Book Description
Features a wide selection of complete example programs for putting ActiveX Controls to use immediately in a variety of practical projects. Includes a collection of the best applets and controls, and shows how to implement them as ActiveX Controls. Shows how to use Visual Basic 5 to develop ActiveX Controls. Step-by-step tutorials on building a network, using a server and intranet applications.

Amazon.com
This is the long-awaited 3rd Edition of Tanenbaum's classic book on computer networking. The finest network engineer I know (who was stolen from my previous employer by developers of IPv6) swears by this book, and it is arguably the best single resource for gaining a good technical understanding of modern networking in the mid 1990s. Very Highly Recommended.

Amazon.com
This is the long-awaited 3rd Edition of Tanenbaum's classic book on computer networking. The finest network engineer I know (who was stolen from my previous employer by developers of IPv6) swears by this book, and it is arguably the best single resource for gaining a good technical understanding of modern networking in the mid 1990s. Very Highly Recommended.

Book Description
The Computer traces the evolution of this vital machine from its earliest roots through its exciting application in code-breaking during the Second World War, and from its initial use in the workplace and home to its current status as a totally indispensable part of twenty-first century life. Along the way the author examines some colorful moments in the computer's development, from the key battle between Apple and IBM in the 1980s, to the use of computers in film and television such as the 1950s film The Forbidden Planet. The speed at which computer technology is progressing is staggering, and the final chapter looks forward to a time when computers will be on our wrists, in our cars ? and possibly in our bodies.

Amazon.com
Cyber Rights is an exceptionally rational and compelling account of the most explosive and controversial issues surrounding freedom in cyberspace. Author Mike Godwin is the well-known outspoken activist for online civil liberties and counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He's been directly involved in many of the news-making cases and offers cogent analysis of very thorny situations, such as:

• Time magazine's infamous "Cyberporn" issue, which featured a flawed study and which many believe was at least a partial cause for passage of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (later overturned);
• the case of Jake Baker, a college kid who distributed his stories about rape and torture in newsgroups, which resulted in his computer being confiscated by police;
• the Church of Scientology's line in the sand regarding intellectual property and the backlash against Scientology in online debates;
• the libel conflicts experienced by Net journalists Matt Drudge and Brock Meeks; and
• Philip Zimmerman's (the programmer who developed the encryption tool Pretty Good Privacy [PGP]) fight with the Clinton administration to allow the use of encryption software.

Godwin is a natural teacher, carefully describing each event and explaining the issues surrounding it. Unlike many writers, he shows that he thoroughly understands the arguments for restricting speech. He then methodically takes the arguments apart, covering what is normally boring legal theory and explaining it in a lively manner so that readers are drawn into the story.

This book differs from other books on the topic in two ways: it's entertaining and it's a personal account. It's obvious that Godwin enjoys telling his stories, and he passes his enthusiasm on to readers. Readers also get a sense of Godwin's personal involvement as he describes his role in exposing the erroneous study that was the basis of Time magazine's "cyberporn" scare. In his chapter on the court decision that overturned the Communications Decency Act of 1996, it's clear that Godwin's work for the EFF is not just his job, but his passion. --Elizabeth Lewis

Book Description
Lawyer and writer Mike Godwin has been at the forefront of the struggle to preserve freedom of speech on the Internet. In Cyber Rights he recounts the major cases and issues in which he was involved and offers his views on free speech and other constitutional rights in the digital age. Godwin shows how the law and the Constitution apply, or should apply, in cyberspace and defends the Net against those who would damage it for their own purposes.

Godwin details events and phenomena that have shaped our understanding of rights in cyberspace--including early antihacker fears that colored law enforcement activities in the early 1990s, the struggle between the Church of Scientology and its critics on the Net, disputes about protecting copyrighted works on the Net, and what he calls "the great cyberporn panic." That panic, he shows, laid bare the plans of those hoping to use our children in an effort to impose a new censorship regime on what otherwise could be the most liberating communications medium the world has seen. Most important, Godwin shows how anyone--not just lawyers, journalists, policy makers, and the rich and well connected--can use the Net to hold media and political institutions accountable and to ensure that the truth is known.

