BOOK REVIEW
New Book Offers Tips for Aspiring OS X Experts

This is not your father's Macintosh. Features such as integration with Windows, ability to run Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Office, and an underlying Unix core friendly to developers and engineers have greatly popularized Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) OS X operating system.

This has resulted in growing momentum for the Apple platform outside of its traditional academic and creative bastions. With this momentum comes a flurry of books targeting new and seasoned Mac veterans.

Empowering Users

One effort that seeks to broadly address this new diversified audience is Mac OS X Power Hound, Panther Edition, by Rob Griffiths. Griffiths is best known for launching macosxhints.com, which has become a sort of slashdot for OS X users looking to stretch Apple's software to its absolute limits.

As with any operating system, leveraging the full scale of its abilities requires time many cannot afford to spend. Instead users poke and prod to discover functionality, pick up tips from other users, comb Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) feverishly or simply surrender to a certain task.

Novices and Switchers

Griffiths sought to reduce this frustration by opening the hood and revealing an encyclopedic array of power tips from booting up OS X to e-mail, surfing and almost everything in between.

Moving in a linear fashion, novice users can work through the book from system startup to the desktop user interface and onward, touching on each of the individual applications that come with OS X -- including Mail, the Safari Web browser and the iLife suite.

Possibly one of the best Safari tips is its hidden powers in working with bookmarks from other browsers, along with its ability to function with complex online sites. The Safari Debug menu is hidden by default but is easily turned on via the OS X Terminal and one line -- "defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1." Turning the menu off one simply replaces the 1 with a 0.

For switchers, those migrating to Mac or adding a Mac into a Windows environment, the first 85 pages alone -- covering everything from customizing logins to controlling and mastering the Apple user interface -- are worth the price of the book.

Corporate Appeal

OS X, especially the Panther version, garnered more attention from enterprise technologists due to its increased integration abilities on mixed platform networks. Perhaps this is most markedly reflected in its ability to natively interact with Microsoft Exchange Servers and in its support for LDAP and directory services.

As the applications provided in Panther are vetted for business use, tips and techniques have been piling up to push these software tools to new levels. Griffiths brings much of this to light in chapters dedicated to Apple's programs including networking, utilities friendly to system administrators, and extended use of e-mail , Web browsers and Microsoft Office 2004.

For this audience and OS X power users, Griffith's work can be used as an encyclopedia, providing information on specific topics as needed.

Developers and Administrators

Closing the book with a nod to more advanced users, OS X Power Hound dedicates over 100 pages to the Unix core of OS X. The primary gateway to getting under the hood is via the Terminal, a command-line environment favored by many approaching Apple's platform from the Unix world.

This section does not ignore those seeking to make the leap from intermediate to hardcore users. The final chapters deftly lays out how to leverage the gold mine of capabilities and functionality hidden at OS X's center.

This includes using secure remote access to other systems, enabling FTP for file transfer, and working with the freely available Apache Web server and X11 environment for running pure Unix and Linux applications on the Mac.

A Little Fun

There are some enjoyable distractions included for taking a break from work. Some of the most intriguing were making Panther say what you type and finding a secret hidden game in a program called Emacs.

Griffiths also uncovers some rare OS X easter eggs, a sort of signature developers often hide deep in software they build. Probably most unusual in this category is the file buried within the Mail.app that reveals the photos of the Apple team that built the program. If you manage to receive an e-mail from one of these folks, their picture magically shows up in the e-mail message.