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LESMUUG Reviews
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| Intro
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| The Macintosh iLife 06 |
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Amazon reviews, Barnes & Noble reviews
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| October 6, 2006 by Julien Muguet <julmug2 hotmail.com>
The Macintosh iLife '06 by Jim Heid covers all the applications that Apple had the great idea to include for free on every new machine: iPhoto lets you manage your digital photos in a breeze, iDVD lets you create full fledged DVDs with all the bells and whistles, iMovieHD allows you to create/edit movies with whatever you imported from your camera, Garageband is Apple's recording studio for the musical fans out there - and now for '06 it also lets you taste the magic of podcasting, iWeb now lets you make a great web site in minutes without ever having to type in a line of code or HTML, and last but not least we find the ever so famous iTunes that takes care of all your music/podcasts/TV shows and now movies right of the iTunes store.
Needless to say iLife '06 has a lot to offer and even if each application is more than simple to use right away there are a lot of useful shortcuts or "secrets" that can take months to discover yourself. That's where Jim Heid's book comes in and takes you by the hand for each and every application.
The book actually starts off with a broad introduction to iLife (from the history of Personal Computers to the right way to outfit your Mac for digital media) and how it fits in our digital way of life.
Then come the sections devoted to each of the iLife '06 programs. Each section starts off by an introduction and an overview of the particular topic. Then comes the good stuff; instructions on how to start off, then some background info (which can be fairly large and very often fascinating) that you can skip if you want and then tips. But after all since we're talking about digital and considering things evolve so fast (for example as I write this Apple released iTunes version 7 that has many new features compared to the version that is dealt with in this book) Jim Heid refers to his website to get updates and more information as things evolve.
I can't describe all the sections so I'll limit myself to the first two.
The first section is probably the most famous program (it even exists on the Windows platform!) in iLife '06 - iTunes and the iPod.
This section starts off by having a glance at the iTunes window and an explanation of what the different buttons do, the pretty basic stuff. Then comes importing music from your CDs - what many refer to as ripping. Now if this is as simple as inserting your CD and clicking on import the big question on some of our minds is how to choose the right audio format. This is typically the type of chapter that you can skip if the factory settings are just fine for you, but if you're an audiophile of just curious it's a plus to know all about the different formats and encoding settings that iTunes support. The author goes even further and explains how audio compression works in terms that pretty much anyone can understand.
Now once your music is on your computer you learn how to edit the songs' information and "voilà" you now have a digital Library.
But iTunes is far from being only a way to import an play your music. The book then covers the iTunes store (formerly the iTunes Music Store), from signing in and browsing to shopping (be it music or TV shows or just recently, movies) and even tips to make your musical experience even more fulfilling.
Now you could stop reading this section and skip to the next program in iLife, or learn more about playlists and their management, searching tips, EQ settings for improved sound quality, burning CDs, listening to internet radio etc... There's just so much to do with iTunes and this book covers every aspect. It even goes as far as 13 pages about the iPod and its integration with iTunes. Like I said there's so much to do it can be overwhelming!
The next section covers iPhoto and digital photography. Just like in the iTunes section, the iPhoto section starts off with the basics (like importing from your camera, organizing and browsing) and gradually evolves towards more "complicated" tasks such as photo editing and working with RAW mode. Being an intermediate photographer myself (and using iPhoto for the past 2 years) I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about iPhoto, but this book was filled with little tips that made my iPhoto experience even more enjoyable.
Now for my impressions.
I have a sweet tooth for technology (being an engineering student it's not all that surprising), music (I almost made it as a guitarist in a more than semi-pro rock band) and recently photography, so I've spent countless hours on internet learning about the programs that could help me enrich theses passions. When I started using iLife's programs I was already familiar with many of the concepts behind the apps so I rapidly went to the end part of each section.
This is what I find great about this book, it will please the total newbie that just bought his first computer and accompany him all along the way, and those who have more background will also find tons of tips and interesting knowledge. Plus, since you can also go check on the website you can never run out of things to learn.
I can tell you that reading it made me want to try the apps that I don't commonly use (namely Garageband and iDVD) and for the programs that I do use everyday, they became even more powerful.
If I do have a gripe, and it's not really the author's fault, it's concerning the iWeb section that is too short for me. Even if I've been using iWeb for at least five months now I would've liked this section to dig a little deeper. But after all it's brand new for iLife '06...
In conclusion I'll say that if you wish to make you Mac experience even more enjoyable then it already is I highly recommend this book. You'll learn how to really maximize your use of the apps you draw on every day and will want to try out the other ones just because they're so fun (and because they have great results too).
