allgeektout

So, I wasn’t thrilled with the last Take Control book. But maybe it was because I was already famiiar with some of the options for running Windows on a Mac OS X. So I was excited to get the chance to review one about something I wasn’t as familiar with – Terminal. And this one, I feel, is a bit better at helping you Take Control. Find out after the jump.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve always been afraid of playing around with Terminal. I’ve always worried that I’m going to make the one mistake that causes my computer to break. So having a book to hold my hand through the process is great.

And this is a genuinely good book to be holding my hand. The chapters are in a logical order, gradually building more and more with each section. And although it doesn’t truely help you completely Take Control of your computer, but it gets close as it gets closer to the end of the book. In particular, the Command Line Recepies are helpful, even though they don’t fully explain how they work.

In the end,the book did keep me from worrying too much about using Terminal. I’m still careful (as the book suggests), but it encouraged me to learn how to use Terminal. And isn’t that the point of the book after all?

Hits: Very helpful, Good price, cool PDF update scheme.
Misses: Still could go into a little more depth.

The Bottom Line: Nine out of Ten. This book is great, but not perfect. If you need to learn how to use Terminal, however, get this book.

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