Review: Big Book of Apple Hacks
Big Book of Apple Hacks
by Chris Seibold
If you are an experienced Mac user, you probably start wondering about the way things are. Why did Apple do something this way? Why can’t iTunes play AVI files? What does this ‘Automator’ thing do? In the past, there have not been any decent books for experienced Mac tinkerers; a large gap existed between “Macs for Dummies” one one end and professional programming guides on the other. Luckily, “The Big Book of Apple Hacks” by author Chris Seibold has stepped in to fill this gap very nicely.
Overall, this is an interesting book, with a wide variety of hacks, ranging from relatively simple and harmless (customizing icons) to intermediate (changing the default Safari error page) to downright complex hardware hacks that may require some handiness with a soldering iron (as well as steady nerves). Some of the hacks aren’t really hacks at all, but rather short tutorials on interesting topics, such as how to use BitTorrent or how to simulate a static IP address with a dynamic IP service.
The book is laid out by general topic, rather then difficulty, with topics for Safari, the iPhone, AppleTV, iPods, and so forth. Each topic has a half dozen or more hacks, and the book overall has dozens of hacks. It is a very detailed and long book, and is an excellent value given the enormous breadth of data contained therein.
I made direct use of the book by following the hack to install a web browser on my Apple TV. Unfortunately, the book stumbled a bit here. This involved essentially making a special bootable USB flash drive and booting the AppleTV from this device, called a patchstick. The instructions in the book were a lot longer and more confusing then they had to be, and the first attempt, following the book’s instructions to the latter failed. I then followed the instructions contained in the actual patchstick download itself (not provided by the book) and it worked fine; however, it left my AppleTV with a working web browser — and an extraneous menu item for something called Jamen — an unpleasant surprise not mentioned in the book.
I do not want to ‘ding’ this book too much for my poor experience with their AppleTV hack, as by its nature this kind of thing will not work perfectly every time. You have to be willing to experiment to really enjoy the book, and the other hacks I tried worked flawlessly. Even for the hacks I didn’t need or want to try were enjoyable to read about; if nothing else the book will give you ideas and inspiration for your own computer use.
Note that this book is not for beginning or even intermediate Mac users. While some of the hacks are not difficult, they all have the potential to screw up your system, and while an intermediate user is probably OK, especially with a few of the topic-based tutorials, this book is really meant for an experienced user who is not afraid to get his or her hands dirty…and who always has an up-to-date backup of their system available for the inevitable screw-ups! It is also worth noting that the world of computers changes quickly, and portions of the book have already become out of date with new MacOS and hardware releases. So, check the book’s web site and as always, backup before playing!
Summary: A good overall guide filled with interesting ways to expand and enhance your Apple equipment for experienced users.
Plusses: Good mixture of easy and difficult ‘hacks’, very engaging writing style, lots of very useful ideas
Minuses: Some hacks were incompletely documented, quickly out of date.
Rating 3.5 out of 5 Dogcows
November 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hey, thanks for the review! Someone pointed me to this and I found it pretty on the spot.
On the Apple TV browser hack: The good news is that something easier is coming, the bad news is that your experience was just about the same as mine. When I wrote that hack it worked exactly as written. When I tried to follow the instructions from the book after updating my Apple TV to the latest version (after the book came out) the instructions no longer worked.
The problem seems to be that the patchstick program had changed. When i used the old patchstick program it worked but not with the new one. It is hard to write this kind of stuff when everything is in flux. On of the mistakes I made in the book was not stressing that enough. A “if this doesn’t work try the latest instructions at blah blah” or perhaps explaining what is going on in greater depth.
Thanks for taking the time to read the book!