Truth be told, the word Visual figures in this book's title for a reason. The reason is that the format was developed to illustrate how to get things done with graphical user interfaces (GUIs), like those of the traditional Mac environment and of Windows. The format works very well for that purpose. It kind of falls down, however, when it's applied to the command-line interface of Mac OS X (this alternative interface, which reflects the operating system's Unix-based core, is called "Darwin"). The very small screen shots that work well for GUIs inspire eyestrain when applied to terminal windows. Fortunately, though, the Darwin material makes up less than 10 percent of this book, and the text that accompanies the illustrations generally makes up for their diminutive size. --David Wall
Topics covered: Mac OS X for users of the operating system. Sections show how to configure multiple users, set up a network, and use the native utilities. There's a fair bit of coverage on the system's Unix-like underpinnings, as well.