Rating: 
Summary: No Longer Missing
Review: The "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" has finally become available and it is worth the wait. My experience with earlier publications was not good - I found them to be too basic and very incomplete (no surprise: writing a manual based upon the Public Beta has little relevance to the current high powered OS 10.1.2). Neither criticism applies to Pogue's new book. It is filled with all kinds of information that I found useful in evaluating Mac OS X. His style is to provide a number of ways to accomplish a task and let you pick the one(s) best suited to the way YOU work. If you are like me, many of those quick keyboard commands will be forgotten, but that's why I keep this type of book handy as a reference tool.Probably this book is best for developing 'Mac-experienced' users. The learning curve, for parts of the book, can be a bit steep. So new users may want to read something more basic before picking up this new publication. And serious power users don't need a manual. No CD-ROM with this book, but there should have been. Having the entire book as a .pdf file would be useful, especially for those using a Powerbook.
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Summary: Pogue bats a thousand... again!
Review: If you really want to get going with OS X v 10.2.x, this second edition of David Pogue's Missing Manual for Mac OSX really delivers! I have ordered several manuals for the mac updated to OS X Jaguar. I haven't found a question yet that Pogue's "Missing Manual" hasn't addressed fully, unlike the Jaguar ed. of the Little Black Book, which was nice, but brief, and often didn't even begin to address problems encountered with very common administration procedures, like setting capabilities and permissions for different user accounts. I had to go to Apple Tech Support, because I didn't yet have Pogue's "Missing Manual," which actually, was even more helpful than Apple's tech support!! The index (20 pages!!!) has actually had an entry for every single hitch I've come up against. Even the Mac OS X online help doesn't do that! Just try typing in "sudo" to the online help and see what you get! The troubleshooting guide is a dream come true for anyone who's been flying by the seat of the pants since the day Jaguar was released! I've been able to solve problems left and right that I've just had to ignore since I went Jag because there was no manual in the box, the other manuals I got didn't help, and Apple care tech support didn't have the info, either! This is a technically direct and accessable encyclopedia of simple how-to info that will even give you the geeky "why-or-how-it works" if you really want to know. It will tell you all the incredible and powerful things your OS X 10.2.x can do that you didn't know until now. And, unlike the Mac onboard help, it will also tell you HOW you can get there from here!! And besides that, it's fun! David Pogue has a long history of lightening you up while you're in the often desperate search of MacEnlightenment! You get high tech, direct help with ease of use and enjoyable reading. Who could ask for more? I'm recommending it to everymacuser I talk to! If you really want to rev your new Jag, and you're only getting one manual, go with this one- the Missing Manual for Mac OS X, second edition. It's incredibly well written, jam packed full of useful and FINDABLE help, appropriately humorous, and best of all, it will actually ship when you order it!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
Review: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
by David Pogue I expected this book to target the end-user and in that respect it met my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised when the author would throw in some of the under-the-hood details. Those little details hint at the power of the BSD-based underpinnings of Mac OS X. The Missing Manual is exactly what it claims to be: the manual that should have been included with a Mac running Mac OS X. It is filled with a ton of good info ranging from very basic to fairly in-depth. The material is well-organized and thoughtfully laid out, making it easy to find what you're looking for. My biggest gripe with the book is the interjection of Pogue's opinions. I expected some of the elitest Mac attitude, but some of the things Pogue mentions are pure speculation on his part. Very early in the book, he states Apple's motivation for doing things a certain way when I seriously doubt he has any better insight into Apple's reasons than many other Mac fans. On top of that, he goes on to contradict himself later. This is a great book if you're relatively new to Mac OS X. If you have some experience with this OS, you'll probably want to skip the first part of the book. The first few chapters are very basic and seem to hold more of Pogue's ramblings than the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This book is really worth every penny it costs. It is packed with useful information, well written, intelligent, and fun to read. Just Appendix C (the "Where'd It Go?" Dictionary), merely 20 pages, is worth the whole book: it goes through every function of OS 9, and explains what it is called in OS X, or by which other function it was replaced. Enough to get any user of OS 9 up and running with OS X in a few minutes!! The in-depth coverage of every other subject is as accurate as it gets. I particularly appreciated the chapter about customization. But the book goes as far as covering in perfectly understandable terms the basic Unix knowledge you may want to acquire to better understand your Mac OS X. Not to mention the incredibly accurate chapter about installing Mac OS X 10.2. By the way, contrary to many other publications that claim to be up-to-date with the latest software version, this book was REALLY written about 10.2, and it's not a revised 10.0 manual... The book you may want to have with you if you're ever stranded on a desert island with your Mac and a fresh copy of Jaguar!
