Mac OS X Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools

by Rael Dornfest and Kevin Hemenway

Book Overview

Mac OS X is a marvelous confluence of the user-friendly and highly customizable Macintosh of yesteryear and the power and flexibility of Unix under the hood. Those coming to Mac OS X from previous... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596004605
• ISBN13: 9780596004606
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 430 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great book for hobbyists

Nowadays it's harder and harder to find Mac books /mag articles that serioushobbyists can really enjoy... but this is absolutely one!"Mac OS X Hacks" is not like other disappointing "tips" books which only tell you what you already know or can easily find out yourself. Full of nice surprises; highly recommended.

Great book for becoming a power user

I just finished going through O'Reilly's Mac OS X Hacks. This is a great book. It shows you in detail how to become a power user on the Mac. More important, it has clear, detailed instructions (with lots of screen shots) of how to set up software including networking, DNS, IMAP and POP servers, Bluetooth through iSync, and a whole lot more. There's even a section on how to setup Linux on the Mac hardware.I stayed up last night reading it. Originally, I just wanted to figure out more about Mac Mail but I ended up reading through the whole book thinking, "Wow, I have to try that".

Accessible Hacking of Mac OSX

Mac users have always been comfortable customizing the looks and operation of their machines. The Mac's Desktop, interface elements, and operations customarily have been very amenable to personalization, tweaks, and other manipulations. Mac OSX, however, while still very customizable, is not obviously tolerant of such things. There is, therefore, a need and a place for "Mac OSX Hacks," a book designed to show mostly traditional Mac users how to twist and contort their machines to fit their user and operations styles. The major element in all of this, of course, is the Unix base of OSX which includes the command line, an unfamiliar file system, permissions issues, and the packing of unfamiliar Unix programs and services into the OS, often in obscure or hidden places. The traditional Mac user can easily become intimidated by all of this and reluctant to alter much, without guidance. "Mac OSX Hacks," one of a new series of "Hacks" books published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., provides just the guidance Mac users need. A full 100 "hacks" are detailed in this book, some of which are written by the primary contributors to this book, Rael Dornfest and Kevin Hemenway, each an established writer or publisher of computer-related topics. They are assisted here by a large handful of contributors. While the hacks are directed mostly at "power users," both for substantive matters and for "geeky" fun, most of these hacks are remarkably accessible to even non-geeks. Each of the nine topic areas - Files, Start-up, Multi-Media, User Interface, Unix & The Terminal, Networking, Email, Web, and Database, starts out with a non-technical overview of the subject matter containing useful information which helps make the hacks (and the need for the hacks) intelligible and understandable. Hack #1, for example, provides a clear description of the user account structure of OSX - why it exists and how it is set up. Relatively simple instructions demonstrate how and why to set up multiple accounts and how to configure them, rename them and delete them, as desired. Other hacks explain what goes on in the background during the start-up process (#12), how to understand the differences in linebreaks among windows/DOS, Unix, and the Macintosh systems (#15); hack #48 is a very good explanation of the Terminal and what it is used for, including explanation of the most useful Unix commands. Hack #2 describes the various backup options for OSX, including reference to available freeware and shareware programs, as well as the built-in Unix applications. All of the hacks are written with a no-nonsense, hands-on approach. Each is short and can be read in a few minutes. Even some of the Unix hacks are easy to do. One can learn how to open the contents of an OSX application?s "package" where one can hack revisions to application graphics, icons, and other resources, similar to what power users did with ResEdit to pre-OSX resources (#11). Hack #53 explains how to use the built-

