Great if you are coming from a technical background
I have been using Mac OS X since the first public beta, and have some other Unix experience. I must say, this book has taken me a long way towards applying the things I know about other Unix environments to Mac OS X. Despite my Mac OS X experience, I feel that this book has taught me a lot about the Darwin flavor of Unix. As an added bonus, the book's careful explinations have helped me to better understand the other Unix platforms I have worked with.All and all, this was a good, if technical, book. Perfect for anybody who is interested in porting Unix software to Mac OS X, as well as the Unix admin who wants to get the most out of the new environment. However, unlike the title maintains, you don't have to be a Unix geek to get something worthwhile from the reading - though you may consider yourself one after carefully going through this book.My only complaint is that the book leaves you wanting more information in some areas. Thankfully, it is always quick to point you to other O'Reilly titles that fill in the gaps.

Empowering your Mac in steps.
This book is most effective if you are sitting in front of your Mac system whether it's a laptop or desktop. Work your way through the examples from start to finish, reading the chapter introduction before embarking on each adventure. While hacking is generally viewed as a more skilled or extremely geeky term, this book is clearly useful to experienced beginners who want to gain expertise in the functionality/usability of their Mac (as well as those who want to explore modifying their Mac more extensively).

Part I of the book is dedicated to a gentle introduction to the components that make up Mac OS: the finder, dashboard, dock, preferences, user interface, startup, iTunes, utilities, unix applications, terminal, and shell commands.

Part II is strictly for those ready for the "Advanced Mac" training.

Although most people see the GUI portion of the OS, keep in mind that the "engine" underlying the GUI is Unix and 'hacking' the Mac will at some point descend into command line editing. Rather than be daunted by exposure to typing in your commands instead of having your desires constrained by what some application interface designer decided you could change with a GUI, embrace the power of the OS. Knaster slowly prepares the reader for the more advanced adventures as he introduces the Terminal in the "Quit the Finder" example. Seeing each following example you can build an idea of what you are doing by looking at the similarities of the commands. Rather than just limiting you to what he knows, Knaster is building up your understanding of how the underlying secret functionality works. For example if you look at the first few examples in Chapter 1 you will see the following pattern:

defaults write com.apple.finder Function optional flag yes|no
(for non geeks the | stands for OR ..)

If we translate this to English, defaults is clearly talking about the "default way I want this done", com.apple.finder is how to refer to the finder application, and then it finishes with a toggle for turning the function on or off. We see that this formula is consistent as we follow through with the next chapter with

"defaults write com.apple.Dock function toggle"

Part II of this book may be too advanced for beginners, but gives expert users exposure to more of these building blocks to understanding the power of the OS.

Overall, a very well written book with great introductions to topics and well thought out examples to modifying the Mac from beginner to advanced techniques. I highly recommend it to individuals who are interested in becoming more Mac proficient. At a bargain price of ~ on Amazon, compared to many technical books that sell at over a piece this is a must have.

Good, Bad, Ugly
I found the first two sections of this book very useful. ie, I have come to LOVE Mac OS's zoom feature, which I use all the time now to make small video boxes 'fill' my 17" screen. There are other fun trick and tips in those first two sections.
It's the third section that bewilders me. Without any transition, the book goes right hardcore into coding. I ended up having to use the 'help' menu in Apple's XCode developer application just to understand how to do some of the things the book instructs you to do. Then I spend all this time entering a bunch of tedious, rote code. Then what do I do? I don't know. The book doesn't tell you how to actually turn all that code you wrote in XCode into a useful application. Is there some icon I'm supposed to double-click now? I don't know and the book doesn't tell me.
Blah... Even in those first two sections, come to think of it, I would have been totally lost if I did not already read the "Missing Manual" guide to MacOSX and get an understanding of Terminal and Unix. Geez, would it have killed the author to have taken just a little bit of time and offered readers an explanation of what Terminal is, what Unix is, and how to use those to follow the instructions given in the book?
That's my take and I'm sticking with it.

Great for Code Writers ONLY
I had to return this book, only because of my unfamiliarity with UNIX. Long gone are the days when I used to knock out code. I've been spoiled (ruined some might say) by years of GUI and the heavy use of utility programs.

If you like using Console on your MAC you'd probably get a kick from using this book.

I wanted to leave my review 'unrated' because I consider myself unqualified to judge its utility, not because it is necessarily a poor manual, but the Review form required I supply some rating so I chose 'middle of the road' 3 stars.

The perfect blend of tips and technique
I love clever tips, and Scott Knaster delivers a ton of them here, many seen nowhere else. But this tome goes way beyond tips, diving into the gnarly details of Tiger that others have glossed over, such as application internals, Widget construction, and Unix command language. So many Mac books are just a rehash of the surface of the user interface. Scott's book is way ahead of the pack.

