Windows guru and CNET commentator Coursey draws on the experiences of real-world switchers to frame his own straightforward instructions on how to use Mac OS X. There's a lot involved in moving to a new operating system, but readers will find everything they need to get up to speed quickly as well as understand the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the systems.

The Most Useful UNIX Guide for Mac OS X Users Ever, with Hundreds of High-Quality Examples! Beneath Mac OS® X's stunning graphical user interface (GUI) is the most powerful operating system ever created: UNIX®. With unmatched clarity and insight, this book explains UNIX for the Mac OS X user–giving you total control over your system, so you can get more done, faster. Building on Mark Sobell's highly praised A Practical Guide to the UNIX System, it delivers comprehensive guidance on the UNIX command line tools every user, administrator, and developer needs to master—together with the world's best day-to-day UNIX reference. This book is packed with hundreds of high-quality examples. From networking and system utilities to shells and programming, this is UNIX from the ground up–both the "whys" and the "hows"–for every Mac user. You'll understand the relationships between GUI tools and their command line counterparts. Need instant answers? Don't bother with confusing online "manual pages": rely on this book's example-rich, quick-access, 236-page command reference! Don't settle for just any UNIX guidebook. Get one focused on your specific needs as a Mac user! A Practical Guide to UNIX® for Mac OS® X Users is the most useful, comprehensive UNIX tutorial and reference for Mac OS X and is the only book that delivers Better, more realistic examples covering tasks you'll actually need to perform Deeper insight, based on the authors' immense knowledge of every UNIX and OS X nook and cranny Practical guidance for experienced UNIX users moving to Mac OS X Exclusive discussions of Mac-only utilities, including plutil, ditto, nidump, otool, launchctl, diskutil, GetFileInfo, and SetFile Techniques for implementing secure communications with ssh and scp–plus dozens of tips for making your OS X system more secure Expert guidance on basic and advanced shell programming with bash and tcsh Tips and tricks for using the shell interactively from the command line Thorough guides to vi and emacs designed to help you get productive fast, and maximize your editing efficiency In-depth coverage of the Mac OS X filesystem and access permissions, including extended attributes and Access Control Lists (ACLs) A comprehensive UNIX glossary Dozens of exercises to help you practice and gain confidence And much more, including a superior introduction to UNIX programming tools such as awk, sed, otool, make, gcc, gdb, and CVS

Following the common-sense O'Reilly style, Mac OS X in a Nutshell ruts through the hype and gives readers practical details they can use every day. Everything you need to know about Mac OS X has been systematically documented in this book. Mac OS X in a Nutshell offers a complete overview of Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), from its Aqua interface right down to its BSD Unix core. This book familiarizes readers with the Finder and the Dock, System Preferences, file management, system and network administration issues, and more. Later chapters include coverage of the Terminal and how to configure a DAMP (Darwin, Apache, MySQL, Pert/PHP/Python) web-publishing system. In Mac OS X in a Nutshell, you'll find : • Detailed information on virtually every command and utility available on Mac OS X Jaguar • The most complete and thorough coverage of Mac OS X's Unix commands you'll find anywhere • Detailed advice and documentation on system configuration, with extensive coverage of the System Preferences and use of the Finder and Dock • An overview of basic system and network administration features, including coverage of NetInfo and Directory Services • Hundreds of tips, tricks, and clever ways to do familiar and not-so-familiar tasks • Instructions on installing the X Window System and how to build and run BSD Unix applications • An overview of Mac OS X's Unix text editors, including vi and Emacs • An overview of CVS, the concurrent version system • Information on shell syntax and variables for Mac OS X's default user shell, tcsh Each command and option in the book's Unix Command Reference has been painstakingly tested and checked against Jaguar-even the manpages that ship with Mac OS X can't compete in accuracy. Mac OS X in a Nutshell is the most comprehensive quick reference on the market and is a must for any serious Mac user.

So, you're one of the many, the proud... the Unix geeks who've "switched" to Mac OS X. Although hacking code on the Mac is the same as hacking code on other Unix systems, you're bound to run into some problems because of the subtle differences between the Unix you're accustomed to and how things are done in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). Mac OS X for Unix Geeks was written by two long-time Unix users who've found themselves exactly where you are. It cuts through the chaff and gets right to the point on such topics as : • Using the Terminal and understanding how it differs from an xterm • Using Directory Services, Open Directory (LDAP), and NetInfo • Compiling code with GCC 3 • Library linking and porting Unix software • Creating and installing packages with Fink • Building the Darwin kernel • Running X Windows on top of Mac OS X This quick and dirty guide continues with an overview of Mac OS X's filesystem and startup processes, wrapping up with a handy reference section called the "Missing Manpages", covering Mac OS X commandline utilities not in the official documentation. Mac OS X is quickly becoming the platform of choice for Unix hackers and geeks, because it gives you what Tim O'Reilly refers to as "guilt-free computing"- a Unix system that you don't have to share with Windows. If you proudly wear the badge "Unix Geek", this book is your guide to demystifying the geekier side of Mac OS X.

Demonstrates the operating system's basic features, including Internet access, file management, configuring the desktop, installing peripherals, and working with applications.

For power users who want to modify Tiger, the new release of Mac OS X, this book takes them deep inside Mac OS X's core, revealing the inner workings of the system.

Demonstrates how to become adjusted to the Macintosh operating system and how to transfer data from a Windows system to a Macintosh, discussing topics such as moving files and Macintosh equivalents to Windows-only programs.