David Weeks MyMac.com Book Review

The tide of Mac OS X "hacks" books is rising with the O'Reilly's publication of Mac OS X Hacks 100 Industrial Strength Tips and Tricks. This trade paperback-sized volume is stuffed full of very useful suggestions to improve your OS X skills. While hard-core Unix converts to OS X may scoff at the some of the beginner-level "hacks," there are plenty of fun tricks for novices to intermediates, and challenging techniques for intermediates to experts. The varying range of hack sophistication and difficulty is one of the best aspects of this book: you can start with the easy tips, move on to the moderate tricks, and hope someday you'll be geeky enough to work the magic of the most exotic Unix-based feats of skill and daring. The tips and tricks are sorted by subject; Files, Startup, Multimedia, User Interface, Unix and the Terminal, Networking, Email, the Web, and Databases. To help the reader decide which hacks to try, each one is rated Beginner, Moderate, or Expert, and is illustrated by a small thermometer. The higher the mercury, the more expertise (usually Unix) is called for. Be sure to check the temperature, as you may find an expert hack right next to a beginner hack.Now, don't get scared off by the "U-word." Dornfest and Hemenway do a creditable job walking readers through the exact Unix steps needed (if any) to do a hack or trick. But, caveat lector; if you jump into deep water, you might be in over your head. Mistype some Unix commands in an ?ber-geek hack, you'll sorely regret the fact you don't have enough Unix knowledge to truly understand the cookbook-style instructions. While ten pages of Hacks are devoted to an overview of commonly used Unix commands, after reading it I felt I knew just enough to get into serious trouble. So, exercise caution when typing. You'll soon find out that Unix has no "undo." But, good backups provide the courage to try new things! Still too scared to try Unix? Morally/spiritually/philosophically opposed to command lines? Be at ease! Dornfest and Hemenway give plenty of fun mouse-based suggestions to learn how to do great slideshows, run an Internet radio station, modify the standard Desktop look and feel, and more. Just experimenting with the beginner-level hacks and the recommended shareware/free applications will be fun for many readers, so don't pass by Mac OS X Hacks just because you are allergic to Unix! Warnings aside, the power of Unix combined with the Mac OS is a thing to behold. Executing just a few simple Unix commands can add tremendous capabilities to your computer; email servers, sophisticated Web server functionality, neat user interface tricks, and many more. Über-geek wannabes like myself will be tantalized by all the neat things that require only a modicum of Unix; SSH remote logins to another OS X Mac, running AppleScripts from the command line, running FTP servers, even setting up a Web DAV server (like an iDisk). Later, when I get my nerve up, I'll dive into the hacks to run the built

Hack-A-Mac

...O'Reilly has never steered me wrong with books for UNIX, Windows, Perl, you name it. So therefore when I saw the "MAC OS X HACKS" book I immediately grabbed a copy. Having just finished "Google Hacks", another O'Reilly publication, I was eager to dive in and see if this book would be as useful as the Google book. I would not be disappointed. One of the unique aspects of this book is you can turn to any "hack" and begin applying it without having to read the others. The book is like a collection of many magazine articles brought together under one roof - and with all the media fluff removed. I was amazed at how a novice like me could easily follow the step-by-step instructions and not feel lost. I soon found myself using color-coded paperclips to mark off sections of the book for future reference in terms of what they did (OS setting, audio settings, etc.). You can dive right into some of the more advanced hacks, such as setting up your own mail server, without having to worry that the authors will assume you are familiar with how to do a particular step. They walk you through the entire process; complete with screen shots for some of the more tricky options, and let you focus on the task at hand. Considering how much benefit this novice MAC OS X user got from the book, more advanced Macintosh users are likely to find that this book provides a quick "easy reference" for some of the more tricky or complicated setups. Since the book is organized into independent sections, one could easily use this for a desktop reference. Plus, it's not the "Macintosh for Dummies" type of book that seems to fill most shelves nowadays - the authors assume you want to do the advanced stuff with OS X, but just need some tips to get you going. Hopefully O'Reilly will continue with the "Hacks" series of books (I'm eagerly awaiting a book on Windows Hacks!); they are the first series of books that really let the end users get under the hood of various platforms and tasks and "get the job done" without feeling lost. I would not be surprised to see MAC OS X Hacks, as well as other Hacks books, come out in volume format. After all, after spending almost a week with the MAC OS X book, I can see how these can quickly expand to cover a lot more topics in a similar, condensed format - which for us "get it done now" type people is a godsend!