Evil Unix

[Jim Redelfs]

Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther (2nd Edition)
By Mark Conrad
April 2004
497 pages, $39.95 US

This book provides an introduction to Unix on Mac OS X using an approach
which avoids the usual Unix guru arrogance. You'll learn everything you
need, without actually trying. With this book you can become a Unix
expert in your sleep. You don't actually need to read this book,
because it comes with our patented ESP system, which beams knowledge
into your brain while you sleep. You'll be an expert in no time without
the trouble of actually putting any effort into understanding.

All chapters appear twice so that you can ask the same questions
repeatedly and still get answers. If Unix isn't new to you, you'll
discover why you are an evil guru bent on keeping newbies under your
thumb.

Table of Contents:

1. Why Unix Gurus Hate Newbies
They Were Born Knowing it All
They Don't Want Anyone Else to Know
Arise, Cast Off Your Chains!

2. The Dangers of Trying: Why Not to Bother with Man Pages

3. Terrorists And Your Mac
Why They Want Your Disk's Unused Space
Tin-Foil Hat Design and Accessories

4. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 1

5. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 2

6. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 3

7. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 4

8. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 5

9. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 6

10. Backups the Hard Way: "dd", part 7

11. Learning the Command Line
Listing of the 900 Available Commands
Why It's Necessary to Learn Every One in Detail
Memorizing Command-line Options like to Big Boys do.
Learning it all While Sleeping

12. Disk Utility vs. PdiskZilla
Pdisk, Scary Monster Under the Bed
Sizing Partitions to the Last Bit

13. The Insider's Secret: LISP
Using LISP Manuals to Understand Unix
Why Emacs is Evil

14. Mac OS X, Unix, and Business
Remote Control, the Secret Cash Cow
Timbuktu

A. Appendix: Solving Irrelevant Problems the Hard Way

[Cletus Baker]

Post by Jim Redelfs
Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther (2nd Edition)
By Mark Conrad
April 2004
497 pages, $39.95 US

It's a bargain!!! Sign me up! I especially like the duplication of
chapters. Though there's nothing particularly novel about reading in my
sleep. I've found myself doing that for several years now.

[Jim Redelfs]

In article <cletus-***@sneeze.novia.net>,
Cletus Baker <***@bltd.com> wrote:

JR> Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther (2nd Edition)
JR4 97 pages, $39.95 US

Post by Cletus Baker
It's a bargain!!! Sign me up! I especially like the duplication of
chapters. Though there's nothing particularly novel about reading in my
sleep. I've found myself doing that for several years now.

Jack sat down to Terminal on my Power Macintosh (1.25ghz SP running G4 running
Mac OS X Panther) and started typing/commanding away!

Up until this newest version of the OS (started w/6.0.3, October, 1989), I
actually knew what was going on and could even do something about it.

It's all greek to me now. <sigh>

Mac OS X "Panther" (10.3.3), with its aqua and brushed steel interface and
unbelievable stability, was truly worth waiting for.

Having bought an iPod only a few months after the new G4, I am getting more
mileage out of my music collection than I ever expected to get again.

I have been sending my film to Kodak for which i received back conventional
prints and a digital copy of each frame on CD. I have been putting iPhoto to
the test.

With the ultimate addition of a cable modem connection, I am truly enjoying my
Macintosh like never since the old toaster days before the BBS.

I bought MS Office X Professional Edition with the new box and have been using
and enjoying the heck out of Entourage. Word and Excel come in handy, too.

(Why I thought I would ever use the included Virtual PC and XP Professional in
an emulated environment on my new Mac currently eludes me, although it's not
bad.)

I bought iLife 4 and have only taken a perfunctory look at GarageBand. My big
thing is iPhoto and iTunes.

iPod is definitely worth the price of admission.

:)
JR

[Cletus Baker]

Post by Jim Redelfs

Post by Cletus Baker
chapters. Though there's nothing particularly novel about reading in my
sleep. I've found myself doing that for several years now.

(I suppose I properly should have ordered the sentence otherwise; Nina
accuses me of "sleeping in my read".)

Post by Jim Redelfs
Jack sat down to Terminal on my Power Macintosh (1.25ghz SP running G4
running Mac OS X Panther) and started typing/commanding away!

I have to admit it's the first thing I tried as well. It's what I'd
been waiting for on Mac ever since my Amiga days: the convenience of a
GUI coupled with the power of a CLI! ;-)

Post by Jim Redelfs
It's all greek to me now. <sigh>

But the beauty of it is that you don't *have* to learn greek if you
don't want to. If you take the time to learn some of it, though, it
goes a long way toward effecting powerful control over the machine. I
still prefer to fire up the terminal to interact with elm running on my
Novia shell for mail.

Post by Jim Redelfs
Mac OS X "Panther" (10.3.3), with its aqua and brushed steel interface and
unbelievable stability, was truly worth waiting for.

Panther absolutely rocks, quite apart from its appearance. Earlier
versions of OSX left me cold (and I bought 'em all). They simply
weren't ready for prime time. But Panther resulted in a very sudden
maturity of the OS into a rock-solid, reliable platform.

I just haven't had the time to experiment with all the iLife set of
programs. I've popped 'em open to take a look around, but haven't
exercised any of 'em. I'm also using (well, rather forced to use) MS
Office X. Never cracked Entourage (no particular use for it), and I've
never liked Word (bloatware taken to the most extreme degree IMHO, but
clients are always sending me scripts in Word format), but Excel is
superb. And one of these years I'll find a use for PowerPoint, I just
know it.

I have one PC audio conversion app that I rely on which I run in
Virtual PC (Win 98), and that seems to behave quite well under OSX ...
much faster than it did under prior OSes.

I haven't found a compelling reason to get an iPod, though my partner
did and thoroughly enjoys it. It's a neat little bit of technology if
you're in a position to carry tunes around with you all day; I'm
generally not. And though it can be used for data xfer as well, I have
a keychain "USB drive" that serves me well enough.

Bet you wouldn't have thought 20 years ago that you'd hear me
extolling the virtues of a Mac OS!