Book Description
In Data and Computer Communications, Seventh Edition, William Stallings maintains his status as the preeminent author of clear and comprehensive texts in the field of data communications. Dr. Stallings provides new, in-depth presentations on wireless cot71munications, wireless networks and wireless standards. This most recent edition, which includes a tutorial on the latest in network design technologies and protocols, is an essential tool for professionals, academics, and students alike. MAJOR CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND FEATURES: Fully discusses significant Internet developments: integrated services, differentiated services and other matters related to Quality of Service (QoS). and addresses the RSVP reservation protocols. Comprehensive coverage of wireless communications and networks. including wireless LANs and cellular networks. Reviews TCP Congestion Control and ATM traffic management and congestion control techniques. A detailed treatment of high-speed LANs including 1Q-Ubps Ethernet and Fibre Channel. A full discussion of data communications, circuit switching, and packet switching. Supplements the text with a Companion Website, [A HREF="http://www.prenhall.com/stallings"> www.prenhall.com/stallings . This source provides links to numerous pertinent sites, transparency masters of figures from the book, PowerPoint slides for lecturing, and an errata sheet.

Book Description
Provides a broad, up-to-date coverage of voice and data networking and offers full explanations of important developments and technologies in clear non-technical language. Softcover. DLC: Telecommunication systems--Encyclopedias.

Download Description
From Advanced Television Enhancement to Linux Mobile Phone Fraud to Year 2000 Compliance, Nathan J. Muller's Desktop Encyclopedia of Voice and Data Networking sharpens your expertise on more than 200 critical networking and telecommunications issues.

Product Description
If you are ready to build your own customized interactive documents, forms, graphics, and other full-feature CGI applications using Perl, then this book will show you how. Developing CGI Applications with Perl is written by a team of CGI experts who have developed cutting-edge applications for many of the most advanced sites on the Web. This book:
* Provides all of the tools and techniques to build dynamic documents, database query tools, interactive graphics, Web search tools, and all other types of CGI applications
* Covers CGI, HTTP, and the Perl scripting language
* Reveals many of the best Web server utilities, HTML utilities, and other CGI applications now in use around the world

This comprehensive guide assumes no prior familiarity with Perl.

Book Description
Those wonderful Web pages you see while surfing the Internet are not as hard to create as you may think. Underlying every one of them is HTML (HyperText Markup Language), an ever-expanding system of tags that controls everything from a Web page's layout and typographic formatting to how images and embedded Shockwave movies and Java applets appear and behave. In HTML For Dummies, Second Edition -- now completely updated with the latest innovations in standard HTML as well as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer extensions -- you find complete, easy-to-understand explanations of every HTML tag. Plus, you find savvy advice on how and how not to use those tags. Authors Ed Tittel and Steve James even share their secrets on organizing whole Web sites and present the plusses and minuses of the various Web publishing options. Best of all, HTML For Dummies, Second Edition, includes a bonus disk containing HTML templates and other terrific resources to help you build great Web pages fast.

Book Description
INTRODUCING MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 SERVER is the book that IT professionals, managers, developers, system integrators, and consultants will want to read before and after the release of Windows 2000-to evaluate the product's principal enhancements at the server level. Microsoft Windows 2000 is a breakthrough product and INTRODUCING MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 SERVER is sure to be the most authoritative pre-publication book on the topic. Tony Northrup is known and respected both within Microsoft and throughout the industry.

Amazon.com
Introducing Microsoft Windows 2000 Server catalogs the new features of Microsoft's newest server software and provides general information about how they work. If you're wondering whether (or when) your organization should deploy the successor to Windows NT 4, this book will provide you with the kind of broad insight you need to make upgrade decisions.

Northrup explains the purpose and operation of each major new feature in Windows 2000 Server. The new management features, including Zero-Administration Windows (ZAW), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and the Windows Scripting Host (WSH), receive baseline descriptions. So do the new security features and the enhanced virtual private networking (VPN) features.

The new version of Internet Information Services (IIS 5.0) gets covered briefly, and the distributed file system (DFS) gets some attention, while the much-anticipated Active Directory receives the most in-depth coverage of all. The information on each feature seems cursory--you may even be familiar with Windows 2000 Server at this level from articles that have appeared in technical periodicals.

You won't find the information in Introducing Microsoft Windows 2000 Server helpful in a practical sense--this is a conceptual overview of the new features rather than a guide to implementing useful systems with them. It's also generally pro-Microsoft and not indicative of whatever shortcomings the software may have. --David Wall

Amazon.com
Formed in the classic textbook mold, Introduction to Cisco Router Configuration is designed as a supplement to the eponymous Cisco certification and training course. This is made abundantly clear in the end-of-chapter tests, the "Key Concepts" that dot the pages, and the bounty of diagrams, charts, and tables. But regardless of whether you plan to enroll in the class, this volume should be part of your networking library. The book's three sections deal handsomely with internetworking basics, networking protocol suites, and wide-area networking.

Internetworking (which editor Laura Chappell defines as that which ties LANs, WANs, software, and extraneous devices together) is effectively put in historical perspective in the first chapters. In addition, LANs, WANS, and the OSI model are all clearly defined both individually and in relationship to each other. The remaining chapters of part 1 address the OSI layers and data transport in more detail as well as basic router operations and configuration. The section on networking protocol suites is straightforward in its explanations of TCP/IP, Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX), and AppleTalk in terms of the Cisco networking world.

