EXCLUSIVES

Review by Ric Getter

A lot of us have a binary reaction to computer books. Either they tell us what we want to know, or they don't. Most of the time, we just thumb through them, looking for the tidbits we need and the last thing we expect is a book that's actually enjoyable to read. But the Macintosh community is a creative one, so it's not surprising that it has attracted some very talented writers.

We were expecting David Pogue's Mac OS X - The Missing Manual to be a great read. After all, he is one of the best technology scribes in the business. But it was Matisse Enzer's heavy tome covering arcane aspects of OSX that raised this reviewer's eyebrow.

Enzer is a relatively new writer, but his online experience goes back to the modem and BBS days in the 80's when he did customer support for The Well. The only assumption his book, Unix for Mac OS X Visual QuickPro Guide, makes about the reader is that they have a degree of curiosity about the history of OS X. The book starts with Unix and offers a sense of the rich heritage behind the computer industry's first open-source community (a following not unlike what we've experienced with the Mac). As is true with the rest of the book, scattered throughout the section are references to some great online resources that provide background information.

Striking a Balance

The book quickly moves into the Terminal and the basics of traditional, command-line Unix, with the author regularly drawing parallels to the comparatively comfortable world of Aqua and the Finder. The book always seems to strike an ideal balance between the essential, how-to aspects of a task and the background information that shows you how it fits into the big picture. As he gets into the more exotic aspects of Darwin (Apple's version of Unix), you'll begin to appreciate Enzer's ability to make esoteric concepts easily comprehensible. This ability pays off in chapters dealing with topics such as system administration and security.

Like many other books in Peachpit's QuickStart/QuickPro series, Unix for Mac OS X also manages to succeed in that difficult role of being both a reference and a tutorial. The book is well organized and clearly indexed, so it is fairly easy to find an answer to a specific question. But, if you have the time and inclination, you can make good use of a lot of rainy afternoons going through the book chapter by chapter and working through some of the author's excellent examples and exercises.

Pogue Does it Again

Simply keeping Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Second Edition) on your shelf as a reference would be an absolute waste. You can open the book just about anywhere, browse through a few pages and find a useful tip or tidbit you would probably never learn anywhere else. All the basics are covered and the book is far more complete (and quite possibly faster to access) than OS X's sluggish and frequently superficial online help. But, like the best-selling MacWorld Mac Secrets volume he co-authored, it's loaded with useful tips and tricks and possibly a few things that Apple would prefer you didn't know (like how to turn off the annoying QuickTime Pro pop-up ad).

Pogue's sense of humor and dry wit is evident throughout the book but never seems to get in the way of the important information. The basics are clear enough for somebody who is totally new to the OS. But there are also a fair amount of useful boxes and sidebars with more advanced information for the power-user. Pogue doesn't cover the Unix/Darwin face of OS X or trouble-shooting issues in any great depth, but he does touch on the essentials in both areas.

One of the benefits of someone other than Apple publishing the definitive guides to the Mac is a degree of frankness and honesty that no manufacturer could afford. (Even if they did, we're sure that people like Mr. Pogue would probably come out with a series subtitled "The Missing Information.") One of the most useful features of both these books is their candidness in pointing out weak points and pitfalls of a fairly young OS. There's one thing we can say in all honesty about Mac OS X: The Missing Manual: we are very glad that we found it.

The Books: Unix for Mac OS X Visual QuickPro Guide, Matisse Enzer, Peachpit Press, $24.99 (ISBN 0-201-79535-3) www.peachpit.com Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Second Edition), David Pogue, Pogue Press/O'Reilly, $29.95 (ISBN 0-596-00450-8) www.missingmanual.com