Rating:
Summary: Book review
Review: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
Paperback, Third Printing, February 2002, 596 pages
By David Pogue
© Copyright 2002 by Pogue Press, LLC
ISBN 0-596-00082-0
Review written June 23, 2002
By Donald W. Larson, O'Reilly Book Evangelist
In February 2002 I moved over from MacOS 9.1 to the new Apple Operating System MacOS X. It's a major change in usage even with a great user interface like Aqua. Although I'm an Apple user since 1981, I knew I would need a great new reference nearby to help me in the transition from old to new. I asked my O'Reilly contact for the book I'll speak to next. David Pogue's, 'Mac OS X: The Missing Manual', is a tremendous help for anyone moving to the new Mac OS. I've met David when he came to a few of my San Diego Macintosh User Group picnics. He's a great guy and a very talented person. One of his talent's is writing and in the titled book, he expresses the new frontier 'X' with clarity. The book has 21 chapters and six appendices. It covers everything I could think of that a beginner or expert user would love to know about 'X'. David begins the transition to the new OS from the vantage point of the user viewing the Aqua experience the first time. He traverses the topics of folders and the Dock, which presents the most visible changes in how information is organized on the hard drive. He writes about how the programs are different and how AppleScript is supported in new ways. An entire chapter is devoted to the concept of discrete users and how those spaces are kept distinct from one another. This bears witness to the underlying Unix operating system that governs the new machine. Because Unix is available underneath, David takes the time to explain the permissions concept and how to use the Terminal program to explore the depths of Unix and lead us easily into that new realm. I initially started reading this book straight through back in February. I found the writing style was easy to follow but I kept getting sidetracked with David's suggestions to try his exercises out. Often one thing leads to another and I lost my reading train-of-thought. I enjoyed his style so much I gave up trying to read straight through. I discovered instead his book is a well-written reference book with a story perspective to it. For the last few months I grabbed for this book every time I needed a fast answer about MacOS X. David maintains a website with up-to-date information and many free or shareware program listings that accompany the book. I now have a pretty good working knowledge of the book's material. I attended the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference last May and I'm glad I had absorbed much of the book by then. Many of the presentations at that conference were clear because of the foundation I had learned from the book. Everyone using MacOS X needs this book. Thanks David! Rating 10 out of 10. This rating is my own personal value system and as such is very subjective. I think a rating of 5 means I would read finish reading a book. A rating of 10 would indicate I had trouble putting a book down and have no complaints at all about it.
Rating:
Summary: Sick of "Help FIles"? Yes you are.
Review: Apple simply doesn't include a manual with their computers. The whole "Help" thing is better than it used to be, but it is still a JOKE if you need real help with something complicated. David Pogue is not exaggerating with his title. You need this book, especially now that OS ten has landed, and taken over. Just get this book when you get your new apple and get it over with, you will save yourself a world of grief. Just do it!
Rating:
Summary: A switcher says: "Get this Book!"
Review: As a recent Win-to-Mac (Panther) switcher, this book has been invaluable to me. Even with the easy Mac GUI and almost 20 years of power-user experience in the PC world I found this book to be a great reference for my learning curve. My new G4-12in. Powerbook rocks.
Rating:
Summary: Now Outdated!!
Review: If you have or plan to soon upgrade to OS 10.3 (Panther) you shouldn't get this edition of the book. Wait for his updated Panther Edition to be released in December, 2003.
Rating: 
Summary: Wading thru the propaganda can be exhausting
Review: I have owned and used every Macintosh operating system from System 1.0 to OS 9 and I considered myself a power user. But OS X is a giant step from its predecessors, and, like nearly everybody, I found it more of a challenge then I could handle without help. Most new OS X users consider "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual," to be a god-send. So, I bought the Second Edition of it nine months ago (January '03). While it has empowered me to gain a feable hand-hold on OSX, it hasn't helped me to gain much more then that. The multitude of errors in the book is problematic. But that isn't the main problem (since an errata list is available at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macosxmm2/errata/ if not at http://www.missingmanuals.com/).
Usually, I read a book like this cover-to-cover. But not this one. It is so packed with superfluous pro-OS X propaganda, that I usually find myself distracted and losing interest long before I can root-out the heart of an issue. Most of the info seems to be there, but schlogging thru the hip-deep hyp to find the essence of what you need is a real party-killer. It forces you to crawl when you could be running and to walk when you could be flying. If "The Missing Manual" were half as thick, it would be twice as good, and I would have given it four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for every Mac user
Review: This book should be required reading for every serious Mac user. It has tons upon tons of little known, but very helpful information.
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