This book serves as a bridge for Unix developers and system administrators who've been lured to Mac OS X because of its Unix roots. When you first launch the Terminal application, you'll find yourself at home in a Unix shell, but like Apple's credo, 'Think Different,' you'll soon find yourself doing things a little differently. Some of the standard Unix utilities you've grown accustomed to may not be there, /etc/passwd and /etc/group have been supplanted with something called Directory Services, and when it comes to developing applications, you'll find that things like library linking and compiling have a few new twists to them.
Despite all the beauty of Mac OS X's Aqua interface, you'll find that some things are different on the Unix side. But rest assured, they're easy to deal with if you know what to do. This book is your survival guide for taming the Unix side of Mac OS X.
Author Biography
Ernest E. Rothman is a Professor of Mathematics at Salve Regina University (SRU) in Newport, Rhode Island, where he is also Chair of the Mathematical Sciences Department. Ernie holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and held positions at the Cornell Theory Center in Ithaca, New York, before coming to SRU. His interests are in scientific computing, applied mathematics and computational science education, and the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X. Ernie lives in South Kingston, Rhode Island with his wife Kim and two Newfoundland dogs Max and Joe. You can keep abreast of his latest activities at http://homepage.mac.com/samchops.Brian Jepson is an O'Reilly editor, programmer, and co-author of Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks and Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther. He's also a volunteer system administrator and all-around geek for AS220, a non-profit arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 gives Rhode Island artists uncensored and unjuried forums for their work. These forums include galleries, performance space, and publications. Brian sees to it that technology, especially free software, supports that mission.Rich Rosen is one of the co-authors (along with Brian Jepson and Ernie Rothman) of the fourth edition of Mac OS X for Unix Geeks, which will be published in the fall of 2008. He has been actively working with Macs for over twenty years, currently using a Mac Mini as his home server, an iMac as the centerpiece of his home recording studio, and a MacBook for live musical performance and writing.Rich also collaborated with Leon Shklar on Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols & Practices, a textbook on advanced Web application development that has an updated edition coming out later this year. He began his career eons ago at Bell Labs, where his work with relational databases, Unix, and the Internet prepared him well for the world of Web application development. He currently works at Interactive Data Corporation writing software for the Fixed Income Systems group. Rich holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology, and he lives in New Jersey with his wife, Celia, whose singing provides a sweet counterpoint to the cacophony he produces in his studio.
