This book is most effective if you are sitting in front of your Mac system whether it's a laptop or desktop. Work your way through the examples from start to finish, reading the chapter introduction before embarking on each adventure. While hacking is generally viewed as a more skilled or extremely geeky term, this book is clearly useful to experienced beginners who want to gain expertise in the functionality/usability of their Mac (as well as those who want to explore modifying their Mac more extensively).



Part I of the book is dedicated to a gentle introduction to the components that make up Mac OS: the finder, dashboard, dock, preferences, user interface, startup, iTunes, utilities, unix applications, terminal, and shell commands.



Part II is strictly for those ready for the "Advanced Mac" training.



Although most people see the GUI portion of the OS, keep in mind that the "engine" underlying the GUI is Unix and 'hacking' the Mac will at some point descend into command line editing. Rather than be daunted by exposure to typing in your commands instead of having your desires constrained by what some application interface designer decided you could change with a GUI, embrace the power of the OS. Knaster slowly prepares the reader for the more advanced adventures as he introduces the Terminal in the "Quit the Finder" example. Seeing each following example you can build an idea of what you are doing by looking at the similarities of the commands. Rather than just limiting you to what he knows, Knaster is building up your understanding of how the underlying secret functionality works. For example if you look at the first few examples in Chapter 1 you will see the following pattern:



defaults write com.apple.finder Function optional flag yes|no

(for non geeks the | stands for OR ..)



If we translate this to English, defaults is clearly talking about the "default way I want this done", com.apple.finder is how to refer to the finder application, and then it finishes with a toggle for turning the function on or off. We see that this formula is consistent as we follow through with the next chapter with



"defaults write com.apple.Dock function toggle"



Part II of this book may be too advanced for beginners, but gives expert users exposure to more of these building blocks to understanding the power of the OS.



Overall, a very well written book with great introductions to topics and well thought out examples to modifying the Mac from beginner to advanced techniques. I highly recommend it to individuals who are interested in becoming more Mac proficient. At a bargain price of ~$17 on Amazon, compared to many technical books that sell at over $30 a piece this is a must have.

This book is most effective if you are sitting in front of your Mac system whether it's a laptop or desktop. Work your way through the examples from start to finish, reading the chapter introduction before embarking on each adventure. While hacking is generally viewed as a more skilled or extremely geeky term, this book is clearly useful to experienced beginners who want to gain expertise in the functionality/usability of their Mac (as well as those who want to explore modifying their Mac more extensively).

Part I of the book is dedicated to a gentle introduction to the components that make up Mac OS: the finder, dashboard, dock, preferences, user interface, startup, iTunes, utilities, unix applications, terminal, and shell commands.

Part II is strictly for those ready for the "Advanced Mac" training.

Although most people see the GUI portion of the OS, keep in mind that the "engine" underlying the GUI is Unix and 'hacking' the Mac will at some point descend into command line editing. Rather than be daunted by exposure to typing in your commands instead of having your desires constrained by what some application interface designer decided you could change with a GUI, embrace the power of the OS. Knaster slowly prepares the reader for the more advanced adventures as he introduces the Terminal in the "Quit the Finder" example. Seeing each following example you can build an idea of what you are doing by looking at the similarities of the commands. Rather than just limiting you to what he knows, Knaster is building up your understanding of how the underlying secret functionality works. For example if you look at the first few examples in Chapter 1 you will see the following pattern:

defaults write com.apple.finder Function optional flag yes|no
(for non geeks the | stands for OR ..)

If we translate this to English, defaults is clearly talking about the "default way I want this done", com.apple.finder is how to refer to the finder application, and then it finishes with a toggle for turning the function on or off. We see that this formula is consistent as we follow through with the next chapter with

"defaults write com.apple.Dock function toggle"

Part II of this book may be too advanced for beginners, but gives expert users exposure to more of these building blocks to understanding the power of the OS.

Overall, a very well written book with great introductions to topics and well thought out examples to modifying the Mac from beginner to advanced techniques. I highly recommend it to individuals who are interested in becoming more Mac proficient. At a bargain price of ~$17 on Amazon, compared to many technical books that sell at over $30 a piece this is a must have.

I found the first two sections of this book very useful. ie, I have come to LOVE Mac OS's zoom feature, which I use all the time now to make small video boxes 'fill' my 17" screen. There are other fun trick and tips in those first two sections.
It's the third section that bewilders me. Without any transition, the book goes right hardcore into coding. I ended up having to use the 'help' menu in Apple's XCode developer application just to understand how to do some of the things the book instructs you to do. Then I spend all this time entering a bunch of tedious, rote code. Then what do I do? I don't know. The book doesn't tell you how to actually turn all that code you wrote in XCode into a useful application. Is there some icon I'm supposed to double-click now? I don't know and the book doesn't tell me.
Blah... Even in those first two sections, come to think of it, I would have been totally lost if I did not already read the "Missing Manual" guide to MacOSX and get an understanding of Terminal and Unix. Geez, would it have killed the author to have taken just a little bit of time and offered readers an explanation of what Terminal is, what Unix is, and how to use those to follow the instructions given in the book?
That's my take and I'm sticking with it.

I had to return this book, only because of my unfamiliarity with UNIX. Long gone are the days when I used to knock out code. I've been spoiled (ruined some might say) by years of GUI and the heavy use of utility programs.

If you like using Console on your MAC you'd probably get a kick from using this book.

I wanted to leave my review 'unrated' because I consider myself unqualified to judge its utility, not because it is necessarily a poor manual, but the Review form required I supply some rating so I chose 'middle of the road' 3 stars.

I love clever tips, and Scott Knaster delivers a ton of them here, many seen nowhere else. But this tome goes way beyond tips, diving into the gnarly details of Tiger that others have glossed over, such as application internals, Widget construction, and Unix command language. So many Mac books are just a rehash of the surface of the user interface. Scott's book is way ahead of the pack.

I was looking for a book with medium to advanced info on Tiger and this one seemed to fit the bill. I was a little concerned at first when it started off with user tips which were handy, but I wanted more technical stuff. The latter parts of the book really delivered. There's well done sections on Automator and Quartz Composer. The best part is the last chapters which have programs with source for Dashboard, Spotlight, dock badging, and a few more. My advice is skim the first few chapters and pay attention to the rest.