The "Wide-Area Networking" section addresses the complex but essential topics of WAN connections, as well as X.25 and frame relay configuration. In the eight appendices tucked in the back of this book you'll find answer keys for those pesky tests, discussions of DECnet and Banyan VINES, and a host of other topics.--Sarah L. Roberts-Witt

Book Description
Presents the foundation knowledge necessary to define Cisco router configurations in multi- protocol environments. Examines a broad range of technical information on routing models, processes and design.

Book Description
Only a ...For Dummies book could make the arcane and ballyhooed Java programming language something you can actually use, not just read about. Whether you're a veteran C programmer looking to expand your skill-set or a Web author eager to incorporate Java applets into your home page, Java For Dummies gives you the practical information you need. Author Aaron E. Walsh covers everything you need to know to add sound, animation, and interactivity to your Web pages by using Java, JavaScript, and other nonstandard HTML extensions. A bonus CD-ROM accompanying Java For Dummies is chock-full of applets, scripts, clip art, and Internet utilities, and includes a handy reference guide to commercial online services and Internet service providers that support Java-savvy and JavaScript-savvy browsers.

Amazon.com
Geared to casual users who want to install Linux on a personal machine--in other words, hobbyists--Linux for Dummies walks the reader through installing, configuring, tuning, and using each version of Linux. While the book includes a useful comparison of various Linux distributions, the companion CD-ROM holds Red Hat Linux 5.0 and the book uses that distribution in its examples.

This clearly written text begins by helping you prepare your system for Linux, going so far as to recommend you get it a special hard disk. The authors then show you how to install the system--including the mechanics of selecting file systems and setting up hardware--and then help you log on for the first time.

Next, Linux for Dummies explains elementary commands, including those used to traverse directories and to copy and move files. The book then explores storage issues, detailing how to install and configure a new hard drive in excellent detail. Shells, such as bash and X Windows, get cursory coverage (but adequate, considering the purpose of the book). Linux for Dummies also includes information on certain applications (including vi and emacs) and a guide to tuning and customization that sadly lacks much about shell programming. Internet services, including WAIS, FTP, and Gopher, get their due, but the Apache Web server gets slighted. Overall, this is the best user-lever Linux guide available.

Book Description
Provides the skills necessary for the reader to design and administer networks. Focuses on operating network management systems, and implementing the installation of networks. Discusses ways to set up Standard Operating Procedures and manage support efforts.

Book Description
This new edition of the hacker's own phenomenally successful lexicon includes more than 100 new entries and updates or revises 200 more. Historically and etymologically richer than its predecessor, it supplies additional background on existing entries and clarifies the murky origins of several important jargon terms (overturning a few long-standing folk etymologies) while still retaining its high giggle value.

. . . .


SAMPLE DEFINITION:


:hacker: n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term is {cracker}.


The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see {network, the} and {Internet address}). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see {hacker ethic, the}).


It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). See also {wannabee}.

Book Description
This new edition of the hacker's own phenomenally successful lexicon includes more than 100 new entries and updates or revises 200 more. Historically and etymologically richer than its predecessor, it supplies additional background on existing entries and clarifies the murky origins of several important jargon terms (overturning a few long-standing folk etymologies) while still retaining its high giggle value.

SAMPLE DEFINITION:

:hacker: n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term is {cracker}.

The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see {network, the} and {Internet address}). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see {hacker ethic, the}).

It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). See also {wannabee}.

Book Description
When using software products with graphical interfaces, we frequently focus so much on the details of how to use the interface that we forget about the more general concepts that allow us to understand and put the software to effective use. This is particularly true of a powerful database product like Microsoft Access. Novice, and sometimes even experienced programmers, are so concerned with how something is done in Access that they often lose sight of the general principles that underlie their database applications. Access Database Design & Programming takes the reader behind the details of the Access interface, focusing on the general knowledge necessary for Access users or developers to create effective database applications. In particular, the book focuses on three areas:

• Database design. Access makes it so easy -- and so visually attractive -- to create databases that users are strongly tempted to create the tables of a database without designing them beforehand. This temptation is not solely due to the foibles of users; existing books and documentation focus on the details of using the interface, and neglect the general principles of database design. The consequences of this become painfully evident at a later date, when problems in database design result in a loss of information, or when the retrieval of information from the database becomes too slow to be worthwhile. This book provides an enjoyable, informative overview of database design that carefully shows the reader how to normalize tables to eliminate data redundancy without losing data.
• Queries. The attractive query design dialog that Access provides tends to obscure the fact that the Access interface can be used for some kinds of queries but does not support others. In particular, the book examines multi-table queries (i.e., various types of joins) and shows how to implement them indirectly by using the Access interface or directly by using Access SQL.
• Programming. The book provides an excellent introduction to the Data Access Object (DAO) and Microsoft Access object models, which allow a developer to place a database under program control. Rather than covering these object models in an encyclopedic fashion, the section serves as a handy introduction and primer for basic database operations, like: modifying a table under program control, dynamically adding and deleting a record, or repositioning a record pointer.

