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The latest OS X book to cross my desk for review is Mac OS X Hacks, subtitled: "100 Industrial-Strength And Tips & Tools," the latest release in O'Reilly's new Hacks Series, which also includes "Google Hacks" and "Linux Server Hacks." 
The book, written by Rael Dornfest and Kevin Hemenway, contains an even 100 tips, tricks, and scripts developed by Mac OS X power users and Unix hackers. In Mac OS X Hacks you can learn to: • Rename your user account or move your whole account to a new system
• Boot from another device or turn your Mac into a FireWire hard drive for fast copying of large amounts of data between to Macs
• Customize the OS X environment to your liking and and download useful applications that work the way you want them to. • Understand all your options for setting up mail, including running your own mail server • Explore the command line world and build in Unix applications under the candy-coated Aqua GUI. • Network with Windows desktop, and Unix servers, and other Macs, to share disks, files, printers, or even your Internet connection • Turn your Mac into a full-scale Web, email, and database server "Mac OS X Hacks" reflects the real-world knowledge of those well steeped in Unix history and expertise. The authors share no-nonsense, sometimes quick-and-dirty solutions to administering and running of a Unix machine: Web, Mail, and FTP serving, security services, SSH, Perl and shell scripting, compiling, configuring, scheduling, and general all-purpose hacking. Add to this the knowledge of die-hard Macintosh users, customizing and modifying their hardware and software to meet their needs: System Preferences, GUI mods and tweaks, hardware tips, vital shareware and freeware, AppleScript, AppleTalk and equivalents, keyboard modifiers, and basic Macintosh-style fun. "Mac OS X presents a unique opportunity for combining traditional Unix hacking and Mac OS know-how," explains coauthor Dornfest. "'Mac OS X Hacks' goes beyond the peculiar mix of manpages and not-particularly-helpful Help Center, pulling the best tips, tricks, and scripts from the Mac power users and Unix hackers themselves." Each Hack in the book can be read easily in a few minutes, saving countless hours of searching for the right answer. "Mac OS X Hacks" provides direct, hands-on solutions that can be applied to challenges facing those meeting the Mac for the first time and long-time users delving into Mac OS X and its Unix underpinnings. Mac OS X Hacks is a book that few will read from cover to cover, but most Mac users will find plenty of interesting and useful information and ideas within its covers. Don't let the "Hacks" title scare you off. There are tips included that are well within the expertise of the beginner, as well as more complex topics that will appeal to seasoned power users.
You can read sample hacks from this book on hacks.oreilly.com : Look for a full review of Mac OS X Hacks in Moore's Views & Reviews soon.
Mac OS X Hacks
OS 10.2.5 Slowdown 10.2.5 From Patrick Taw Thanks for the prompt response! I do play a few 3D games on my Mac, notably Myth2, Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Soldier of Fortune 2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, No one Lives forever, and gonna get me Ghost Recon with expansion pack soon...but on my TiBook 800 with ati RADEON 7500, every game seems slower than my PC counterpart. Especially Warcraft 3, where you have hundreds of units, maybe thousands(?) on maps like tower defense, that will bog down the computer to the point where the mouse has trouble moving. I know that any computer will experience slowdown, but my gripe is that my roommate's Dell laptop with a GeForce2 go and 1GHz Pentium3 can keep going strong without any apparent skipping or lag while I am seeing units magically appear halfway across the screen since my computer couldn't keep up. His computer will lag at a much later point in the game. And my Windows friend plays Anarchy Online in a window while chatting with buddies so there are popular games which play in a window. I know that its not on the Mac yet, so there is no comparison, but that's his argument for useless eyecandy which could be better utilized elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Hi Patrick;
Yes, the RADEON 7500 with 16 MB VRAM provides only borderline support for Quartz Extreme, especially for processor intensive tasks like gaming. The GeForce 2 card in your friend's Dell likely is significant to the better performance he's getting.
The new Mac AlBook laptops have GeForce accelerators with either 32 MB or 64 MB of VRAM. Indeed even the base, $999 iBook now comes with 32 MB of VRAM and a RADEON 7500.
Charles From Dan Rahrer Dear Mr. Moore, In response to Eric T. MacKnight's concern over a 10.2.5 slowdown, I saw information on the macfixit site the other day that cured the problem on my wife's G3/700 iBook. Unfortunately, can't find the link today. But I wrote down the instructions. Before carrying out these instructions, note that you are deleting preference files. In my wife's case, she lost the Dock configuration and Mail settings. So be warned, write down your favourite preferences before proceeding. 1. Delete all files in /Library/Preferences/ 2. Delete all files in /Library/Cache I did this for each user and the 'main' folders and it worked. Maybe try just the 'main' folders first and see if that helps. Another thing to try is MacJanitor which is a freeware app available at: http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html This might help people with general slowdown issues.
Cheers!
Hi Dan;
Thanks for the tips. Another good OS X system maintenance app. is Cocktail, a new version 2.0 of which was released this week. I've been using Cocktail lately and like it.
Available features: enable or disable journaling, set disk spindown time, update or re-prebind files, repair permissions, run cron scripts, delete cache files, recreate alias to Mac OS 9 desktop, force empty trash, delete locked items, delete DS_Store files, delete archived log files, view log files, create symbolic links, change speed and duplex of network cards, set size of the TCP receive and send window, turn off delayed acks, request new IP from DHCP server, change network ports, customize look and features of Finder and Dock, easily optimize system using Auto Pilot ...
Application:
Disk
System
Network
Extras
Pilot
I must get around to checking out MacJanitor as well.
Charles From Jonathan Boyd Hey Charles, updates to 10.2.5 about an hour after it was out and haven't had a single problem with it at all. No system freezes/crashes, virtually no application crashes (except Stuffit Expander when it checks for new versions over the web, but that always happened before) and everything actually feels a bit snappier. Of course, that's been the pattern for me over pretty much over 10.x.x update, so by this stage maybe I'm seeing it because I expect, not because it's there :^) My iBook 500 seems to be purring quite contentedly with it, especially after wiping the drive, doing a clean install and (steady yourself Charles) not installing Classic. I've never had so much free space. Thoroughly recommend this to anyone who's been going through continual updates of X. A spring clean, removing an fragmentation that may have occurred by wiping the drive and installing only the stuff you're using does wonders for a system's health. Especially if you installed X11, decided it wasn't really the important and weren't sure what you could remove without hurting X's BSD layer. Of course, leave Classic if you need it. I've still got a copy on my iPod for running Norton. I think even Ghost Recon is running slightly smoother, even though I've only half the minimum VRAM. Nice how we seem to be able to get away with being under-spec in the Mac world :^) --
Jonathan Boyd
Thanks for the report, Jonathan. It will be a while yet before I'm ready to even think about installin OS X only. Several of my production apps. are still Classic items.
However, I hear of more and more folks going OS X only lately
Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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