Mac OS X Power Hound

Rating:
Summary: Hors d'oeuvres for the Mac User's Brain
Review: A hefty, 536-page book, the Mac OS X Power Hound/Panther edition is subtitled Teach Yourself New Tricks, and it is true to its advertising claims. Written for all OS X users, it is well-organized and well-indexed for review. In the words of author Rob Griffiths, it is "a vast table of hors d'oeuvres for your brain", not a book meant to be read sequentially. More than 650 hors d'oeuvres, to be more exact.

Navigation of resources is taken seriously by Griffiths. Page layout includes tabs, boxes, copious use of screen shots, numbering and bolding to increase the users ease in finding a specific bit of information. Reference to a website for all add-on software mentioned in the text is provided for downloadable access, just to extend the written word's benefits.

Sixteen chapters remind me of a college textbook: one could spend three hours in class plus a week of reading assignments to glean all the content of each section. Chapters start with 1: Designing Your World and builds to 16: Intermediate Unix Hints, with plenty in between. Griffiths zeroes in on browsing tips, beginning with a time saver useful when copying URLs to mail or textual documents, building the chapter with shortcuts such as using "F5" to refresh Web pages (a fourth technique for those who already use Refresh, Control R or the tool bar's stepwise commands), and documenting yet another way to download files with Internet Explorer.

While the coverage is slim concerning wireless, it does include remote access. Especially interesting is a tip for waking a sleeping Mac remotely. You have to know about Terminal for this and many other tips to work: it is an OS X application that "serves as the door to Mac OS X's Unix underbelly," as described by Griffiths.

I have disliked the X docking system since the day I first used it. It got in my way, and the bouncing animation of icons quickly moved from interesting to irritating as an effect. Using Terminal, these "features" can be altered. Alternatively, Griffiths describes TinkerTool, a free program that runs from Finder and allows a great deal of user control. Another option is Dock Detox, which eliminates the icons' heebie jeebies in all instances, including announcements of new mail and error message reports. If for no other reason, get this book to learn you can free up 13 MB by paring down your iPhoto languages!

The iTunes chapter will captivate the music lovers. The chapter devotes a full thirty pages to iTunes tweaking. It is here that Griffiths gently reminds us that the Help command is not to be overlooked. The keyboard short cuts for iTunes users is a gold mine.

Some may recognize the author's name: Griffiths is the wizard behind the curtain of www.macosxhints.com. Although you could get similar information from this site, saving a few dollars on the text's purchase, you would lose the utility of having everything in one place...with margins for personalized notes. I would get one for myself and the Mac buddies on my holiday gift list.


Rating:
Summary: Something useful on every page!
Review: In Mac OS X Power Hound, Panther Edition Rob Griffiths of Macosxhints.com and a monthly article in Macworld magazine offers a collection of well over 600 tips and tricks covering everything from basic Mac OS X Finder tips to tricks that will help just about any Macintosh user use Terminal like a pro.

For this book, Mr. Griffiths has compiled and completely rewritten the best and most useful hints found on his very helpful website Macosxhints.com. Chapters include tips for using the Finder and Dock, iLife applications, Mail, Office, and many other common Mac OS X programs. Each chapter focuses on a particular OS X feature or application and provides several tips or tricks for getting the most out of each application. The information is provided in a very clear manner with ample screen shots and detailed step by step instruction for the reader to follow. The final 100 plus pages are devoted to Terminal and Unix tips making this a great book for both the basic and intermediate Mac user.

This book is definitely not a replacement for a more traditional Mac OS X manual but the 600 plus tips and tricks included will definitely provide every Mac user with something invaluable. While you can certainly read this book from start to finish, I found this to be somewhat overwhelming. Luckily, the book is written so that each tip or trick does not require the reader to have read previous items. In fact, I found this book most useful by just scanning the vast Table of Contents until I found an item that sparked my interest. In many ways the information in this book would be better presented as "Mac OS X Trick of the Day" calendar as long as you didn't throw each calendar page away at the end of the day.

Overall, I found a lot to like about this book and definitely recommend it to any Mac user who is ready to move beyond the basics.

Rating:
Summary: Tim Robertson MyMac.com Review
Review: Mac OS X Power Hound
by Rob Griffiths
Pouge Press
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 059600818x
<a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macxpu/index.html">http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macxpu/index.html</a><div align="center"></div>

I have read a ton of Mac books since starting MyMac.com <a href="http://www.mymac.com/userinfo.php?id=Tim%20Robertson">back in 1995</a>. A LOT of them. And while most actually do convey the information you were hoping to glean from buying the book in the first place, many do so in such a dry and boring manner that I found myself simply trying to stay awake while reading. That was my worry here as well, as I have never read any of Rob Griffiths writing before. He's the creator of <a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/index.php">MacOSXhints.com</a>, a site I have visited often. But that site is more a collaborative effort with a ton of other people, all pooling their knowledge together. So how would Rob do all by his lonesome?

Hey, guess what? Rob can WRITE! Yes sir, the man has talent! Mac OS X Power Hound is a book full of useful things that any Mac OS X user will find helpful and worth knowing. As an expert Mac user and ex-IT manager, even I learned some nifty tricks I hadn't known about before after reading a few pages of this book.

Does using the Terminal give you a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? I understand, it's even a little frightening for longtime Mac users to use a command line, something that was unheard and unneeded in the past with Mac OS 9 and earlier. Even Hex-Edit or Res-Edit, the stalwarts of the Mac Hackers of the world, use a graphical user interface. But the terminal is just that, a window of nothing but text, prompting you to type in commands that Mac users would otherwise most likely avoid.