- julien
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| Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture |
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Amazon reviews, Barnes & Noble reviews
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| September 25, 2006 by John LaPlante <johnblaplante sbcglobal.net>
I was given the opportunity to review this book by an acquaintance, and I am very glad for the opportunity. It has totally changed the way I approach my digital workflow. My previous workflow started with a folder for each year, containing a folder for each month. Inside the monthly folders were still other folders for each shoot. I would download my digital RAW files in the root of each shoot folder. Then I would create 3 separate subfolders inside each shoot folder, (1) alt (for altered ), (2) fin (for final), and (3) out (for output). I would place the various iterations of each file in these directories for retrieval and sorting. I would open each RAW file in Nikon Capture and evaluate the shot. Then I would make any necessary alteration and save the required output files, whether for web, print, or archive. Sometimes the images would be opened in Photoshop for further work, and saved back to the same directory structure. This worked fairly well, but it was a very slow process. Finding images weeks, months, and years later was very difficult without going into each directory and looking through the saved files. Now I keep all of my files in the Aperture program, and it allows me to save all of the iterations side-by-side. Even those alterations made in Photoshop are saved as "versions" of my original digital file. It has cut my workflow time down significantly, but even more important, it has allowed me to keep track of all of the versions of my files together, making the finding and printing of previous files manageable.
I started my review of the Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture book in only my spare time - literally 3 hours per day. I would usually take an hour before my work day, and hour at lunch, and an hour in the evening, after the kids were in bed. I spent 2 weeks going through the book, and I am extremely pleased with the results. The DVD that accompanies the book is stocked with sample pictures that are used throughout the book, and they really help solidify the examples and ingrain the workflow and features of Aperture.
There were several features that I really liked about the book. Since I am a "learn by doing" kind of person, I appreciated the classroom style of the book. First, each chapter had a list of objectives, including an estimate of how much time each step would take. This was perfect for me, as I was going through the book in my spare time. If I saw that the next chapter would take 75 minutes, I would allow for this time in my next session. This worked out extremely well for me, and allowed for a very organized, paced, and effective learning environment.
The book started out with some basic navigation items, screen shots, screen layouts, and keyboard shortcuts. The book did an exceptional job of outlining the various keyboard shortcuts (and there are a *LOT* of them), that really make using Aperture quick. Assigning ratings, keywords, photo comparisons, etc. can all be done through keyboard shortcuts. If you are using Aperture, but don't know about the keyboard shortcuts, I guarantee a quick review will reduce your process time by at least half. I remember going through these chapters thinking "This isn't what I need. I need the stuff on analyzing pictures...". However, I've come to understand that Aperture's power is really in image management, evaluation, and basic image adjustments. I do my basic "developing" in Aperture (white balance, exposure, levels, brightness, etc.), and the majority of my "post processing" (black and white conversions, vignetting, framing, etc.) in Photoshop.
Once you understand the basics of Aperture, the book gets you started with organization and the use of keywords. This is the part of the book that I really liked. Lessons and images used in early parts of the book are re-used and re-confirmed in later lessons. While you might be tempted to skip these parts to get to the image manipulation sections, DON'T. One of Aperture's main strengths is its image organization, rating, comparison, and evaluation features. In my old workflow, it was very difficult to analyze one image against another. I would have to open both in Nikon Capture and try to do a side-by-side comparison. Or, I could save each as a JPG and then open both in Preview - but this was time consuming and inefficient. The book takes you step-by-step through multiple scenarios for evaluating, rating, sorting, and applying keywords to photos.
After the thorough review of Aperture's organization features, it's time to move on to image editing. The book does a wonderful job of presenting sample images that need work (white balance, exposure, brightness, contrast, noise reduction, sharpening, etc.) It then takes you step-by-step through the processes of editing images and preparing them for output. It also takes you through the process of editing images in external editors such as Adobe Photoshop, so all the changes made to your images are preserved in the Aperture program.
In summary, here's what I liked about the book:
1. Goals for each chapter
2. Time estimate for each chapter
3. DVD Examples for each lesson, numerous examples of how to do certain things
4. Keyboard shortcuts (for example, use the backslash to give 5 stars)
5. Real-world examples
I would have liked to have seen more examples of advanced image editing. While there were some basic examples, I wanted more hands-on experience with adding sharpening to RAW files. There are two areas of Aperture to add sharpening (in the RAW area and then as an add-on step), but the book does not explain when to use one over the other, or in conjunction. Also, I would have liked to have experimented more with level adjustments, RGB level adjustment, and the histograms. This was covered briefly, but not enough to really understand what's going on.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is using Aperture, but might only be using a small portion of the program. I'm glad I spent the time with the book, the DVDs, and the program. It has made my experience with Aperture all that I had hoped for.
- John LaPlante
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| BSD Hacks |
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Amazon reviews
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| September 26, 2004 by Isaac S Levy <ike lesmuug.org>
Finally a practical BSD Book that actually beats the Man pages!
OVERVIEW
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There is a type of information that I consider to be a gem, a kind of information that doesn't really fit anywhere formally. It's too small, or perhaps too esoteric, to fit in most places.
This makes it hard to find- though these info-gems can often can be the source of wild hacking inspiration, or solve my un-solvable problems in some elegant manner.
This kind of information sometimes gets collected and recorded, Some of us at LESMUUG have really enjoyed the Mac OSX Hints book, spawned from macosxhints.com website,
[review here]
BUT, after plowing repeatedly through the lone UNIX chapter in Mac OS X Hints, I found myself craving more...
