OS X Hacks 179
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.
Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:4, Insightful)
And people wonder why geeks don't have more non-geek friends.
--
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
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
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
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:3, Insightful)
Everytime I dive into a new Director xtra (like valentina) I find that the author's mind has a whole lot more experience with it than I. And what is needed are training wheels before I can pedal on my own.
Just because you may not currently by smart enough to use it doesn't mean that you can learn how if given the right guide and direction.
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:1)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:3, Insightful)
He(she) won't. Sometimes you need to install a database to run something else, which, if scripted properly, doesn't need much hassle. I should not need to tamper with script files when the only thing I want to do is install a printer driver (unfortunately I had to, and under OS X!).
A good "ergonomic" program should not require documentation, except a reference for the advanced technical savvy user. Every computer user is not a pro
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
How exactly do you propose said newbie would learn to write code to run in said database if they cannot test or experiment with the program?
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2, Insightful)
[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.
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
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
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
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
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
[fx: wanders off muttering about writing database code before you were born, etc.]
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:1)
Pure Elitism (Score:3, Insightful)
I know accountants who are stone cold Excel experts but barely know how to turn on their computer.
This is elitism pure and simple.
mySQL is often just for use by other software (Score:2, Informative)
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
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Amen to that - MOD THIS FELLA UP (Score:1)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:1)
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
Re:Reminds me of Linux circa 1994 (Score:2, Interesting)
1994? (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Does anybody know... (Score:2)
"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)
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.
Re:it's not a hardware tax (Score:2)
No, it's Apples to Dells!
[RIMSHOT!]
Re:it's not a hardware tax (Score:1)
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)
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
Re:Does anybody know... (Score:2)
Re:Does anybody know... (Score:1)
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)
Re:Bookless OS X Hacks (Score:1, Informative)
=Brian
Re:Bookless OS X Hacks (Score:1)
Re:Bookless OS X Hacks (Score:2, Informative)
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)
Re:Hacks? (Score:4, Insightful)
No (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:No (Score:1)
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.
Re:No (Score:2)
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
Re:Hacks? (Score:2)
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
That didn't make sense. (Score:2)
My bad. I guess I should type slower.
not for all mac users (Score:2, Informative)
Seems like "Intro to OS X and Assorted Utilities" might be a more accurate name for it.
Raelians (Score:1, Funny)
See also MacOSXHints.com (Score:3, Informative)
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)
"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)
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?
Re:Lame review. (Score:1)
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)
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)
I have had trouble mounting CD-
Another review (Score:3, Informative)
Jon Udell (Score:3, Informative)
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)
-Rob
Re: (Score:1)
Google Hacks (Score:1)
Remote screenshots! (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Remote screenshots! (Score:2)
Not really hacks (Score:2)
Re:Phaeton Sez (Score:1)
Why is Jobs suddenly everybody's savior? (Score:2)
Lets be honest. Apple is for content creators, Tivo is for media consumers. Yeah there is some commonality but...
Re:Why is Jobs suddenly everybody's savior? (Score:1)
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)
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
Google Hacks (Score:1)
it was a good book (Score:1)
These hacks won't let me change the UI, though (Score:2)
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
Been done. (Score:2)
With style, too.
Have a blast. [conundrumsoft.com]
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:5, Insightful)
But the latest version, Mac OS X, isn't your grandfather's Mac. It still runs all the old Mac apps, but under the hood it's UNIX. The fact that it's the only UNIX in town that can run Photoshop, MS Office, etc. is driving "real" technical people towards it - in droves.
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:2, Insightful)
Given that MS Office and Internet Explorer obviously run in UNIX, now, why doesn't Microsoft widen their potential customer base by porting to Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.? Oh, their Mac support is just a token to keep the DOJ off of their backs? So, that lock-in revenue from the Windows OS really is the motivating factor? Oh, I see.
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I saw an opportunitity to troll and took the low road. Regardless, the fact that Office can be ported to a vastly different operating system shows that it, internally, has a layered architecture. Alternatively, Microsoft uses its vast resources to recreate much of Office for the sake of Mac OS X.
Why would the Department of Justice care whether Microsoft sells applications for OS X or any other OS? If Microsoft wanted to drop OS X support tomorrow
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:1)
Re:Sweet Jeesus (Score:1)
Re:Do they have... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
Doesn't work for laptop users who don't want an extra mouse does it?