Book Description
Are you sick of all the sugary sweet books touting the wonders of AOL?AOL in a Nutshell breaks through the hype as the definitive reference for advanced AOL users and sophisticated beginners. Unlike other AOL books, this one cuts through the glossy banter and gets right to the details. AOL often buries its best features to make the software "easier." We show you how to uncover these powerful features to unlock AOL 4.0's surprising potential.

Where most other AOL books try to teach only the basics of AOL, AOL in a Nutshell is a detailed reference that enables AOL users to make informed choices as they use the software and the service. We answer all the questions -- not just the most common ones -- in a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand reference style.

This book is for anyone who's getting bored by AOL or for members who don't feel it meets their expectations. We show you how to get the most out of each of AOL's tools, including Buddy Lists, Instant Messages, email, chat, message boards, newsgroups, and AOL's integrated Web browser. We cover features that many AOL users shy away from due to lack of documentation, such as FTP, Telnet, and alternative Web browsers.

Most entries are accompanied by a list of benefits and drawbacks, so you can decide for yourself how to use each feature. It's an informative and honest book that shows you how to use and modify AOL to suit your needs, not the needs of AOL.

You'll learn how to:

• Customize AOL so it works the way you want it to
• Work around scores of annoying idiosyncrasies
• Avoid unwanted email and Instant Messages
• Actually understand Parental Controls

Each topic is divided into concise, distinct chapters, designed to help you find the information you want at a glance. You can use it as a day-to-day quick reference, or go further in-depth with the extensive cross-referencing system that makes it easy to teach yourself. It's an indispensable guide for users who aren't dummies.

Book Description
AutoCAD is the most widely used PC-based design program in the world, with approximately 2 million design professionals worldwide--from architects to mechanical designers to electrical engineers--already using the program. With the recent release of AutoCAD 2000 adding hundreds of new features, the demand for the program continues to grow as well as the need for a concise and comprehensive reference book.

AutoCAD 2000 in a Nutshell provides the most complete and comprehensive reference for the newly released AutoCAD 2000. The book contains alphabetically arranged descriptions of nearly every command, including toolbar and command line launch options and important command dialog boxes with detailed descriptions of the various options available to the user. And for advanced users who want to customize the software, there is information on system variables used for scripts, macros, and Autolisp.

The book is intended to be a technical reference for both intermediate and advanced users. This book will save valuable time and increase productivity with hundreds of tips culled from the author's years of experience as an AutoCAD user and instructor.

AutoCAD 2000 in a Nutshell begins with a solid introduction, including a step-by-step guide to the Startup Wizard and setting up a new file, plus a complete listing of all of the new commands in AutoCAD 2000. It also contains a list of AutoCAD 2000 commands, new and old, broken out by function.

The author, Dorothy Kent, has taught AutoCAD to industry professionals for years. She is the author of The AutoCAD Reference Guide: Release 13 and AutoCAD Reference Guide: Everything You Wanted to Know about AutoCAD--Fast!.

Book Description
Internet in a Nutshell is a quick-moving guide to the Internet that goes beyond the "hype" and right to the heart of the matter: how to get the Internet to work for you. This is a second-generation Internet book for readers who have already taken a spin around the Internet and now want to learn the shortcuts.

In the tradition of the bestselling books Java in a Nutshell and WebMaster in a Nutshell, Internet in a Nutshell starts with a quick, tour of the Internet, focusing on the technology that makes it work. It then dives into details on using the popular browsers, including their associated mail and news readers. Even the most seasoned Web surfer will find new tips on using their favorite browser.

As with most tools, Internet software is useless if you don't know what to do with it. Internet in a Nutshell gives complete, concise coverage of how to find information on the Internet, with comparisons of the most popular search engines and how to use them to their best advantage.

At the core, the Internet is about sharing information, which is often stored in discrete files. The book covers the various file types that are used across the Internet. It covers FTP, the file transfer protocol that is used today primarily for transferring downloadable programs and source code. It discusses how to deal with sending and receiving files over email, both through attachments and more traditional means, and how to deal with compressed files.

This is the Internet book for readers who don't think they need a book to use the Internet.