A Problem with BSD books:
One of the quietly great things about the BSD family of UNIX Operating Systems, is the terrific documentation. The quality and consistency of the man pages, across every BSD I've ever touched, I painfully appreciate when I use man pages on other non-BSD systems.
The FreeBSD world has the FreeBSD Handbook project, a printed and free online resource which sets the bar for every fat FreeBSD book out there. OpenBSD and NetBSD both have amazing online tutorials and documentation projects as well. Even the fledgling DragonFly BSD project has a full-blown Handbook, modeled after its FreeBSD lineage.
In the OpenDarwin and OSX world we enjoy the legacy of solid man pages and solid HowTo's online from our BSD heritage, and of course free registrations to developer.apple.com to boot.
With all that great documentation, it's really tough to find a BSD book that's really valuable, especially for experienced users, and Dru Lavigne has made a valuable and fun resource with BSD Hacks. The book is an impressive compilation of BSD gems, and as it's written for newbies and hardcore hackers alike.
Dru is a Canadian BSD Rockstar, well known in the BSD world for her articles with O'Reilly online, including the FreeBSD Basics column for ONLamp, so who better to write a book that doesn't fit into traditional documentation?! Someone who KNOWS BSD.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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The Book is comprised of so many disparate yet complete ideas, It's hard to sum up exactly what's in there. From networking, to gems on system maintenance, and gems about basics that really get lost in man pages. There's information about things like keeping up-to-date, giving a tutorial-level big picture of what can be done to keep your UNIX system running smoothly, boot and Login gems, some good Security Hacks and hacks about system customization and shell tricks. There's even a tutorial for how to create YOUR OWN man pages.
For Mac/Darwin users, the majority of the book applies directly to Darwin UNIX! A section which by its nature is OS-specific, would be the hacks about various port and application-distribution systems. This includes a good how-to for DarwinPorts, right along with the usual ports systems for other platforms. The section on filesystems doesn't have anything on hfs+, but that can be excused, insomuch as many mac-centric texts do it the same injustice.
Check out the TOC online for a full description of the book contents:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bsdhks/toc.html
CONCLUSION
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If you are a Mac UNIX user who loves info-gems like I do, or you dig macosxhints.com, (and the books published from it), I feel BSD Hacks will provide many weekends, and workdays worth of BSD gems- all written by a great technical author. This book now sits next to my printed FreeBSD Handbook, and since much of these gems are fairly timeless, I believe it will stay with me for a long time to come.
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| Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Express 2 |
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Amazon reviews
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| March 26, 2004 by Brian Redman <ber lesmuug.org>
I recently picked up a copy of Final Cut Express when I bought a miniDV camera to record some 16mm home movies to disk. I captured the DV stream with iMovie because that's what I was familiar with and was able to do simple cutting and splicing using FCE2 by just feeling around. I could see however, I was fumbling and there were obviously easier ways to accomplish even the simple things I was doing, let alone 99% of FCE2's features.
After getting my feet wet with the home movies I wanted to do something *interesting* with 5 hours of Hi-8 videocam footage I had recorded years ago thinking "some day I'll make a little movie from this". For this I needed to become familiar with the FCE2's capabilities. I read through the documentation that came with FCE2 but I didn't really get it. I wasn't familiar with the terminology, the concepts were foreign to me. So I grabbed a copy of the Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Express book and committed to learning some things. The book comes with a DVD containing lesson materials.
Some of the material in the first lessons was basic even for me as I'm familiar with the Mac interface. In some cases I would just read through the exercises and not bother using the computer. But the exposure to the basic terminology was already useful.
After those first few chapters I found pretty much every exercise valuable. I appreciated the author's style of repetition and reinforcement of concepts and techniques. When I completed a lesson I was satisfied that I had learned something I would use. With my own project in mind, I would visualize how I'd apply what I had learned but I was glad I didn't go off and start working on my own stuff until I had completed the book.
When I did finished the lessons I was comfortable with FCE2, which before I opened the book appeared almost hopelessly complicated. With the lessons under my belt I was able to get more out of the FCE2 documentation because I understood the terminology and what questions to ask. I was also able to read through online discussions and understand what people were asking and suggesting.
Having read the book and, most importantly, done the exercises I felt I was really taking advantage of FCE2 when I used it for my project. Even if I didn't remember everything I read I remembered I had read there was a way to do this or that and found the details easily. Sometimes I'd refer back to the book but most often I used the FCE2 help document or just looked in the menus.
