48 MacDirectory
BOOK REVIEWS
link to the online user guide when you get
there. Apple gives you just enough infor-
mation to survive in iPhone-land. Portable
Genius authors Paul McFedries and David
Pabian will show you how to thrive.
Their book is well-written, logically
organized and copiously illustrated
(thanks, in part, to the phone's new
screen-shot capabilities). With the
exception of the simulated "aqua" look of
the page and section headers (it doesn't
work as well in print as it does on a
screen) the book is a pleasure to read and
browse. With the abundance of features
and dearth of documentation, this was
one technical book you'll probably want to
read cover-to-cover with a pad of sticky-
notes at your side. With only 250 heavily
illustrated pages, that's not a particularly
daunting task.
The authors assume that you'll be pairing
your phone with a Mac, and cover virtually
everything you'll want to know about
working with the iApps. There's even a
handy section on how to use Garage
Band to create and install your own ring
tones. However, if you're tethered to a
Windows box, you'll find out how to
perform the basic setup to talk to your
Exchange server or have MobileMe sync
with Outlook. This will manage to get you
up and running until your IT department
figures out how they want you to do it.
Unless you're willing to spend the time
and battery power to research all the
facets of your new iPhone, McFedries and
Pabian's
iPhone 3G Portable Genius is the
quickest, easiest and most enjoyable way
of becoming the local iPhone guru.
iPhone 3G Portable Genius
by Paul McFedries and David Pabian
Wiley
250 pages, $25
ISBN 978-0-470-42348-6
Mac OS X Deployment
v10.5
The task of deploying applications,
updates and even entire disk images to
multiple Macs has always been a bit of a
dark art. There are useful resources
scattered about on the Web and some
helpful documents on Apple's site, but
the only way to get a real grasp on the
subject was to do an extraordinary
amount of independent research or have
the good fortune to apprentice with
someone who already has. Kevin M.
White's
Mac OS X Deployment v10.5,
the Apple Training Series' latest
addition, is truly a landmark publication in
that it provides the first essential overview
of the process and the available tools.
This is a book that is long overdue, but
was well worth the wait.
At "only" 360 pages,
Deployment is far
from being the largest of the Apple
Training Series volumes. But White
manages to strike one of the best
balances of scope and detail of any of
the books. The technical meat of the
book is bracketed by early chapters on
the essentials of planning a deployment
and some very useful case studies of
successful deployment strategies at its
conclusion. These are arguably two of
the most valuable chapters in the book.
As he gets into the technical details, the
author begins revealing some of the
magic behind building user-friendly
installation packages. As one would
imagine coming from Apple and its
developer community, both the creation
process and the end results are graced
with more than a little elegance.
However, the real challenge is the art of
building and deploying full disk images.
Mac administrators will learn that they
have many more options than their
overworked PC counterparts. This serves
as both a blessing (a Mac OS deployment
can be handled far more efficiently than
the competition) and a curse (the image
creation process can be much more
complex). One of the great strengths of
the book is that it doesn't narrow its
perspective to Apple's own solutions and
it offers invaluable references to other
resources and tools that are available.
You'll discover that many of the most
useful are already part of OS X or available
free from developers such as the
renowned (and incredibly generous)
Mike Bombich. Even if your shop decides
to take advantage of a high-end commer-
cial deployment solution such as JAMF
Software's Casper Suite, White's book
offers the knowledge you'll need to make
the most of the tools and develop the
most practical strategies for your
computing environment.
As you can imagine,
Mac OS X
Deployment
is targeted at readers with
significant experience supporting Macs,
are comfortable with the Terminal's
command line and are familiar with
servers. But given those prerequisites,
Kevin White will guide you into that
mystical realm where you'll feel (nearly) as
comfortable tending to dozens or even
hundreds of Macs as you would with the
one on your desktop.
Mac OS X Deployment v10.5
by Kevin M. White
Peachpit Press
360 pages, $59.99
ISBN 978-0-321-50268-1