Book Description
The bestselling Java in a Nutshell has been updated to cover Java 1.1. If you're a Java programmer who is migrating to 1.1, this second edition contains everything you need to get up to speed on the new features of Java 1.1. Or if you are just now jumping on the Java bandwagon, Java in a Nutshell still has all of the features that have made it the Java book most often recommended on the Internet. An advanced introduction to Java for C and C++ programmers teaches you everything you need to know about the language, while the complete quick-reference contains descriptions of all of the classes in the Java 1.1 API, with the exception of the Enterprise APIs. Java in a Nutshell also fully describes the syntax of the Java language, making it the only quick reference that a Java programmer needs.

The second edition of Java in a Nutshell covers Version 1.1 of the Java Development Kit (JDK). It includes all of the material from the first edition, as well as the following updated information for Java 1.1:

• A detailed overview of all of the features in Java 1.1, both on a package-by-package basis and in terms of overall functionality.
• A comprehensive tutorial on "inner classes" that explains how to use all of the new types of inner classes: static member classes, member classes, local classes, and anonymous classes.
• Practical, real-world example programs that demonstrate the features in Java 1.1, including object serialization, the new AWT event handling model, internationalization, and a sample Java Bean.
• A complete quick reference for all of the classes, methods, and variables in the core Java 1.1 API. The quick-reference pages include indicators that make it easy to find the 1.1 material. In addition, cross-reference material is now provided directly on each reference page.

With the 1.1 release, Java has grown too large to fit in a single book, even in quick-reference form. Thus, we see the need to splitJava in a Nutshell into multiple volumes. This volume, the "original" Java in a Nutshell, documents the most commonly used features of Java and is an indispensable reference for all Java programmers. We may publish a separate volume that will cover the Java "Enterprise APIs", which include the database connectivity, remote method invocation, and security features, as well as other forthcoming components, such as CORBA IDL support and the electronic commerce framework. And as other new Java APIs are developed and released, we may consider adding new volumes to the Java in a Nutshell series.

Book Description
Java Enterprise in a Nutshell is an indispensable quick reference for Java programmers who are writing distributed enterprise applications. The book provides fast-paced tutorials on the following Java Enterprise APIs:

• JDBC, a vendor-independent API for accessing relational database systems
• RMI, a Java-only approach to distributed computing that relies on remote method invocation
• Java IDL, a CORBA-based, language-independent approach to distributed computing
• Java servlets, a mechanism for extending a web server that allows Java code to perform tasks traditionally handled by CGI scripts
• JNDI, a generic Java API for working with networked naming and directory services
• Enterprise JavaBeans, a component model that separates high-level business logic from low-level housekeeping chores like security and transaction management

These APIs are the building blocks of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), Sun's recently announced new platform for enterprise computing. J2EE is the standard Java 2 platform with a number of extensions for enterprise development.

Java Enterprise in a Nutshell also contains O'Reilly's classic-style, quick-reference material for all of the classes in the various packages that comprise the Enterprise APIs. This material includes the core Enterprise APIs that are part of Java 1.2, as well as numerous standard extensions.

This book is a companion to both Java in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, which covers the key non-graphical, non-enterprise APIs in Java 1.2, and Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell, which describes the graphics- and GUI-related classes of Java 1.2.

Book Description
Managing Internet Information Services describes how to create services for the millions of Internet users. By setting up Internet servers for World Wide Web, Gopher, FTP, Finger, Telnet, WAIS (Wide Area Information Services), or email services, anyone with a suitable computer and Internet connection can become an "Internet Publisher."

Services on the Internet allow almost instant distribution and frequent updates of any kind of information. You can provide services to employees of your own company (solving the information distribution problems of spread-out companies), or you can serve the world. Perhaps you'd like to create an Internet service equivalent to the telephone company's directory assistance. Or maybe you're the Species Survival Commission, and you'd like your plans online; this book describes a prototype service the authors created to make SSC's endangered species Action Plans viewable worldwide. Whatever you have in mind can be done. This book tells you how.

Creating a service can be a big job, involving more than one person. This book separates the setup and maintenance of server software from the data management, so that a team can divide responsibilities. Sections and chapters on data management, a role we call the Data Librarian, are marked with a special icon.

Book Description
Microsoft's MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) program is a rigorous testing and certification program for Windows NT system and network administrators. To achieve certification, one must pass four required exams and two elective exams. Close to twenty potential elective exams exist, although only nine of them are current electives covering the most recent version of a given product. Microsoft has also just introduced the MCSE+Internet certification, which requires passing seven required exams and two elective exams. There are four current elective exams to choose from to attain this certification.