I found the book a great way to come up to speed with Final Cut Express 2. After competing the book I was able to make good use of FCE2 to take boring footage, modest effects, an incredible soundtrack and subtle titles to tell a story in an entertaining way. The book made FCE2 accessible, FCE2 made my project a reality, and I'm very pleased with the results. The movie (45MB - download begins immediately) is at http://berdom.net/projects/rip-n-scan.html.
ber
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| The Art of UNIX Programming |
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Amazon reviews
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| January 3, 2004 by Isaac Levy <isaac structuredsystems.net>
DISCLAIMER
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If you love UNIX, and want to know more about the history of the design process and culture, stop wasting time reading this review and immediately go read this book. Still not convinced? Read on:
OVERVIEW
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OK- so I'm a relatively young developer, and my 'professional' programming experience doesn't start until the mid-late 90s. So I guess that means I've grown up in what's manifest as Open Source. Open Source and UNIX is all around me, and has become the richest and most open creative community I've ever been a part of. I can hardly fathom, any sustainable software world outside of Open Source, open standards, and open process. I love Open Source, every aspect of it.
The Art of UNIX Programming has given me an understanding of where this all came from, the rich traditions and working process that _is_ UNIX, as well as the people that _are_ UNIX. ESR (as he's known in the Open Source communities) maintains an extremely forceful and open vibe throughout.
It is noteworthy that ESR is giving a fairly one-sided view of the history of computing, as he's completely focused on UNIX, and Open Source- and isn't afraid to poke at other processes and systems as he moves along, but it's clear that he's really passionate about UNIX. He's not preaching in this text, he's clearly addressing the Open Source UNIX hackers out there, and his directness seems to have made some enemies.
I tend to like it when one has enough guts to put their neck on the line to communicate what they care about- and ironically, ESR's tone, however one-sided, is biased towards Open Source in a sort of evolutionary selection process, in opposition to a human-forced set of rules that guide technologies; so his one-sided fervor is quite an easy pill for me to swallow.
Noteworthy, this book will really tick off anyone who's not comfortable nodding to a periodic MS and Proprietary IT-establishment slam here and there. It's also got some stiff words for Object Oriented programming- but speaking as a programmer who uses Object Oriented languages and systems, I actually feel he addresses some of the design weaknesses that I have experienced (mostly in things that re-invent the computing wheel in confusing ways).
If one can get beyond that, there's TONS of wisdom in here that EAR shares, from one of the oldest and evolved systems in computing, UNIX.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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Right off the bat, I was hooked, as Eric S. Raymond is one of the first people I've heard in Computing to refer to one of my favorite authors, Christopher Alexander <http://www.patternlanguage.com/>. To me, this either says that like many professional communities, IT/CS doesn't pay much attention outside of itself, or I gotta go around the block a few more times before I state such things- (or perhaps a mix of both <g>).
From here, I'll divide the book into 2 parts, People/History, and Process/History. ESR glides through a great history of the People and Systems that have influenced contemporary UNIX systems, and then proceeds to dive into the vast accumulated systems and process that an operating system with 30+ years of history has generated.
Re. People:
UNIX roots are way more punk-rock than I could have ever imagined. Reading the history and personal accounts in The Art of UNIX Programming was to me, like going over my family history with a grandparent. To be honest, I had NO idea how much I had in common socially, IT-politically, and in spirit, with the original creators of UNIX. I hate to get all spooky n' stuff here, but it was all like some weird conformation of things I knew through osmosis- by using UNIXes. That's about the best way I can explain it. Not that it created some hierarchy of rock-stars, but it brought me closer to what I consider to be like family. ESR brings in some of the original creators of UNIX to speak on given topics throughout the book, and discusses some of the cultural divisions in UNIX culture.
Re. Process:
Osmosis. Good design breeds more good design, and the rest of the book delves into the myriad of lessons in good design which have come out of UNIX.
The process sections of this book didn't really preach the legalism of a manifesto, but instead showed the roots of what's influenced UNIX today, and how that manifests in what I make daily. The principles discussed come from the vast discourse of software engineering on, and for, UNIX systems- and one of the best principles I took from this book are that the systems that have lived the longest lives, have done so because of a reason.
The process part of book have given me a whole new level of respect for a lot of developers and projects which I simply didn't understand before, or took for granted.
CONCLUSION
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This book was great fun for me; it's big-picture view made me realize I'm totally a kid with UNIX, and documented guiding principles that I interact with every day.
The book would be very accessible for non-technical readers, as advertised. This book would be a good read for an Architect, or Urban planner, as well as most anyone in a given Design-oriented field- though it does require some basic understanding of computing to get into. I believe the crossovers in UNIX practice and other fields are astounding (and I'd LOVE to read an 'outsider' review!).
Anyone in or around computing in any way would get SOMETHING good out of this book, and 'The Art of UNIX Programming' is a must-have for anyone who works with, and loves, UNIX.
The book's online via ESR website (buy the book folks, it's nicer to read): http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/
.ike
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| Maximum Mac OS X Security |
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Amazon reviews
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| December 29, 2003
Bedtime Stories from the 'dark side of the net'...
OVERVIEW
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If you like scary stories, lucid mind-bending complexity, and epic tales of freaky proportion, this one's for you; (and it makes a terrific reference book to boot). Enter a world where your arp tables are poisoned, zombie daemon processes run unnoticed by root-kitted servers, IP addresses are merely ghosts of the servers they say they are- you are not entering the twilight zone, you are entering the internet. Muahahahaahahaha. Ahem<cough>.
