Mac OS X Power Hound, Second Edition

Introduction

You’re about to gain insight into Mac OS X, an elegant operating system with Formula One power under the hood. This book is like your pit crew, helping you find easier, faster, and better ways of using the Finder, the Dock, the assortment of programs that come with Mac OS X, and a bunch of programs that don’t. And if you want to become your own master mechanic, this book also includes two massive chapters on Unix, the engine under Mac OS X’s hood.

Even though the 650+ hints in this book are based on tips published on the Mac OS X Hints Web site (http://www.macosxhints.com), they’re not just a rehash of the information on the site. That would be far too easy. Every hint has been rewritten, expanded, organized, indexed, tested for compatibility with the latest version of Mac OS X 10.3, and, in many cases, illustrated.

This book assumes that you’re running version 10.3.3 or later. If you use any of these hints with previous versions of the system, you should expect that—as they say in the car business—your mileage may vary. The vast majority of hints will work just fine with an earlier 10.3 version. However, Apple has implemented a number of new features that work only with the 10.3.3 “dot update,” and some of the hints in this book rely on those features.

How this Book Works

Typically, computer books make the most sense when you read them from start to finish—but not this one. Most hints in these pages address problems or solutions that are independent of other hints. Think of it as a vast table of hors d’oeuvres for your brain.