Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a quality in depth OS X book!
Review: This book succeeds where most others fail.The index is wonderful. Each section has the information presented from high-level point and click to low-level details for configurationn. Succint, yet very readable. Highly accurate. I am mainly a Solaris user, and often find myself in strange territory dealing with netinfo (Solaris is all text file based configurations), and this book covers all of the services you will want (and need ) to configure. I unfortunately bought two other books before this one, desperate for the information. They were the Max OSX missing manual, and Max OS X The Complete reference. Save your money, the other two are now worthy only of paper weights. This book does what the others set out to do. I certainly hope they upgrade it for Jaguar. With the release of 10.2, much of the information presented could be outdated.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple the BEST OS X book out there!
Review: I have looked at them all! I am a Mac addict and UNIX / Apache / Perl / MySQL / Email Server customer who needed to know everything there is to know about OS X. I've looked through every single book, and nearly every single one of them failed to describe how standard UNIX machines were configured, and how Apple choose to configure OS X. This book solves nearly all my problems in a couple paragraphs, which is depressing because it's so huge and thorough. If you want to get [amount] out of your [amount] purchase of OS X, GET THIS BOOK NOW! ...
Rating:
Summary: *The Best* OS X Book Available
Review: I waited several months before buying an OS X book because I was waiting for the right one to come along. I already knew how to set up and configure my machine. I was familiar with how the included applications worked. I was able to stumble upon most less-obvious features on my own. Then Mac OS X Unleashed came out, and it was just what I had been waiting for. It allowed me to combine my years of Mac experience and basic Unix knowledge and get the most out of my favorite OS. The authors show where OS X is similar to most Unix/Linux releases and where it differs. If you want to go beyond pointing and clicking and really tap into the power of the best operating system around, buy this book, then take the time to read it cover to cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a haystack full of needles
Review: The index of this book is very inadequate. It's the size of my Subaru yet the index is very short and has no references to things like routing, routers etc. The index for NetInfo Manager which is central to the control of OSX refers to two pages that only refer to it as a method of enabling the root password. If you have to leaf through the entire 1400 pages to find what your looking for you will run out of time very quickly. For my part, anything with a menu is self evident, anything complicated tells you to read the man pages, which, anyone with any salts has already done. Like almost every technical reference relating to Macs and their OS, this book contains a lot of restatements of the obvious with glowing superlatives. For those of us trying to implement Mac OS X and OS X Server in a complex network environment, I'm afraid we are still on our own.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but...
Review: If this book only had a better index, I would give it 5 stars in a heartbeat. It pretty much contains everything you ever wanted to know about Mac OS X's Unix subsystem (with 1,500 pages probably more than you ever wanted to know!), but finding the information is sometimes a struggle. Remember, this book is seriously techie, don't go here if you're the occasional Mac user that wants to learn the Aqua interface -- get "Mac OS X The Missing Manual" for that. This is for people that want to get their hands dirty with Unix.
Rating:
Summary: Covers just about EVERYTHING....
Review: After buying a G4 Ti Powerbook, I found myself in a somewhat precarious situation. While I absolutely loved my beautiful laptop, it's rock solid and beautiful OS. I found that I needed some REAL documentation beyond the mere pamphlets that Apple included with it. I've leafed through 10-15 other OS X titles and honestly, they just don't seem to be worth the [price]. They all seem to be rehashes of the same introductory OS X texts that have been done to death. As an experienced Unix and PC user now newly migrated to the Mac/OS X ... I needed something way beyond the usual "Move the cursor to the File menu to..." introductory type stuff. Mac OS X unleashed first gives a brief but very thorough intro to the OS X and Mac OS features and interfaces but then proceeds to go far beyond where the other books stop. Wanna know about UNIX commands and shell programming? Yup it's in here. Wanna know about how to configure your firewall, computer security issues and TCP/IP in general? Yup that's here too. Hooking up to a PC/Wintel/Unix network? There is great coverage here on how to get it working. I can't think of any major and minor subject that this book doesn't touch on in more than sufficient detail. And the authors are kind enough to give you all sorts of web references/URL's to additional reading and software you can obtain on the Internet to really make your Mac/OS X fly. If you're a seasoned computer user (Mac, PC, Linux, whatever) and you're moving up in the world to a Mac/OS X, this is the ONE book you need for your library. My only complaint is that it is about as bulky as your average phone book, then again, it does cover a remarkable amount of ground. If they had split it into 2-3 volumes bundled together, then it would've been the perfect OS X reference. As it stands now, it is pretty darned close. P.S. I paid retail for this thing and it is worth every penny.
P.P.S. My PC is now officially a door stop running spam filters and that's all!
Rating:
Summary: The Only Good One So Far
Review: I've looked at--and pre-ordered, to my subsequent sorrow--a number of Mac OS X books. This is the only one that seems to get beyond the super-basics and into the connection with the underlying Unix (but without being a programming guide). Definitely a good resource for those of us who are motivated into going deeper into Unix/Linux world via the Mac.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! I would give it 6 stars but 5 is only available
Review: This book is great, its over 1400 pages and worth buying. Its for a person who wants to know a lot about the Unix underpinnings. its got a great Unix command reference in the back. It covers all aspects of Mac OS X, from basic things to PHP,Mysql, Apache CGI. WedDAV., SAMBA etc.. I could go on. I bought the book, "Mastering MAC OS X " before this book, but I highly recommend this book!! get it now and enjoy Mac OS X, more!!
Rating:
Summary: Phone Book With A Plot?
Review: If you're like me you've been burned by computer books which were long on page count, but short on content. Well, even though this tome is bigger than the Atlanta phone book, it is full of great content. I wish it were broken up into a boxed three volume set, but awkward to handle or not, it is an excellent reference. Just dig deep in your wallet and buy it, you'll be pleased.
Rating:
Summary: whooooooo-boy
Review: You can't ask for more than this ... a complete, comprehensive guide to OSX.
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