Decent collection of stuff including source code
I was looking for a book with medium to advanced info on Tiger and this one seemed to fit the bill. I was a little concerned at first when it started off with user tips which were handy, but I wanted more technical stuff. The latter parts of the book really delivered. There's well done sections on Automator and Quartz Composer. The best part is the last chapters which have programs with source for Dashboard, Spotlight, dock badging, and a few more. My advice is skim the first few chapters and pay attention to the rest.

Nice book
I'm not ready yet to publish a review but, i may tell you something. This is a Nice book. Seam to be a little outdated because Shake is now 4.0. Shake is a powerfull software and it's a bit hard to learn by ourself. This book will help you but it's not easy to learn that kind of software from a book, a video training will do a better job. Anyway, this book is a good starting point.

I guess I'm spoiled...
after using the "Creating Motion Graphics" books by the Meyers for After Effects. They know how to teach! I'm preparing for a job on a big budget animation feature that will use Shake for compositing, hoping to move from the world of Motion Graphics to high-end compositing...W-e-l-l, this book didn't teach me much at all in terms of concepts or the art of compositing. I "hear" Marco is a nice guy and an accomplished compositor, which makes the book all the more disappointing. I'm not saying I didn't learn anything, but "now click here, now click there...and now add this value"...ain't that cool!?" is NOT truly teaching me anything. The new "Studio Techniques" book for compositing in After Effects is excellent. I wish there was a comparable book for Shake. This ain't it...and unfortunately there aren't any alternatives. I strongly recommend reading Ron Brinkman's book, The Art and Science of Digital Compositing" BEFORE diving into Marco's Shake book.

Totally Worth It
This book by far is worth every penny. Why? It includes a disc with a 30 day trial for Shake! The software costs so much that many people can't afford it. What if you want to learn Shake, but not buy Shake? Buy this book then... The chapters are easy to follow. The screenshots are helpful as well.

good book good publisher
the first copy I got had pages missing and repeat pages etc... but hay things happen. and PeachPit (the publisher) was great. I sent them an email and the next morning a New copy was sitting on the porch from Fed Ex... great customer service. they turned an unfortunate mistake into a great customer service example. the book also is great for people like me that want to learn shake but can't affort to throw down a few grand to buy it, or goto training courses. you will deffinatly get your money's worth from this book.

It gets you right where you want to be
When you know nothing about shake, you will get to know something about everything shake has to offer. The author doesn't dwell on his favorite topics, but gives a broad insight on the tricks of the trade. What variables are there and thru which parameters they can be ajusted to create the effect you are looking for. Whether it is compositing, keying, painting, animating or everything together.
The author doesn't show off his knowledge and keeps you alert, at times, with his sense of humor
Place yourself behind your mac, install the shake demo that comes with the book and tell your family and friends that you will be away for an exiting trip, for some time. With the book as a guide and your creativity, curiosity and courage to step off the path, and experiment, you will figure Shake out to great extent.

You Can't Beat The Self Paced Apple Pro Series
This is by far the best self paced overview series I have found for various applications. I wish there were classes near me (but they are hours away) but these are fantastic substitutes!

Not a good reference book
If you're an experienced iMovie user wanting to learn FCE, then this book is not the best one. It's a useful tutorial book for a class, but simple references like creating slow motion clips, importing media from iMovie or iTunes, switching around clips, etc. are simply not easy to find using the index of this book.
I highly suggest Final Cut Express HD for Mac OS X (Visual QuickStart Guide) as a much better reference guide. And if you can find some audiovisual tutorials about FCE, those would work better for you than this book.

Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Express HD
This is a very good introduction to FCE. The lessons are well laid out and the author, Diana Weynand, gives you clear instructions. The only weakness here is that advanced editing techniques, and companion products like Live Type and Soundtrack have only electronic PDF's which make it very difficult to learn unless you print out the PDF's (expensive) or have two computers , one for the PDF instructions and the other for doing the lessons(expensive).

Good but not great
If you are a beginner as was I, learning Final Cut Express HD can seem very difficult. The Apple Training Series certainly bridges the gulf and provides a painless way via tutorials on many of the skills needed to master FCE. On the other hand, it does not provide insights into all of the features. For example, it does not mention the motion features and how to control scale, rotation, center, or any of the other parameters for motion. Overall it is a good book but not a great one.

So far so good
Just at chapter 6 and have found that the program is simple and easy to follow. Did not start with iMovie so I have no experience, which is why I feel the step by step guidance and building a previous learning is great. Good stuff for beginners.

