It's no mean accomplishment to sit down with a new and unfamiliar computer operating system and write a book about how to use it. Gene Steinberg has executed this task masterfully in producing the Mac OS X Little Black Book for Coriolis, and I doff my hat to him.

About 18 months ago, I reviewed Gene's "Mac OS 9, The Complete Reference" here, and was very impressed with his thoroughness and detailed knowledge of the Classic Mac OS, but doing a similar number for Mac OS X must have presented in much greater challenge. Nevertheless, he has pulled it off, and the "Little Black Book" (which is indeed black, but not so little) will prove a worthy and helpful desktop companion to anyone either making the transition from an earlier Mac OS version to OS X, or learning the Mac for the first time.

Gene's Steinberg says that the Mac OS X Little Black Book "covers the essential information you need to install, configure, and use Mac 0S X. There are no frills and no fluff. Useless tricks that's will satisfy one's intellectual curiosity or perhaps trigger a chuckle, but not enhance your productivity, aren't included."

That's a pretty accurate, concise overview of this book.

And while Gene states that the book is intended as a reference work, and not to be read through from cover to cover, the latter is what I ended up doing, albeit skimming a bit in places. Steinberg has a knack for making technological topics interesting and readable.

As with most books of this genre, the Mac OS X Little Black Book is illustrated with screen shots, which convey the needed information clearly and efficiently by examples that will mirror what you see on your own computer screen. Steinberg includes a screen shot with the text explanation of most processes and procedures discussed.

Each chapter incliudes an "Immediate Solutions" table of contents, and an "In Brief" section that that provides an overview of the chapter's contents. Each chapter's page edges have a black marker in steps, which are visible with the book closed, which makes it easy to zero in instantly on the chapter you want to find. There is also extensive cross-referencing of topics throughout.

Part I, Chapter 1 begins with a brief history of the development of Mac 0S X, its features, and how it differs from the Classic Mac OS, explaining terms like Darwin, Quartz, Aqua, Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic, as well as a quick installation overview.

Chapter 2 delves deeper into the installation process and potential pitfalls therein.

Chapter 3, deals with setting up Mac OS X with preference settings and so on. Steinberg notes that Mac OS X's System Preferences application is in some ways a "throwback to the way system setups existed under old versions of the Mac operating system prior to System seven. Even though control panels were separate items then, they would all display in a single window. Apple has apparently taken the simplicity of this design to heart." This chapter also walks you through configuring the System, and setting System Preferences.

Chapter 4 introduces you to the Mac OS X Finder. As Gene notes, many of the Finder functions of Mac OS X will be comfortably familiar to Classic Mac OS veterans, although Apple has gratuitously changed some of the keyboard shortcut commands (e.g.: Command + L is now the shortcut for creating an alias instead of Command + M). However, migrants from Classic will especially appreciate Chapter 5 tutorial on using the Dock, which is the Mac OS X Finder's most radical departure from tradition, replacing most of the functions of the former Apple Menu (which continues in altered and diminished form), the Control Strip, and the Application Menu.

In Chapter 5 you'll find a useful section on "Making your Mac OS desktop as cluttered as ever"-- a topic dear to my heart. My practice is to put everything current on the desktop in a jumble that would probably seem chaotic to anyone else using my computer, but there is an intuitive method and order to this mess that works for me. Unfortunately, OS X thinks it knows better how to organize my life, with rigid protocols that want to put applications in the Applications Folder and documents in the Documents Folder. This may be good for newbie users, but it seems like Finder fascism to me. Gene's suggested workaround is to scatter aliases of the stuff you want there around the desktop. I wish that Apple would restore the old free-form dumping ground Finder at least as an option.

Chapter 6, setting up Mac OS X for multiple users, was not an especially useful section for me, since I'm the only person uses my computer (everyone else in the family has their own computer), but it will be helpful to those who share their machines. I continue to wonder at the amount of emphasis this feature receives, however.

Chapter 7, on using Sherlock, will be pretty familiar stuff to people who have mastered Sherlock in Mac OS 9.x. I continue to be less than enthusiastic Sherlock fan, and I think the drive indexing feature is brain dead compared with third-party text search applications like SpeedSearch and FindText, which do a better job faster without indexing. I also prefer Google to Sherlock for Web searches.

Mac OS network protocols have been changed substantially under OS X, so Chapter 8's tutorial on the new networking procedures will be very helpful reference as you chart your course through new territory. From Gene's description, I'm not sure that I think all of the changes are improvements, but I guess that's the price of entering into the geeky, security obsessed UNIX orbit. In terms of Internet dial up, the operative control panels mien has been changed yet again, this time to Internet connect (Žne PPP; Remote Access), which makes more sense, but may confuse some migrants. OS X's Location Manager, which has the ability to configure and select from multiple network or OS X settings, so that you don't have to read-enter settings information when changing location, or just dialing up to an alternate ISP, appears to be more integrated than it is in OS 9.x..