MCSE: The Core Exams in a Nutshell is a comprehensive study guide that covers the required exams offered in the MCSE certification. The companion book, MCSE: The Electives in a Nutshell, covers the most important and popular elective exams for the MCSE certification and also covers the other required and elective exams for the MCSE+Internet certification.

The required exams covered in this book are:

• Networking Essentials
• Windows NT Workstation
• Windows NT Server
• Windows 95 (you must choose either the NT Workstation or Windows 95 exam)

Each chapter in the book covers one exam. It includes:

• A summary of the key areas covered by the exam
• A description of the format and difficulty of each exam and tips for passing it
• Definitions of key terms
• Sample test questions and answers

Any administrator who is serious about passing the required exams needed to acquire MCSE certification will find this book an invaluable tool.

Book Description
Microsoft Exchange Server in a Nutshell covers the implementation and configuration of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5. When you need to set up a single Exchange server for your company, or want to implement an enterprise-wide, multisite rollout with connectivity to foreign mail systems, this will be the book to guide you through the configuration and daily administration tasks you need to perform.

The first two chapters describe the context for understanding the Exchange server technology. Topics include:

• The evolutionary history of Microsoft mail clients and servers
• A walkthrough of an Exchange implementation, outlining all the steps and issues
• A detailed look at the technical architecture, including an in-depth description of all the internal communication paths

The heart of the book is contained in the next three chapters. All of the Exchange directory objects are thoroughly documented in Chapter 3's alphabetical reference. Chapter 4 is the reference for the graphical interface tools, most notably Exchange Administrator. And Chapter 5 offers complete reference material for the command-line tools.

Appendixes include coverage for X.400 concepts, Exchange service executables and dependencies, Exchange folder structure, Exchange perfmon objects, and key Internet port numbers.

Microsoft Exchange Server in a Nutshell is a handy and indispensable companion for every busy Exchange Administrator.

Book Description
Inspired by the bestselling Java in a Nutshell, Netscape IFC in a Nutshell is a quick reference and programmer's guide to the Internet Foundation Classes (Version 1.1) from Netscape. This book contains all the documentation Java programmers need to start creating highly customizable, great looking graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for their Java applets and applications. In addition to the complete and thorough quick reference, Netscape IFC in a Nutshell also contains more than 20 tutorial-style, example-based chapters that introduce each of the features and GUI components of the IFC. These features include:

• A "Pure Java" platform-independent, customizable look-and-feel, with a complete suite of GUI components
• Intra-application drag-and-drop
• Multi-font formatted text display, with a built-in HTML parser
• Pre-defined color, font, and file-selection dialog boxes
• Timer objects that simplify animation by replacing threads
• Constructor, an interface builder application freely available from Netscape

The IFC 1.1 library is freely available on the Internet, for use in any Java application or with any Java-capable Web browser, and is bundled with Netscape's Navigator 4.0 Web browser, making it the ideal, and preferred, development library for that platform.

The Netscape IFC classes documented in this book will strongly influence the development of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), under development by Sun, Netscape, IBM, and others. The JFC will reportedly merge IFC technology with Sun's AWT GUI toolkit. Although the JFC will eventually supersede the IFC, the IFC is a powerful class library, is availablenow, and is a very useful and stable predecessor to the JFC. Developers, particularly those targeting the Navigator 4.0 platform, should begin right away to take advantage of the advanced GUI features of the IFC, secure in the knowledge that Netscape will provide a migration path to the JFC, when it eventually becomes available. Experience now with the IFC will give programmers a head-start on the JFC.

Book Description
QuarkXPress has long been the standard page layout software, allowing designers to combine pictures, text, typography, writing, editing, and printing in one application. The soon to be released QuarkXPress 4.0 has many significant new features, including Bezier-based drawing and design tools, long-document creation and editing, and advanced Hyphenation and Justification settings. Now, more than ever before, designers will be using QuarkXPress to create everything from newsletters to magazines.

With all of these new features, coupled with the many that already exist, QuarkXPress users are required to remember countless details necessary to successfully use the software. QuarkXPress in a Nutshell is a detailed reference that will enable even experienced users to make the right choices and help them navigate through the many techniques that are available, thus saving time and reducing errors.

In the current computer book market, there is an increasingly large population of users with many years of experience under their belts who don't want a lot of handholding. They just want the facts. This book, like other "In a Nutshell" books, raises the no-nonsense approach to an art form. Information that a user is going to look for again and again can be found here, as well as critical background information for the new but fundamentally sophisticated user.

QuarkXPress in a Nutshell describes every tool, command, palette, and sub-menu in QuarkXPress 4. Each item is accompanied by a list of its most common uses and misuses, as well as production-oriented background information. Where appropriate, the common uses contain step-by-step techniques, and the common misuses include experience-based advice and solutions. The book takes the topic and drills down, expands, and delights the reader by providing useful information that the reader didn't even expect to find.

