Rating: 
Summary: Indispensible Tool
Review: This is a very necessary book for anyone using Be. For people who are new to Be down to the advanced. Little tips covering everything from hidden window shells (want be to look like a mac? Windows? Amiga?) to the topics of networking and beyond. A MUST BUY for any Be people.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book!
Review: This is not only the best book written on Be, it is also one of the best books on computing I've ever read. Witty and informative, it is geared towards anyone using Be, thinking about using Be or just plain interested in Be. Scot is able to take very complicated/technical concepts and make them understandable to non-geeks and yet not sound condescending.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is one of the best computing books I've ever read. Geared towards anyone interested in using Be, from total newbies to programmers/developers.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, great OS, but BeOS is defunct
Review: This is perhaps the most interesting and comprehensive, as well as popularly accessible, OS handbook that has ever been written. The book is a must have for BeOS users. BeOS itself is a beautifully designed, fast, stable, and easy-to-use OS for single-user system (its NOT multi-user).Unfortunately, this OS is no longer supported. Be Inc. is defunct, having sold out to PALM in November, 2001... There is still a user community and there is still both freeware and commercial software available for BeOS. If you scour ebay, you can find cheap copies of gobe.productive (or you can pay a ridiculous price to directly to gobe), and Opera is still selling its very nice browser in a BeOS version. You can also find copies of BeOS 5 Pro. But almost certainly, no more software will be written for BeOS. This is something of which potential buyers of this book might wish to be aware. There IS a movement to produce an open-source replicant of BeOS... but this heroic task is unlikely to bear fruit very soon.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, great OS, but BeOS is defunct
Review: This is perhaps the most interesting and comprehensive, as well as popularly accessible, OS handbook that has ever been written. The book is a must have for BeOS users. BeOS itself is a beautifully designed, fast, stable, and easy-to-use OS for single-user system (its NOT multi-user). Unfortunately, this OS is no longer supported. Be Inc. is defunct, having sold out to PALM in November, 2001... There is still a user community and there is still both freeware and commercial software available for BeOS. If you scour ebay, you can find cheap copies of gobe.productive (or you can pay a ridiculous price to directly to gobe), and Opera is still selling its very nice browser in a BeOS version. You can also find copies of BeOS 5 Pro. But almost certainly, no more software will be written for BeOS. This is something of which potential buyers of this book might wish to be aware. There IS a movement to produce an open-source replicant of BeOS... but this heroic task is unlikely to bear fruit very soon.
Rating: 
Summary: A rehash of user's guide + the obvious.
Review: totally poor choice of purchase. there is VERY little info in this book that can't be gleamed from the user's guide + playing around with the system for a couple of days. Large sections of text simply go through and provide primers on the various apps in the install dirs, etc. I don't need to spend $$$ to find out what happens when I double click on some icons.
Rating:
Summary: A magic balance between readability and depth
Review: Usually, you have to divide the readership of a computing book into beginners vs. experienced users. Somehow Scott Hacker provides a nice balance, not an easy thing to do. If you wanted a taste of why BeOS is interesting and truly unique, this book is a must--even the sections on applications written for BeOS have lots of helpful info. (Programmers looking for technical info should find this a good companion book, but the O'Reilly books on programming the BeOS are far more appropriate for hardcore developer info.) BeOS was (is) fun to try out, and Scott's book makes it that much more so. A nearly perfect read. (By the way, I saw some other person write about being offended by the word "bible" in the book title. While I understand that perspective, I hope s/he is aware that Peachpit Press, the publisher, has countless titles in this family, e.g., Windows 98 Bible. Don't hold the title against Scott or Be, or allow it to spoil a really informative and enjoyable read--in fact, it probably helps to register your displeasure with the publisher directly.)
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