Experience Level: Basic UNIX/OSX understanding, an acrobatic and open mind required- (i.e. if you were able to follow the Matrix movies without skipping a beat, you'll be fine with this book).
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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The general conceptual Tone of the book is great, as it doesn't ever assume that ANYTHING is bulletproof, like some foolhardy security texts and white papers can blindly promise. A while back, I gave a very positive review for lesmuug, of Mac OS X Security (Published by New Riders).
This book, Maximum Mac OS X Security, (Published by SAMS) as a great extension/companion to that book.
Maximum Mac OS X Security, weighs in at over 2 inches thick, and as much as it provides a great overview to running secure and trusted systems, it goes into WAY more depth than the New Riders book; which can be good and bad- if your trying to get a general overview of secure systems, this book may be overwhelming.
Throughout reading this SAMS book, I found myself digging back into the New Riders book, to refresh my mind on general topics. Then my brain could better scale into the horrifying detail in this 'Maximum' book. Some of the topics discussed are ridiculously frightening, insomuch as it clearly discusses why and how everything can be hacked, with counter-measures, and hacks to circumvent the counter-measures. <g> It's really fun if you like that kind of thing.
All of this info, kept me in awe the entire time with just how powerful Mac OSX really is under the hood, and how seriously Apple has taken security.
BOOK SUMMARY
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The book's table of contents is fairly intense. Chapters are dedicated to a single security concept, and various technologies are addressed in detail as sub-sections of each chapter. I'd say that the chosen topics covered are totally relevant not just in dealing with common hacks of today, but lay down brief foundations of where some compromises came from, and what relevance they could possibly have in the future.
While each section of every chapter makes for a nice scary bedtime story, they also proves tremendously useful in practical use. For various softwares and systems discussed in Maximum Mac OS X Security, enough information to get the focus of that section installed and/or running is excellently presented. Each section has great references to current online information.
For each topic discussed, the authors try to take you right up to the edge of basic understanding and use- with some great tips thrown in for advanced users. This is great, as some topics have entire volumes dedicated to them.
There are absolutely TONS of general and special-use security tools and softwares discussed, and this text will sanely get you started with most of them. The book gets you right up to the point where you have installed and are running a given software/system, and the only place to go for more information is online, in its manual, or another book dedicated just to it. This is a key feature of Maximum Mac OS X Security to me, as it gets a person going in the right direction using various tools, effectively lessening the learning curve with a new software.
A great example of how this all came in handy for me:
I was recently administrating remote systems which came under SMTP DDOS attack. (Excessive Distributed Spam from the MiMal worm, flooding our mail system). In the process of resolving the attack/problem with my admin team, my home-office DSL line was attacked (likely by a bot, portscanning me for ms-rpc services to exploit, and excessive ping flooding to blind my line by soaking its bandwidth in the process). Using this text, I was able to quickly and efficiently cook up a recipe to fortify my home-office line, and proceed effectively with the task at hand.
CONCLUSION
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So with that, if you run any services which are available from the public internet from your Mac, browse this book and stick it on your shelf for when you need it. If you just like to read scary stories, or you are really paranoid and want a good in-depth reference for Mac OSX Security, I believe Maximum Mac OS X Security will rock you.
.ike
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| iPhoto 2: The Missing Manual |
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Amazon reviews
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| Can you imagine a software manual that makes you feel smart, not dumb? David Pogue's iPhoto 2: The Missing Manual does just that. It's written in a way that's easy to understand without being condescending. The straightforward style is well organized, sometimes humorous and always informative.
I'm new to Mac and iPhoto. Some things come easily but the details are often evasive. The Missing Manual fills in the blanks. I was hooked from the first chapter. The discussion of digital cameras and their use has opened my eyes and was a terrific intro to using iPhoto.
The Missing Manual is a reference book that's enjoyable to use.
- cynthia joy, 9/2003
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| Mac OS X Security |
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Author:
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Bruce Potter, Preston Norvel, Brian Wotring
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Published:
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May 21, 2003
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New Riders |
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ISBN:
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0-735-71348-0
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Pages:
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408
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Amazon reviews
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| August 19, 2003
OVERVIEW
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I was heading out soon to my first 'DefCon Experience' this summer, so when I saw this Security book with a really ugly green-trippy cover on the LESMUUG bookshelf, I was immediately interested.
I'd read loads of security materials before, some good, some completely stupid. Good security is never an absolute, any experienced locksmith or network security admin knows this, so I'm wary of any resource which states 'Do this, and you're safe' (except from the author of the resource).
This book met, and exceeded my base expectations, starting out expressing this very sentiment- and constantly refers to the idea that every feature (even just booting), carries with it consequences - some having greater chances of being compromised in some way. That stated, every nuts-and-bolts section deals with the risks involved with a given system component, and gives best-practice real world examples. Noteworthy, is that the book rarely says 'do this', as this violates basic principles security, but instead explains how your system works in the context of securing your data, gives general conceptual workarounds, and assesses their general consequences.