Chapter 9 deals with OS X changes to Apple's wonderful AppleScript macro-creating language, which is a humongous (and largely unheralded) advantage that the Mac OS has over Windows or Linux..

Chapter 10 discusses installing programs under Mac OS X and finishes off Part I.

Part II deals with how Mac OS X relates to hardware. This section starts with some general advice on hardware installation and maintenance, buying a new Mac, when to upgrade (which contains a lot of sensible observations), extended warranties, troubleshooting, connectivity (including upgrades), and peripheral installations.

Chapter 13 addresses OS X issues for PowerBook and iBook users, including quite a bit of a generic laptop use advice, and winds up Part II.

Part III delves into a Mac OS X-savvy software, explaining the distinctions between Carbon and Cocoa, and profiles some key applications from Microsoft, Apple, FileMaker, Adobe, Alias/ Wavefront, Macromedia, Quake, Stone Design, and AOL.

There are dedicated sections on AppleWorks, and Stone Design's Create.

Chapter 15 addresses using older programs with Mac OS X -- ie: running in the Classic environment, and the limitations thereof. Gene suggests making Classic a startup application, which I think is excellent advice. He also notes that it may be a good idea to let OS X have its own, dedicated copy of OS 9.1 to run as Classic, keeping your working copy of 9.1 on another partition so you don't have to mess with switching extension sets and other configuration hassles when you want to boot directly from OS 9.1. I heartily endorse this as well.

Chapter 16 is about font management in OS X. Because I rarely print anything in hard copy (my only Mac printer is a prehistoric, 9-pin, dot matrix ImageWriter II that frequently sits idle for months between uses) I skimmed this chapter lightly, but it should prove useful to folks who use DTP applications and the like.

Chapter 17 addresses issues associated with file backups under OS X, reviewing several backup software programs, as well as the topic of Internet backups to services like Apple's iDisk, and various types of backup media. Most of this stuff is not OS X specific information, but it is a helpful overview. I like Gene's "no frills daily backup plan," although I confess that I'm a lackadaisical backer-upper, often going two weeks or more between backup sessions. Someday this will probably catch up with me.

Chapter18 deals with viruses and Mac OS X, which may be more of a troublesome issue than it has been with the Classic Mac OS, thanks to the broader-based UNIX underpinnings of the new OS. Gene reviews several Mac anti-virus programs, none of which were yet OS X native as the book went to press.

Chapter 19 gets down to cases on troubleshooting OS X, which could prove to be one of the book's most important chapters. Gene walks the reader through installation failures, as well as System crashes and freezes. I thought these were supposed to be history with 0S X, but not so says Gene. "From time to time you will encounter programs that behave as badly as they did under Classic system versions..." Doh.

There are a wide variety of topics covered in this chapter, including clean installation of the system, performing system-level disk diagnosis, monitoring system use to check for conflicts, to name a few. Chapter 19 could be well worth the price of the book in a page, and ends Part III.

Part IV addresses taking Mac OS X online, reviewing broad band options, and profiling the three current OS X native Mac browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer; iCab; and OmniWeb.

Chapter 21 provides an extensive tutorial on using the new system's built-in e-mail client -- Mail. Chapter 22 ends the book with another tutorial on using Apple's iTools on-line service. In this case it's again not OS X specific information, but a good overview of how to use iTools.

Gene has also included an extensive 23 page Glossary, and a good Index. There are no appendices, but there is a fold out Quick Reference in the front of the book.

There will be a gaggle of Mac OS X books hitting the market this year (in fact Coriolis has two others themselves), but Gene Steinberg has been quick out of the gate with this one, and it's a good solid offering.

If you're looking for a quick start tutorial and thorough reference for making the jump to 0S X, you won't go wrong with this one. Five smileys.

Mac OS X Little Black Book
A Complete Guide to Migrating and Setting Up Mac OS X
Author: Gene Steinberg
Pages: 488
Level: Beginner to Advanced
Retail: $29.99
ISDN: 1576107019

Gene Steinberg, author, columnist, and Webmaster of The MacNightOwl is a fact and science fiction writer and computer software and systems consultant. He is the author of over twenty books on computing and the Internet. In addition, he has also written feature articles and product reviews for such magazines as MacAddict, MacHome Magazine, MacUser and Macworld, and conducts a weekly segment on the Internet and strange and unusual computing tips for Craig Crossman's Computer America radio show.

Charles W. Moore

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