Mac Os X Little Black Book: A Complete Guide To Migrating And Setting Up Mac Os X

Mac OS X Little Black Book explains what's new in Mac OS, and offers strategies and tips for making users' machines as useful as possible. The Little Black Book format has two kinds of sections. "Immediate Solutions" sections provide the steps for achieving certain goals ("Running Classic as a Startup Application") and solving problems ("Why Are [E-mail] Messages Scrambled?"). More explanatory material, such as commentary on the newly accelerated sleep and wake functions and a look at the Dock's useful capabilities, appear in "In Brief" sections. Most readers likely will prefer the how-to material--it's easier to follow and generally less obvious.

As is typical of pretty much all books about Mac OS X published to date, though, this book all but ignores Darwin, the operating system's Unix kernel and attendant interfaces and utilities. Gene Steinberg shows how to poke around at the command line and use a couple of utilities for diagnostic and file-system-repair purposes, but that's about it. This book would be better if it more fully embraced the Unix characteristics of Mac OS X, but what's here should more than satisfy intermediate-level Mac users interested in taking advantage of what's new in the latest version of the system. --David Wall

Topics covered: Mac OS X for competent users of earlier versions of Mac OS. Information on use and troubleshooting appears on all major aspects of the operating system except the Unix command shell. Installation, multiuser configuration, local area networking, AppleScript, and Internet connectivity all get attention.This book is designed for all Mac users in its coverage of the new features of Mac OS X. The book uses a logical, sequential approach with concise overviews and questions then immediate solutions; includes step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting, informative sidebars, plus a quick reference card. The book provides in-depth instructions and tips and techniques on setting up and customizing user preferences and showing you how to set up Mac OS X for multiple users, along with a description of passwords, voiceprints and key chain setups. The book also covers Mac-savvy applications, using older Mac programs under Mac OS X, font management, and backup techniques.