There are four main sections:

• The QuarkXPress toolbox, including the Options Palette settings for each tool
• The menu commands, including every item of every dialog
• The floating palettes, including the function that each palette provides, as well as the ramifications of every value and palette sub-menu
• Step-by-step descriptions of over 100 detailed QuarkXPress techniques, as well as a list of the most useful QuarkXtensions and the functions they provide

  The information in this book is organized in an encyclopedic reference fashion, following the structure of QuarkXPress itself. All topics are easy to find and fully cross-referenced, allowing you to intuitively explore the cause-and-effect relationships of each command.

  From the author of the bestselling Photoshop in a Nutshell.

Book Description
UUCP, a UNIX program with a long history, remains interesting even today because it is a simple way to share resources and transfer files from one computer to another. It runs over dial-up lines with a minimum of overhead. UUCP became popular because of its use by the Usenet, but it remains popular today because it works well on small systems with limited resources. The proliferation of PC-sized machines in small offices and homes, especially those that run the Linux operating system, has caused a resurgence of interest in UUCP.

This book combines material about UUCP formerly contained in two other O'Reilly & Associates books, Using UUCP and Usenet and Managing UUCP and Usenet. UUCP and Usenet are sufficiently separated now to make it inefficient to discuss them both in the same book. On the other hand, it now makes sense to combine information about using and managing UUCP in one volume, because on PC-sized systems, the user and the manager of UUCP are likely to be the same person. With this book, everything you need to know about UUCP is in one volume.

Using & Managing UUCP contains up-to-date information about HoneyDanBer UUCP (officially called Basic Networking Utilities or BNU). It also contains product-specific information about the UUCP implementations of the major UNIX vendors. More important, Using & Managing UUCP covers Taylor UUCP, a new implementation that ships with Linux distributions. So this book is of special importance to the growing number of individuals running Linux on their home or office computers.

Book Description
Visual Basic has been described as a visual interface design package to which the programmer attaches snippets of code. Although this definition has been contested by some, no one would contest that Visual Basic's interface design component--and therefore its forms and controls--are central to Visual Basic. To create a professional application, you need extensive knowledge of Visual Basic controls and their numerous properties, events, and methods. Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is the book that documents Visual Basic controls thoroughly.

Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is divided into two sections. The first contains a detailed summary of Visual Basic Professional Edition's intrinsic and custom controls. Each chapter provides the following information about a control:

• A general description of the control, including its usage and purpose
• Control tasks--that is, the tasks that are typically executed when creating or managing a control
• The most important properties that define the behavior and appearance of the control
• The major events fired by a control and to which code can be assigned
• In cases where their timing may be important, the order in which related multiple events are fired
• The most important methods that are available for managing a control or accessing its functionality
• The ways in which the control unexpectedly interacts with changes in its state or in that of the Visual Basic environment. Typically, these undocumented or little documented side effects give developers enormous difficulty.

The second section consists of separate alphabetical references to Visual Basic's properties, methods, and events. Along with providing basic documentation for each property, method, and event, the entries in this section contain a wealth of information not always available from the documentation, including:

• Whether a property is available at design-time and/or run-time
• The data type returned by a property or method

Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is an ideal book for Windows programmers who are looking for detailed and organized information on Visual Basic controls. This book is written by an experienced Visual Basic programmer and is filled with precisely the kind of information that his work--and that of any experienced VB programmer--constantly requires. Its depth and quality make it an indispensable addition to your Visual Basic library. With its companion volume, VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language, it serves to thoroughly document Microsoft Visual Basic.

Book Description
The best book on the Internet now covers Windows 95. The Whole Internet for Windows 95 is the most comprehensive introduction to the Internet available today.

For Windows users who in the past have struggled to take full advantage of the Internet's powerful utilities, Windows 95's built-in Internet support is a cause for celebration. And when you get online with Windows 95, this new edition of The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog will guide you every step of the way. This book shows you how to use the Internet tools that Microsoft has developed for Windows 95. But it does much more. You can also take advantage of alternative popular free software programs that are downloadable from the Net. This book will show you where to find them and how to use them to save you time and money. This guide will make you an expert on Microsoft Internet Explorer (the World Wide Web multimedia browser), Microsoft Exchange (an email program), and Netscape Navigator, the most popular Web browser on the market. It also shows you how to use popular Usenet readers, file transfer tools and database searching software. You'll find our own database of databases: a wide-ranging resource index that covers a broad selection of several hundred important resources, on just about every topic imaginable, ranging from a virtual online university to travel tips. If you use the Internet for work or for pleasure -- or if you'd like to, but don't know how -- you need this book. If you've been around the Net for a few years, you'll still be able to discover resources you didn't know existed. Also includes a pull-out quick-reference card.

