business2.com] for drivel about how Jobs should save Tivo because Apple figured out what the record companies couldn't: How to make a buck on-line!

    Lets be honest. Apple is for content creators, Tivo is for media consumers. Yeah there is some commonality but...

    • Generally I don't look at CNN. It's almost all drivel.

      But your assertion that Apple is for content creators and not for media consumption is crap. Have you heard of Apple's iTunes Music Store? Did you know that mac users download movies off of p2p too? Have you heard of that new media dissemination technology called "the internet"? Guess what--Mac's can access "the internet" just as well as PC's using a special "browser" technology. My god, I'm choking on my own sarcasm...save me!

  • FRTM (Score:2, Informative)

    by bob dobalina ( 40544 )
    For my money the last chapter is a complete waste of space since it only covers installing MySQL and PostgresSQL, and if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them.

    This is a little off-topic, but I raise this issue because I spent a week troubleshooting a MySQL install thanks to some cryptic error messages that were not reported anywhere in the MySQL documentation (which in itself is fairly light on the peculiarities of an OS X install). Nor co
  • not at all associated with GoogleHax.com [googlehax.com] ...
  • I got it on a weekend vacation a couple weeks ago, and have to say that it was one of the more entertaining books I've read from orielly. It covers a lot of different topics, and while some of the "hacks are pointless or stupid (how to remove the brushed metal look from your apps comes to mind), many are very helpful. Being a newbie Linux/RedHat user, and a long time Mac user, more often than not, what I am looking for is simple instructions telling me how to set up XYZ for my specific platform. Sure Postgr
  • Here's the OSX hack I want. Can I please get rid of the cutesy interface? If I could just
    • Get rid of the fanfold-paper background
    • Have square window corners
    • Lose those buttons. It looks like blue goo is going to squirt all over my screen when I click on one.

    I'd go out and buy one in a hot minute (just as soon as I got a job). That's the only thing keeping me from having a Mac as my main machine (that and the lack of a job). For years, I've envied the way stuff on the Mac just works, but I could neve

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