Interesting to see the accumulation of "could haves"
While others have noted the writing style (tolerable - I've seen far worse), the book as a whole is rather thorough and interesting. Granted, it was published before Apple's comeback, so there is (perhaps) too much emphasis upon the failures. However, the accumulated "could have" stories are interesting fare, things that may have been overlooked in the tale of a successful company's history. Here we see the flirtations with Sun, with Apollo, the AIM alliance and PowerPC, porting to x86 hardware, the Newton, and the spin-offs: webTV, Be, etc. Using hindsight 20/20, it seems that Jobs is under-represented. Yet, at the time of publication, I think that this book provided an accurate picture of how things seemed to line up.

I recommend this book, particularly to Apple fans and those interested in the history of computing. Additionally, this book is prime material for those interested in business blunders, particularly related to technology. For the latter group, this book makes a fine companion to the history of Xerox PARC, Dealers of Lightning. The works together provide a chilling view of how tecnhological innovation is often antithetical to business interests. I think that Carlton's work alone can make one consider the fate of technology in the hands of "big business".

Jim Carlton Was Wrong
Useful history and inside looks, but reading his 1998 back-of-the-hand dismissal of Apple's chances of survival is pretty humorous nowadays. His opinion that Apple should have licensed earlier is similarly wrong-headed and lacking in any technical appreciation of the downsides of licensing (dilution of brand,difficult QA processes, cherry-picking, loss of platform homogenieity ).He similarly doesn't understand the silliness of Apple developing an x86 MacOS in the early 90's, and again reveals his technical ineptitude by failing to pursue the ramifications of an Apple-brand x86 offering (ie a Mac with an x86 CPU) vs a software-only offering like Windows or NeXT's Yellow Box.He also repeatedly blows the 5300 battery issue out of proportion.But I think the weakest theme in the book is that an alternative platform with less than 10% "marketshare" is automatically doomed to failure. While there is a strong positive network effect for the 'standard' and a negative effect for the alternatives, in his near-hagiography of Gates & Co he simply missed the bigger picture that the lamosity of the Wintel platform's inherent legacy issues is and was a countervening force.5-10% of the total market is sufficiently large for Apple, given a) it's the top 5-10% and b) Micros~1 continues to [stink] as it always has.

It's OK . . .
Jim Carlton's "Apple" is a fascinating account about the growth, the fall, the rebirth, and the slow decline of one of Silicon Valley's original PC pioneer. It provides an exhaustive account of the egos and problems within the top ranks that prevented Apple from being a great company. Again and again, Carlton shows how Apple blew opportunities to become a "standard" in the PC industry if it had licensed its technology, merged with a partner like IBM or Sun, or just had the competence to execute effectively and efficiently.For the most part, I do agree with Carlton's account. However, one cannot help but feel after reading numerous accounts of Apple's "failures" or "lost opportunities" if Carlton is making too much out of Apple's strategy. Carlton also implicitly believes that becoming "the standard" could have been and should have been Apple's only goal. Naturally, like another reviewer, I got tired of reading Carlton's 20/20 hindsight version of history that harps on every failure as somehow contributing to the company's decline.The book was also published around 1999, so while it does include a section on Job's return and Apple's introduction of the iMac, it naturally missed out on some of Apple's more recent accomplishments: the new TiBook, the iBook, OS X, the "digital hub" strategy, and the fact that Apple is sitting pretty these days as other Wintel box makers are seeing their companies disintegrate under brutal price wars and commoditization. Overall, Carlton's book provides a good history of the company, but its propensity to apply a 20/20 hindsight type of history that harps on every mistake the company made gets annoying after awhile.

Missed Opportunities
Carlton relates time after time after time (after time) how Apple rose to great heights of genius and creativity, and then threw opportunity away with both hands and ran the other direction. The title is descriptive of the downs (but the book also covers the ups) of this amazing company. One of the few critical and unbiased (mostly) looks at Apple. All Macintosh fans and Steve Jobsians should read this book to get the other side. I was actually going to interview with Apple until I read this story.

The biggest blunder is this book
I'm not a big Apple Computer fan, but I was very disappointed by this book. Covering the tumultuous period just before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the book attempts to provide all the 20/20 insight necessary to explain the company's short-comings. Unfortunately, though, the book is so poorly written -- and doesn't at all hide the disdain the author feels for Jobs -- that it's nearly unreadable. Rather than tell the story in a linear timeline, the book jumps back and forth in a very confusing way. If you didn't already know the Apple story, you wouldn't know what was going on. Also, considering all the success Apple has had since then (with the iMac and Titanium PowerBook), this topic is moot now anyway.