Mac OS X Power Hound will help the average Terminal-fearing Mac user become a Power Terminal User in no time, or at least make one somewhat more comfortable working in the innards of Mac OS X. While not a step-by-step guide, Power Hound is written in such a way that most Mac users will feel comfortable following along with all the tips in the book.

I usually don't get too deep into critiquing another writer's writing style, as I have a fear of people looking too closely at my own writing and realize "This guy really can't write, either!" That being said, I do want to compliment Rob Griffiths on a superb job here. He takes very complicated subject matter and writes in a style and enthusiasm I haven't seen in quite a long time. Mac OS X is a fun system to use and tinker with, and Rob brings that fun to his writing. It's obvious that he not only knows the subject matter at hand, but also enjoys writing about it. His writing style is infectious, engaging, and fun to read. I think any writer who wants to write a book on complex subject matter should be forced to read this book, and understand that it's the human voice of the book, in this case Rob's, that make the subject matter more easily understood and a pleasure to read.

The book is 536 pages with a well laid-out potpourri feel. As Rob says in the beginning of the book, there is no need to read this book from start to finish. The reader is invited to open the book to any page to get the information they're looking for.

Some of the covered topics in the book range from the simple to the complex, and include (flipping randomly through the book here):

Finder and Desktop tricks and hacks
Screen Saver Animations as the Finder Backgrounds
System Preferences
Make things happen at login
Connecting to the iDisk from Windows
How to Rip Multiple CDs.
iTunes and iPhoto tricks
Check the Weather in a Contact's Town (in Address Book)
Use Safari with Address Bar Hidden
Get quick access to Bookmarks via the Dock
Make Mac OS X feel like Mac OS 9
Window Shades
Unix Basics
Inserting Boilerplate Text with bash
Instant Double-Clickable Terminal Commands
Checking for Resource Forks
The Built-in Unix Manual
Setting Permissions on Multiple Files
A Command-Line Directory Using curl

And a ton more.

This is a fantastic book. Most books I read end up gathering dust on one of my bookshelves, in the basement, or up for bid on eBay. I usually don't request books for review, as I don't have a lot of time to read through a book and write a review. There are quite a few book publishers who send me every other new book they publish in the hopes I will review it. Most I ignore after a cursory look. Most I don't review, unless I specifically requested the book. Mac OS X Power Hound was one of those books I had not heard about, and was sent to me unsolicited. I took a cursory glace through it, however, and I was impressed. There are no color photos here, there is a lot of text, and a subject matter that I'm usually not interested in as it presents no new or compelling information that I am particularly interested in reading about for the tenth time. But the broad subject matter combined with Ron's infectious writing style had me hooked. I haven't enjoyed a Mac book this much since <a href="http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=1593">Mac & PowerMac Secrets 2nd. Edition</a> way back in 1996, and THAT is saying something.

HIGHLY RECOMENDED

<a href="http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=1188">MyMac.com Rating: 5 out of 5</a>


Rating:
Summary: nice tips on browsers
Review: So the Pogue Press is expanding! This book offers to backup your knowledge of OS X and Apple's official documentation, the latter of which Griffiths clearly believes is inadequate. So he puts in tons of hacks that may come in handy.

You should pay attention to the section on browsing. IE and Apple's own Safari are discussed, along with remarks for any other browser that you might install. For most of us, browsing the net is now automatic. So Griffiths gives hints on how to use your browser. Capabilities that you might not have been aware of. Given the large amount of surfing that you do, a careful study of his tips might produce real productivity gains.

The only omission is a substantive discussion of using OS X with wireless networking. No mention at all of WiFi, and only a glancing comment on AirPort. I realise that these need external devices, and so might be considered somewhat outside the scope of a single Mac running OS X. But still wireless is so important nowadays, and Apple helped pioneer this for the mass market. Maybe another book in this series addresses the issue?

Rating:
Summary: Wide ranging collection of hints
Review: This book is a collection of hints and tips for Mac OS X. It starts with the OS itself, then going into all of the standard applications. It finishes by covering some extensions that you can add to speed up your workflow. The coverage of each application is relatively light because the author expects that you are already familiar with the basics and are ready for some power user tips.

Illustrations are kept to a reasonable amount, usually one for every couple of pages, and they are used effectively. The text is a little too jovial for my taste. But it's not distracting and it's a matter of taste.

If a Macintosh is your primary work or play computer then you will probably find something in here to help you out. Whether it's worth the money or not depends on how much you find out, so I would take a look at this book in person, or at least browse the table of contents before you buy.

Rating:
Summary: A supplemental book for everyone
Review: This is an excellent book! It's a book that every Mac user can learn from! I even learned things, and as a Mac author I'm big on uncovering hidden features myself. It's easy to find things and easy to understand. If you're new to the Mac or OS X, choose a book that teaches the basics so you're comfortable with the Mac. Then get this book to learn much more.

Rating:
Summary: Teach yourself new tricks
Review: Yeah - I stole the subtitle to the book for the title of this review. However, it sums up the book quite well - why reinvent the wheel. =) The book is a user-friendly subset of the website macosxhints.com, which was created by the author. Despite being a small subset of hints, I like it better than the web site because you don't have to figure out what the correct search criteria are in order to come up with the hint you're looking for - just scan the table of contents. I'll wade through the website if I can't find what I'm looking for in the book.

As with anything, people like doing things different ways. Some people are into the keyboard shortcuts, some people use the mouse for everything, everybody else is somewhere in between. I appreciate that the hints dealing with the user interface give you various ways to complete the task.

Finally, to echo an earlier review, the hints dealing with the various web browsers are well worth reading. Among other things, it brought to my attention that your browsing history can not only be tracked by storing info in the cache or cookies, but by the favicon.ico files as well. Not that it really matters, but was an interesting (and smack-your-forehead-duh) hint.