Distinctions between Mac OSX, Darwin, and Mac OSX Server are clearly defined and referenced - and the information covered definitely applies to the future with 'Panther', (though some of the locations of various resources will likely change).
BOOK SUMMARY
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The book is divided up into sections for easy reference, but I'll bastardize it all by grouping things into 3 main sections:
1) Finder: User (finder level) Application security
2) Darwin: Server and general UNIX security
3) Enterprise Security/Authentication systems built into MOSX and how to use them
All the sections cross reference each other nicely, (for example, secure Mail.app usage [and protecting local mail data], is totally shot if your mail server is insecure). The materials on User-level security really go deep into the way the system relies on various system frameworks, and how these frameworks are secured. It also goes into depth on how Keychain.app works, and how to effectively use it - as well as touching on how developers can implement it.
To me, a web application developer, the Darwin and general UNIX security section was most useful, as it gave the MOSX equivalents for a lot of what I do daily on freeBSD servers (and gave a deeper understanding of how thoughtfully designed Darwin is!) Additionally, clear how-to's of almost every basic secure system is covered, (SSL, SSH, Tunneling, authentication best practice, etc...), excellent practical info for both newbies and professionals alike. (All of it made me want to do more system development and hosting on Darwin after going through this!)
The Enterprise security sections (network/security) give a great overview of both practical use, and the internals of things like NetInfo, LDAP, Kerberos, etc... giving both a general overview of these systems, and their relevance to MOSX, from both a client and server perspective. There additionally is a section on security auditing and forensics, but it's mostly a brief overview, as these topics are way too large to be covered in depth here. Regardless, it does cover the basics and gives some valuable MOSX-specific notes for log locations. I thought this is great stuff, especially since I (and most folks) don't use this stuff every day, and things like NetInfo are so poorly documented elsewhere.
IKE SUMMARY
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If you want absolute security for a given system, don't turn on the computer (and additionally, encase it in concrete, and hide that somewhere). However, if you want to gain a better understanding of how to reduce the likelihood of having your data compromised, this book is a terrific launchpad for the practical and/or paranoid Mac OS X user, developer, or other... heck, it's just a good book to quickly get a practical view of the core of how OSX fundamentally works.
All in all, THIS BOOK ROCKS, as do the authors. Good information doesn't usually come from good writers, and this text is extremely readable.
PS: (!)
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One of the authors of this book spoke at DefCon!
Bruce Potter gave a lecture on bluetooth, 'wardriving of the future', as well as helping with the lecture on 'AirSnarf, a wifi-snarfing toolkit.
http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-11/defcon-11-speakers.html#Potter
http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-11/defcon-11-speakers.html#Beetle
Potter is a member of the Schmoo group,
http://www.shmoo.com/
and their stuff rocks HAAAARD. (Airsnarf and Bluesnif are tools they distribute)
Additionally, there was a session on locking down MacOSX:
http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-11/defcon-11-speakers.html#Beale
The lecturer, Jay Beale was a nice enough guy, but the lecture was WAY too basic. I think that a small crew from the LESMUUG could do a better job with that lecture next year.... Anyone with me?
I'll have DefCon lecture notes at the next meeting to share for all this...
Rocket-
.ike
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| Mac OS X Hints: Jaguar Edition |
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Author:
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Rob Griffiths
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Published:
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April 2003
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00451-6
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Pages:
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478
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Amazon reviews
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I knew from his macosxhints web site Rob Griffiths was an honest, hard working, modest and generous guy with an eye for quality and esthetics. No doubt he's also loyal, obedient, brave, thrifty, clean and reverent. I didn't know until I read Mac OS X Hints, the book, that he was a literary genius. Clearly, the Pogue vibes energized Rob's creativity. The writing is entertaining while the hints are novel and valuable. Ignoring the author's suggestion I read the book from cover to cover. It's really nice to read paragraph after paragraph of geek gook and enjoy the text. I frequently got the "what's so hilarious now?" look from the wife as I giggled and laughed out loud. I also found myself talking to the book -- "cool, I knew that", "hmm... interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind", "wow!", "OMG! that's how you do that!", etc. The entire range of nerd emotions.
It was clear the book was a winner after reading the preface; The Missing Credits. A clean, honest list of who's responsible, complete with email addresses. The quality is evident before you get to the introduction -- even the blurb "About Pogue Press" was amusing and encouraging. There's no explanation that a paragraph labeled "Tip" is a "Tip" or courier font means it's supposed to look like teletype output. That's refreshing. A book that assumes I can read a book. The cover boasts 500 hints. Leave it to Griffiths to be modest on the cover. There are 563 hints -- any other book would say "Over 500 Hints" or "almost 600 Hints". There's no animal on the cover. More points. This book was so obviously going to be good I wanted to write the review before I finished the introduction. But I wanted to read the book too, so I held off. Of course my impression was not only justified, but enhanced.
