This might be a good book for a power user, but for someone like me who just uses a Mac as a day-to-day machine and a slick front-end for a UNIX box, it's pretty useless: the user-friendliness of the OS X interface obviates owning a how-to book. There are some parts of the internals that remain obscure to me—for instance, the exact structure of the Applications folder, or certain XML system configuration files—and I keep this book around on the odd chance that I'll want to tweak them someday, but realistically I doubt I'll ever open it.

I pride myself on being able to figure things out, but sometimes I need a leeetle bit of help. This happened once again when my company made the transition to Macintosh OS X. I had heard that there were a number of changes to the system and that it wasn't quite as idiot proof as the previous Mac systems. (My first attempt to play with OS X resulted in a frantic hour late one Saturday night. 'Twas a problem that was due, I believe, to moving a few files out of the appropriate folder.) So I made a rare financial investment in my (snicker!) career and bought this book back in 2003. It does a nice enough job explaining the new system and pointing out major differences between it and its predecessors. It also gives a good explanation of OS X's origins and the rationale behind some of the changes. (So I learned to stop cussing everytime I have to log in just to use the estupido computer) From there, however, it goes on to detail the possibilities offered by the UNIX system 'pon which OS X rests. It was a bit interesting. However, I haven't used much of it. I guess I'm not the tech head I used to be. Anyway, even though I sometimes wish I had bought Robin William's OS X book instead, I would definitely recommend that anyone running a modern Macintosh to check this book out.
--J. ( )