Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials (2nd Edition)

I saw a Macworld talk by the author (Neutered Admins, from the 2008 MacIT conference), and learned some really useful things. He mentioned that he'd written this book, and I bought it hoping for more information that would be useful to me in my system administration job supporting Mac and Linux users.

Alas, this book is aimed at help desks providing tier-one support, new users, or maybe Windows power users who are switching to the Mac. It has lots of coverage of the GUI and how to use a Mac for routine tasks and very little else. If, for example, you wanted to learn how a Leopard system sets a user's path (for use in the Terminal), you won't find that information here. You also won't find any information on how the system handles NFS mounts, how Leopard handles X11 and SSH agents with launchd, how you would set a Mac up to authenticate from another machine, or any other topic beyond what a reasonably experienced Mac user would probably already know or be able to figure out pretty quickly.

complete reference for fixing iMac for non tech and could be helpful for a professional
some features of the iMac are not discussed though

This is a review of Mac OS X Server Essentials second edition.

The one thing I found confusing about this book is it starts off telling you about standard, workgroup, and advanced installations, and then doesn't really guide you through the install in either. It jumps around, and then goes into remote installation.

What the book should of said is if your'e setting a server from scratch use the advanced install, and guide you through that.

As mentioned in other reviews, there are typos and I thought that was pretty darn unacceptable.

Overall its got some good technical information, but lacks coherency. It seems to be all over the place and not well put together. I wouldn't suggest for a newbie to mac os or mac os x server.

I would give this a three out of five stars, could be a great book, but lacking a lot of structure.

I thought this was lightweight.

It probably meets its goal of preparing you for the test, but I think most who are already doing tech support (even if they haven't done much OS X) will find this superficial.

Be advised that everything you think about Mac users is can be found in the author. Feelings of superiority, the need to apologize when difficult topics come up, and over exaggerating how great features are.
From a technical perspective, it's great. They break everything down well but can be annoying because of what I mentioned before. The structure works out well and is perfect for self study if you can stomach the Fairy God Mother voice in your head while you read it.