Mac OS X Hints is a motivator that familiarizes you with things you might have figured you can accomplish somehow but never took the time to work out. Here, so many gems are in one place, the time you take will reward you with useful techniques you'll pick up immediately and use continually. The hints go into effect as soon as you touch your computer.
As someone who's been using Unix for 25 years, Mac OS X since it was made public, and lives and breathes sites and forums like macosxhints I didn't think I would learn a lot. I was wrong. I picked up a ton of new stuff. In fact, I noted the number of hints in each chapter I found new and interesting (as opposed the ones I already knew about, could easily have looked up, or simply didn't care about -- for instance I skipped the section on OS 9 Classic). A third of the hints (190 of 563) were winners for me. Most of the other two thirds were fun to read anyway and many of them were useful micro refreshers. (I'm using perhaps my favorite new hint while writing this. Why didn't I notice before that highlighting a misspelled word and right-clicking revealed the suggested spelling at the top of the contextual menu, and selecting it replaces the misspelling? Now I use that constantly.)
Mac OS X Hints only gets 5 of 5 stars. Why not 6? Having about 10 times more experience with Unix than Mac OS X and being extraordinarily picky about facts and presentation I wasn't as delighted with the Unix chapters as I was with the rest of the book. They were alright, most of the content even good, but I would quibble with a couple of the facts and some of the wording. Nevertheless I noted 20 hints in those two chapters that tickled my fancy.
There is a lot of information in Mac OS X Hints and you're not going to remember it all but you probably will remember that you read something about a way to do this or that. The book so far has served as an excellent reference volume. The index has lead me to an answer every time, first time and he table of contents lists each hint as well. I wish all the URLs mentioned had been listed in an appendix. But then, I always do.
I've just placed an Amazon order of a dozen copies for my family and closest (geographically) friends. If you're not among them get your own copy. You won't be disappointed.
ber
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| Mac OS X in a Nutshell |
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Author:
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Jason McIntosh, Chuck Toporek, Chris Stone
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Published:
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January 2003
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00370-6
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Pages:
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826
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Amazon reviews
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Trying to nail a moving target like OS X is an ambitious undertaking and Mac OS X in a Nutshell falls short. The layout of the book is found on O'Reilly's web site, and using many different styles and varying degrees of depth from one topic to the next, the book appears to have been rushed to print. However, even allowing the trade-offs between quality and currency doesn't explain why the book documents a snapshot of OS X 10.2 as it was in August 2002, although comments in the text say the time of writing was as recent as January 2003. Either it was completed in the few days just before MacWorld San Francisco or it was simply too late to include any references to the many significant developments presented by then. In any event, the book's timing is unfortunate as it appears dated and less relevant then if it were published four months earlier or a few weeks later. Having completed the book, I found myself with the same unanswered questions I had when I started it, and some new ones.
The book purports to target power users but I think they would find it too slow and shallow for the most part and, as a reference, too disorganized. A better audience would be newcomers to Mac OS X, particularly those who want to develop for the platform and need an overview of its capabilities. For that group the book serves as a reasonable starting point, however, readers should take care not to quote facts from the book without double-checking them; some outdated material, minor inaccuracies and vague wording will most likely land them on the losing sides of arguments.
More troubling than anything else about the book are the omissions. For example, there's no discussion of virtual memory nor the annoying havoc wrought when running out of disk space corrupts "Preference files" (and how these topics are related). In the "Dotfiles" section there is no mention of the most ubiquitous dotfile of them all -- .DS_Store. Things are brought up but not described. For instance, the Ruby language is listed numerous times along with Perl, Python and others but it's missing from the chapter that describes these programming languages and it's not even in the index. This is not to say the book must discuss Ruby but if it's going to refer to it multiple times then it needs to be addressed. These point out the problem areas – information that's simply not covered, sections that cover a topic but miss key elements, and terms and concepts the text refers to but fails to discuss.
Even with the issues described above the book still contains a lot of useful information. I've picked up a couple new things and referred back to it on occasion. But the pay-off doesn't justify the reading effort. The book needs some serious editing work to smooth out the presentation consistency, better fact checking and an eye toward precision of wording. If this were turned into a true reference book O'Reilly could publish additional volumes such as Changes for OS X 10.3, Panther and bi-monthly mini-volumes that could refer back to the base volumes. That would be a useful collection.
[a longer version of this rant with mostly different words can be found here -ed]
ber
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| Google Hacks |
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Author:
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Tara Calishain , Rael Dornfest
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Published:
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February 2003
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00447-8
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Pages:
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352
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Amazon reviews
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| Not a book for me. It focused on using the perl APIs google provides for advanced searches. I don't understand what you're going to get from using these that's so amazing. There are some interesting facts in the book like the number of words you can enter. But those are pretty standard anyway.
- mikey
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| Learning Unix for Mac OS X, 2nd Edition |
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Author:
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Dave Taylor , Brian Jepson
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Published:
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December 2002
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00470-2
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Pages:
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158
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Amazon reviews
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| I read it and thought that it was good ... for someone new to UNIX with a Mac in front of them ...but for a UNIX g33k, it was sparse. It's not for us UNIX g33ks.
