Recommended reading for learning OSX?

[fastbilly1]

Ok plain and simple:
I am a Windows guy first and foremost. I know XP incredibly well, 7 moderately, and was a Jr System Admin for a while. I also can navigate through Linux, just not well enough that if something breaks I know exactly how to fix it. However my experience with OSX is all at user level. Are there any books or guides for learning the inner workings of OSX? I am not looking for a "this is how you install a program" guide. What I need is a "OSX's Driver hive is built like this" or "using terminal..." kind of book.

I have a potential job that would require me to have a Mac and know how to use it well. And it would get me out of my current hellhole of a job - and let me build some sick PCs (the job is half OSX half Windows).

[s1mplehumar]

Talk to Niode?

I'm still a Mac novice myself and recently grabbed this on the cheap http://tinyurl.com/47lwt4r. I can't really offer any impressions yet, but I will say the exercises are pretty easy to follow, assuming you're looking for something to assist a potential sysadmin.

[fastbilly1]

I was thinking about that series. Ill make sure to grab it in the future.

Surprisingly the job is not an admin job. It just requires high levels of understanding of multiple OSs.

[Niode]

I'll try to help as best I can. I know a fair bit about the inner workings of OS X (I have to otherwise when my Hackintosh installation decides to barf all over itself I won't know how to get it back to booting).

Personally, I learnt it all by using this website for a long time: http://hints.macworld.com/

A smattering of Lifehacker taught me the rest.

The only way you'll learn it all is by immersing yourself in the OS. Trouble shooting issues as and when they come up (not as easy since you don't tend to run into that many issues in the average day to day running of the OS. It's only when you start tinkering with the inner workings that you start to get issues).

[fastbilly1]

Alright Niode, expect some PMs in the future.

I found two Orielly books that I am going to pick up - one on converting from Windows and one on Admining OSX. I am borrowing a second hand G4 tower this Friday from a coworker and will hopefully get to dive in fully over the weekend.

[Niode]

Alright Niode, expect some PMs in the future.

I found two Orielly books that I am going to pick up - one on converting from Windows and one on Admining OSX. I am borrowing a second hand G4 tower this Friday from a coworker and will hopefully get to dive in fully over the weekend.

Nice the G4 is a pretty good piece of kit. You'll be surprised at how fast they still are. However the lack of Intel CPU will mean you are stuck on Leopard. So not really ideal. Any chance you can borrow an intel iMac or Macbook?

[fastbilly1]

Sadly not right now. But maybe in the future.

[Hatta]

I just got a G4 too. But I'm putting Morphos on it.

[Lokkenjawnz]

As someone who's used macs basically exclusively since I started using computers, one of my favorite mac resources is http://www.macosxhints.com. It's not what I'd call general knowledge stuff, or stuff that you'll necessarily use every day, but there's some invaluable hints and tricks in there, and plenty of terminal stuff to get you started.

[CRTGAMER]

A great book - O'Relly MAC OSX HINTS

I have a iMac G3 which has both OS9 and OSX, glad to help anytime.

Couple useful features I posted on my CRT vs LCD signature link.

Capturing YouTube Video



If you're using Safari, there's an easy way to download YouTube videos. Open the page with the movie and press Command-Option-A, which shows the Activity window. If you're also loading other sites, you'll see a list of them: scroll until you find the YouTube page and click on the arrow to show details about what is being loaded.

You will certainly notice an element whose size is over 0.5MB (most of the time, over 5MB). Double-click on it (even if it is still loading), and Safari will download it. When the download is over, navigate to the file in the Finder (which will probably be called get_video) and add the extension .flv to its name. Now you can play it with VLC or with QuickTime (only if you have Perian installed).

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Converting Files




Okay do this if you have a MAC Computer:
You can convert select single pages out of PDF's to JPG using Mac Preview. Just highlight a page and save as a JPG. You can also convert Word Doc files to HTML's using Mac Word by saving as Web Page.

Creating a PDF with multiple JPGS

OSX Leopard 10.5 and newer.
To join two or more PDF files together using Preview – the standard pdf viewer in OS X – simply open a PDF in preview, open the thumbnail view, and then drag a second pdf file ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail. The two documents will merge into one. Then save the new combined file. Read on for step-by-step instructions. To merge the two PDF files you need to drag the new PDF on top of an existing thumbnail. If you drag it into the sidebar but not on top of an existing page the new file will be added as an external link – not merged into the original PDF document. You can do the same with JPGs and save as a PDF file.

OSX Tiger 10.4 and older
Use the Combine PDFs program.
Simply drag JPGS and then click the Merge PDFs button on the bottom right.

You can Screen capture with SHIFT COMMAND 4, then drag mouse over area to be captured.