Rating: 
Summary: The "Complete Reference" is not quite complete
Review: Jesse Feiler's "Mac OS X:The Complete Reference" includes most of the basic information necessary
to operate Mac OS X presented in a clean, organized fashion. It covers all of the features of the original release of the OS and serves its pupose as a basic reference for a new user. The book also touches on the underpinnings of the operating system (Carbon, Cocoa, etc.). What is missing is troubleshooting information. The book assumes OS X is in good working order. It gives little advice as to how to deal with installation problems, incompatibility problems, or anything that requires repair. If you are looking for what is basically an extended owner's manual that explains the features of OS X, this book does a good job. But if you want to troubleshoot, repair, or otherwise tweek OS X (ala "Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters" and "Mac Secrets"), you should wait for one of the newer books based on OS X.1.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Beginners Reference
Review: Just a warning: Mac OSX is still evolving. It has already been updated several times, just in the last 2 months. Each update has slightly changed the interface as well as the beneath-the-surface operation of the operating system. Additionally, new utilities are being released every day to customize and streamline the interface of OSX. As a result, the information in this book and in similar books is likely to be dated and somewhat inaccurate. That doesn't prevent the book from being a good introduction to OSX, but you should consider these factors if you plan on working with OSX frequently and you're looking for a comprehensive reference.
Rating: 
Summary: either surf chat groups or buy David Pogue's O'Reilley text
Review: Lots of fluff here. If the author had given actual tips and tricks, and technical detail as to why and how things work, AND how to fix them when they go wrong, rather than continuously extolling Mac OS X's capabilities, then I might recommend this book. Instead, he drones ad nauseam about Mac 10's virtues. A convenient browse at the library one afternoon for 2 hours of David Pogue's 'Mac OS X: The Missing Manual' provided me with numerous hints and tips that I was able to use immediately. The two books cost and weigh the same, yet the ratio of useful text to overall text in Mr. Pogue's book is nearly one, while I'd be hard pressed to even rate Mr. Feiler's text with 0.3. Text size is somewhat smaller in Mr. Pogue's book too, so you're getting lots more information, at a much higher degree of informativeness/utility. Why did I bother buying this book? It was the only one in the computer store when I bought my iBook! Drat!!
Rating:
Summary: Bad design and weak writing; good technical info
Review: There's nothing wrong with the technical information in this volume. What is missing is good book design and good editing. The book is unnecessarily repetitious and it is impossible to follow the outline easily without keeping one finger in the table of contents. A trained editor would have made use of the many possibled variations of type fonts to clearly distinguish main points from sub points. All levels are in the same face, same style, with miniscule size differences. Whatever happened to ALL CAPS, italic, caps and little caps, underline, and the other possibilities? I don't expect this to read like a novel, but neither should it be difficult! Or tedious! (It's both!)
Rating: 
Summary: Too much basic stuff
Review: This book has a large section on AppleScript, AppleWorks and Quicktime. It needs to focus more on the OS X system and interface. Not much on the command line, not enough to learn the "tricks" of OS X. I rate this book as a good Mac OS X introduction for someone how does not use the Mac very often. This is not a book for the Power User.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good book about everything you could ever ask!
Review: This book introduces you to OS X, with a complete walkthrough of nearly every feature OS X has to present. It will be valuable to Wintel users too, because the introduction to Macs is done very professional. It treats every user the same, and it does just what it's supposed to do, namely as a complete reference, in which I think it does very well. The book is also based on version 10.0.2 as of this writing, which makes all those other books written for the beta version old and outdated. You won't find better books about OS X !!!
Rating:
Summary: Very good reference for beginners
Review: This book is a very complete reference for a novice in Mac OS X (as I am). It has a good historical recount about the develop of this new OS. The chapters are very readable and very understable. It has a good layout and the terms and concepts are clearly explained.
Rating:
Summary: Useless for power users
Review: This book looks great on the surface, but it's not. Most of it is simply a longwinded explanation of the basics, and the advanced section is far to short and lacks too much detail. Take the section on programming: what's the point? It's so short, it's not going to do much of anything for you.
Also, from what I read, the author clearly doesn't understand object-oriented programming very well. He says that OOP-based programs should avoid using 'if' constructs. OOP or not, how can a program possibly be written without flow control?
Not recommended at all for advanced users and beginners who want to become advanced users.
Rating:
Summary: I am afraid I concur with the negative reviews
Review: This book spends a lot of time on the obvious. My two main complaints are: 1. Very shallow, almost useless treatment of the terminal application. This is a unix machine. The GUIs for the most part are self-explanatory. I need to know how to use this particular flavor of unix, how to compile code, etc. Something about the peculiarities of the root structure, unusual commands like "open", how to set up an NFS network, X-windows, and other unixy things would have been helpful. I am still looking for such a book but will be cautious about spending my money. 2. For GUI applications like MAIL, the entire chapter explained the obvious, but very little was there for the harder part of configuring and setting preferences. I still don't know how to sort my saved messages into files having individual user names, how to import from other programs (pine, etc). Sure would have been nice. Ditto for NETINFO. This thing is crucial. Also they should at least tell you how to establish a root account. Many of us actually do want to use this computer for computing.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly a beginners book
Review: This is the kind of book beginners love, but experienced users hate. Existing users will know 90% of what is here, best to just go browse it in a bookstore or buy it, scan it and send it back if your library doesn't have it. Though this book is MUCH better than the quicky books that compete with it on the shelf, it is very hard to justify this kind of money for what is here. I think the author should do an advanced book for the rest of us.
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