The use of Apple’s Mac desktop and MacBook laptop systems, especially among technical professionals, has grown significantly, encouraging even diehard Windows users to give serious consideration to switching. Although there are general similarities among all graphical user interfaces (GUIs), there are major differences between the Microsoft and Apple environments’ appearance, layout, applications, and navigation.

This book is written for computer users already familiar with Windows who are now learning Mac OS X. However, even longtime Mac users will find a wealth of useful hints and explanations in this comprehensive, 700-plus-page reference.

The authors cover the entire OS X experience, including the basics of navigating the OS X Aqua desktop, how to locate and manage files and applications, and the idiosyncrasies of the Apple environment. Like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X includes productivity software and applications, such as a browser (Safari), email (Apple Mail), and calendar (iCal), all of which are described in this reference. Apple also sells application software comparable to Microsoft Office for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, although these are not covered in detail in this book.

OS X is noted for its inclusion of high-quality multimedia programs such as iTunes, GarageBand, iPhoto, and iMovie. While the authors do provide some instructive chapters on these applications, their focus is on using and managing the operating environment. This includes chapters on system configuration and security, managing printers and other devices, creating backups, wireless and wired networking, user management, and system troubleshooting--in all, a quite thorough system management guide for OS X systems.

Because OS X is a Unix operating system (OS) derivative and in fact is certified as Unix, the foundation of its environment will be familiar to users of other Unix systems, such as Solaris and Linux. However, there are significant OS differences; these are detailed in the book’s sections for developers, which include discussions of command shells and scripting tools such as Perl.

The book’s section on networking and file sharing is particularly useful--not only for beginners, but also for regular OS X users--even including a chapter on using OS X as a file server. For developers and more experienced users, the authors introduce Apple’s Xcode environment and script automation tools.

For users who still require access to other OSs, the authors provide some instruction on using multi-boot and virtualization programs; this allows OS X users to run Windows, Linux, Solaris, and other kernels on their Mac systems as needed.

As thorough and useful as this second edition is, it does reference OS X Lion version 10.7; since Apple continuously updates and improves its OS offerings, parts of the book will require revision. Nevertheless, there is still much in this reference that will remain useful. The book was published before Apple introduced iCloud, so that key technology is covered based on early beta versions of the service. The authors plan to post updates about iCloud and other book content on their Web site (http://www.learnmacos.info/).

This book is an extensive and quite readable reference for both new and experienced Mac users, developers, and administrators; it’s a useful companion to Apple’s online documentation.