- Jared Earle, UNIX sysadmin and Mac user
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Date: Thu Mar 27, 2003 4:08:25 PM US/Eastern
To: lesmuug
Subject: Apple Class Review
I found the "intro to apple" class I attended a little disappointing . It was so informal it bordered on unprofessional. The speaker started off by telling us his presentation would be unstructured, thus allowing flexibility to dictate the path the course would take.
The first topic discussed was fear of breakage. He made the point that experimentation is a good learning tool and that short of dropping the computer it is difficult to do any real damage. Having a background in sales, I thought a brief mention of AppleCare might have been worthwhile at this point to further eliminate any fear of trying new things. I also felt an explanation of the "forced quit" would have been helpful for those people who have trouble with owner's manuals. The speaker next went on to describe how the screen would look when the computer is first turned on and how it looks when it's ready to use. I thought this was leading up to the benefits of the "sleep mode" and how in many instances it is unnecessary to shut down the computer. Although the sleep mode was not mentioned at this time a brief mention of it was made later in the presentation. The speaker's main point at this time was a somewhat lengthy description of the Tool Bar. I was a little surprised how many people in the group didn't know what the different icons represented and needed an explanation of what they did.
In an awkward attempt to show how the tool bar could be customized the speaker made a foolish mistake. While trying to show how easy it is to remove an icon from the tool bar with a puff of smoke, he chose the wrong icon to remove, the AOL icon. This would have been fine had he not explained that it wasn't removed from the computer only the tool bar. When he went to reinstall the AOL icon he couldn't find it. After a few vain attempts to locate it, he made some excuse about many different users on the store computers. He tried to make light of this mistake and moved on. It may not have been too bad but it certainly wasn't good.
The use of the red, yellow, and green dots was also discussed. The use of the dots was more by example than explanation. The emphasis here was more on what they do, not on why you would use them. I had heard the yellow shrink dot called a genie and that it can be slowed down. I was hoping to see this slowed effect demonstrated but alas I did not as time was running short and questions were slowing us down.
When I signed up for this class I was expecting a smooth running presentation that moved along logically. I was hoping to learn more about how to use the applications that came pre-installed in my iBook. What I got was quite different. This class was structured more towards customers interested in switching to apple or still waiting for their computer to be delivered. I'm looking forward to the advanced class where I'm told apple script and its applications will be discussed.
- dave
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| Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition |
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Author:
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David Pogue
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Published:
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October 2002
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00450-8
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Pages:
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725
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Amazon reviews
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| 3/16/03
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue
This is really a great book, the only thing wrong with it is it weighs as much as my running shoes, so I don't really want to carry it around in my backpack.
I gave a copy of it to one of my friends, who had a Mac running OS X for a first computer. He started using it, starting at the front and found it very helpful.
I use it to look up things I want to know, like when I forget how to mount a disk off another computer, or grab a bunch of photos and move them to a folder in iPhoto. I find the book to be quite well organized and indexed. I can find what I want. The book has sections on all kinds of things, graphics, movies, file sharing, networking, as well as troubleshooting.
I consider the book a must have.
lesmuug member #0000003
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| Macintosh... The Naked Truth |
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Author:
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Scott Kelby
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Published:
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March 7, 2002
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New Riders |
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ISBN:
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0-735-71284-0
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Pages:
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240
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Amazon reviews
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12/17/02
Macintosh... The Naked Truth ($19.95) is a fun, easy, entertaining read. As an MS-hating Unix user myself, I felt for the Author and was able to laugh at all those idiot PC users with him. This book was also a very good learning experience on how to deal with the PC users' antics. The book reads like a guide on what to expect when you are a new mac user, at the stores, in your social life, and how you will gradually look at PC users as the Dark Side after switching to the Mac. Chapter 4 has a Mac test, take it, it's a lot of fun and you will know whether the Mac is for you. If you like to have lots of fun, skip right to Chapter 8 (and then 9). Here you will find E-mails from PC users to Mac Designer magazine. Author pokes so much fun at the dumb PC users, it's sickeningly funny. In Chapter 8, there are pot shots at everything PC- PCs, MS, people who use PCs, etc. Also, lots of fun.
Enjoy the Book, Highly Recommended.
Lenny Primak
PP-ASEL,H-IA
http://hope.nyc.ny.us
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| Mac OS X for Unix Geeks |
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Author:
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Brian Jepson, Enest E. Rothman
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Published:
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September, 2002
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O'Reilly |
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ISBN:
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0-596-00356-0
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Pages:
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216
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Amazon reviews
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| 1/24/03
OSX for UNIX Geeks is an excellent 1 hour read. It would take longer to read it thoroughly, but that really isn't necessary. This is the kind of book that you quickly move through scanning each page for important tips about how OS/X is different. Veteran UNIX users will find that there are no difficult concepts to grasp here, just some syntax changes to get used to. I would not recommend actually buying this book, or keeping it on a bookshelf, just using someone else's copy for the evening.
-mikey
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