Re:Do they have... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been pondering getting one of the Apple laptops, but that one button touchpad drives me nuts [when using my friend's laptop].
Now it's all well and good to buy a 2+ button mouse for your desktop, but when I've the the laptop sitting on my LAP, it's difficult to use a separate mouse and just adds one more thing to have to pack up and lose between uses.
Out of curiousity, anyone use the 1 button th
Re:Do they have... (Score:3, Informative)
With key modifiers, silly. alt-click, ctrl-click
Re:Do they have... (Score:2)
Re:Do they have... (Score:5, Informative)
Indirectly answering the question:
Whether or not you consider the choice by Apple to continue using single-button mice is reasonable, for those who consider it wrong, note that "too few buttons on the mouse" is not a complaint that can only be aimed at the MacOS.
From the perspective of a traditional UNIX workstation user, Windows has too few buttons - they (e.g. Sun Microsystems Sparc-based machines) ship with 3-button mice. It is true you can get 3- (or however-many) button mice for x86 machines, but then (a) that's a "nonstandard" variation already since the "standard"/baseline for Windows is 2, and (b) you can do so for the Mac too.
This is why if you look at (and those who program GUI apps should know this already) the mouse event/action classes in Java, there are more than 2 defined mouse "button-actions", that if the physical hardware does not exist (i.e. only two-button mice are on the machine) the same effect is achieved with modifier keys (Opt/Alt-click, Ctrl-click, or whatnot).
Re:Do they have... (Score:2)
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
Jer,
Re:Do they have... (Score:2)
Any Windows hardware developers who know the details of the certification process who'd like to explain further? (Or tell me that I'm wrong).
Re:Do they have... (Score:2)
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
Re:Do they have... (Score:2)
But i was used to 3 buttons for years using, IRIX and linux, but now i got an iBook i figured its pretty smart to have but one button, you have to think less and trust me you dont need more buttons. right click menu's are a bogus and confusing interface method, you have a menu in the top your app for it and cause the menu is in the top of the screen nearly all mac apps have shortcuts keys f
remapping "mouse buttons" under Linux (Score:1)
I rarely use OS X natively, so I don't know how to "fix" this "problem" in it.
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
A well designed interface for a 1-button mouse can be a joy to work with. Take a simple example in Safari. Position your pointer on (say) a URL and:
Click: link opens in current window.
Apple-Click: link opens in new window.
Option-Click: link downloads to you disk.
Ctrl-Click: drop-down menu appears. (Equivalent to the Windows right-click experience.)
My last 2 "mice" have been 4-button Kensington trackballs. Both did each of the above with just 1
Hack: buy a different mouse. (Score:1)
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
if you dont, you can do 'ctrl + click' combo to get the 'right click' menu.
Re:Do they have... (Score:1)
if i can plug in my M$ trackball optical everything works wonders, tough. but is kinda hard on small places or airplanes, for example.
OTOH, my compcrap intel laptop has a nice synaptics trackpad, with scroll buttons and shit that is awesome.
cheers
Re:mac problem (Score:1, Informative)
Kage
Re:mac problem (Score:2)
I wish I could get OS X working on my 8600/AV/200 at home though. It just refuses to work.
Re:mac problem (Score:2)
Re:Trolling (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The single BEST Mac OS X Hack... (Score:2)
Re:The single BEST Mac OS X Hack... (Score:1)
This post serves the purpose that not everything one reads on the internet is helpful. Obviously, those in the know, know that this will delete EVERYTHING on the hard drive of that computer. Hence, DON'T DO IT! It was a common *NIX prank that someone would name a folder in the user's home folder "*". If the user typed rm -rf
Re:Why isnt this showing up in the apple section (Score:2)
It could be a deliberate measure against this moron who posts "dear Father O'Day" and "I was copying a large file on my 9600" trollposts. Seems that this guy is unable to recognize an Apple-related topic if it does not have APPLE label (in large print for those kinda weak on reading).
Re:mac issues (Score:1)
Re:mac issues (Score:1, Insightful)
wait, it could be your work machine's RAM. I've got 256 megs at home. RAM seems to have a BIG impact on OSX performance.
Re:mac issues (Score:2, Insightful)
the computer you are using was introduced in 1997. that system isn't even a G3.... i can't say how that compares to a 486/66, but i can say that the other day i copied about 20 gigs from one drive to another across IDE busses and it was done in 15 minutes. that's fast enough for me. sounds like you're running OS 8, too.