macs

I came to Mac OS X with almost 10 years of experience with mainly GUI operating systems; this book above all the others I looked at provided just the right all-round introduction to Unix on OS X. I cannot explain how a *Visual* QuickPro guide was so good at providing information about arguably the least visually rich aspect of the new Mac OS. It seems like an absurdly inappropriate format but somehow, it works perfectly - Mr Enzer gets things just right. There's no fluff and no overly chatty silliness to make the book an enormous doorstop. Nor is it ever tough going or unreadable - it's always well spaced, with excellent tips and notes sections and carefully paced.

It's probably about time that it was updated for Panther, which was released almost 7 months ago as I write this but the author has already provided the relevant information for bash users (a clean Panther installation uses bash by default) as well as csh and tcsh. (Don't worry if you don't know what these are - all becomes clear in the book.) Yes, there's a good Unix section for beginners in Mac OS X Panther Unleashed, too (Willam & John Ray) but this one easily tops it and provides much more useful information, good as the other book is on Mac OS X in general. There are other books that talk to Unix geeks about the Mac - this one is the best I've come across at doing the opposite.

I'm withholding one star only because so many errors made their way past the proof-reading stage. (Easily fixed - go to the Peachpit Press site and save a copy of the online Errors & Corrections page for this book.)

If you are new to Unix or have the most basic of skills and you use OS X, this will give you exactly the grounding you need using just the right kind of language. It's beautifully done. Just don't forget to visit the Errors & Corrections page at Peachpit.

Very good book to get up to speed with the unix side of OS X.
But: there are too many errata in the book, especially with figures or tables that contain inconsistencies with the accompanying texts.

I'm on a quest to learn Perl to write CGI scripts and I want to do it all on my Mac using the wonderful tools that come with OS X. One problem, I haven't used Unix in years (since college) and even then I couldn't do much more than navigate around using "ls" on the command line. Suffice it to say that I am very much a "newbie".

I looked at all of the books in this category and chose this one by Matisse Enzer. My instincts were right on -- this is a great book.

It is well written, well organized and very easy to follow. It is both a book that you can sit down and read as well as a useful reference. The logical path that Matisse takes the reader through to learn the essential Unix invocations and other mystical Unix-spellcraft makes learning a pleasure!

In less than a week, I was able to configure my Apache server and the powerful Sendmail program included with OS X. This goes well beyond the basics that are also inluded in the book (there is a lot of great beginner stuff). Matisse helped me to absord the fundamentals quickly so I was able to move onto more advanced subjects without wasting any time.

I am definitely a beginner when it comes to Unix, however, Matisse lays the concepts out so well, I already feel confident taking on more advanced Unix projects.

Get this -- when I did run into a snag, I went to the Apple help forums to get an answer. Guess who answered my post that same day? Thats right, Matisse Enzer. He did everything but autograph my book -- which I am still working on ;)

Buy this book -- you won't be sorry.