The Windows 95 edition covers it all:

• An updated and expanded, easy-to-use resource catalog. New and experienced users alike can refer to the catalog to discover what's available on the Net.
• Descriptions of resources that serve as the Internet's "card catalog": GNN, Yahoo, and Almanac (what they are, what they're for).
• A detailed look at Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator World Wide Web multimedia browsers.
• An introduction to Microsoft Exchange, which handles Internet mail as well as Microsoft Mail.
• Easy to understand discussion of MIME (multimedia mail): what it means, how to deal with it.
• An introduction to how to deal with News effectively, along with details on using Trumpet, the most widely used Windows newsreader, and the newsreading features in Netscape.
• Details on the Internet's older applications with an explanation of why they're still a necessary part of your toolkit: two file transfer programs, the Windows 95 FTP client and WS_FTP, the popular free software program. Also tips for using Telnet, a tool for remote login to systems on the Internet.
• The low-down on WSArchie, the widely used free searching software.
• New information on EINet winWAIS, a Windows-oriented public domain WAIS client.
• A review of other Internet features, including Inernet Relay Chat, MUDS, and Internet FAX.
• A discussion of different kinds of mailing lists.
• A list of Internet access providers.
• What's new in the "white pages," the Internet's telephone book.
• Help with configuring Windows 95 for LAN and PPP connections.
• A road map to obtaining free software.

Book Description
Still the best book on the Internet. The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive introduction to the international network of computer systems called the Internet, a resource of almost unimaginable wealth.

As a complete introduction to the Internet, this book covers the basic utilities you use to access the network: mail, telnet, ftp, and news readers. But it also does much more. The Guide pays close attention to several important information servers (Archie, Wais, Gopher) that are, essentially, databases of databases: they help you find what you want among the millions of files and thousands of archives available. There's also coverage of the World Wide Web. We've also included our own database of databases: a resource index that covers a broad selection of several hundred important resources, ranging from the King James Bible to archives for USENET news.

So if you use the Internet for work or for pleasure -- or if you'd like to, but don't know how -- you need this book. If you've been around the Net for a few years, you'll still be able to discover resources you didn't know existed. Also includes a pull-out quick-reference card.

Now more comprehensive than ever, here's what you will find in the second edition:

• An expanded, easy-to-use resource catalog. New and experienced users alike can refer to the catalog to discover what's available on the Net.
• Descriptions of three resources that serve as the Internet's "card catalog": InterNIC, GNN, and Almanac (what they are, what they're for).
• An explanation of multimedia mail (MIME): what it means, how to deal with it.
• An introduction to pine, a popular mail program that supports MIME.
• More on ftp-mail servers, and different kinds of mailing list managers, including Majordomo and Almanac.
• An introduction to xarchie, a popular X-based Archie client with an FTP client built-in, along with other improvements to the Archie service.
• What's new in the "white pages," or the Internet's telephone book. In particular, the book covers Netfind.
• An introduction to tin, another popular newsreader.
• New features of Gopher, including Veronica and Jughead.
• New coverage of the swais line-oriented WAIS client.
• An expanded list of internet access providers.

Book Description
Windows 95 in a Nutshell is a comprehensive, compact reference that systematically unveils what serious users of Windows 95 will find interesting and useful. Little known details of the operating system, utility programs, and configuration settings are all captured in a consistent reference format.

This is the first book in years personally coauthored by Tim O'Reilly, the publisher whose books have revolutionized computer book publishing with their common-sense approach, depth of detail, and focus on practical information that you can really use. If you can't remember which option on a dialog box controls a function, or if you just want to have a better handle on what's available, this is the book you need. It contains:

• A fast-paced introduction to the operating system for new users
• Detailed documentation on almost every command and utility available with Windows 95, including Start Menu accessories, DOS commands, hidden system administration utilities such as the Registry Editor and Policy Editor, and optional suites of programs such as Microsoft Plus!, PowerToys and KernelToys
• Detailed advice and documentation on system configuration via the Control Panel, system startup files, and the Registry
• A detailed treatment of Internet configuration and access via Dial-Up Networking
• Hundreds of tips, gotchas, and clever ways to do familiar and not-so-familiar tasks
• A focus on ways to integrate the command line and batch files into your work with Windows 95
• Pointers to dozens of useful online sites that contain additional information

The book also includes an innovative "Task Index," which is a comprehensive cross-reference list that gives shorthand instructions on how to accomplish hundreds of the most useful and interesting things you might want to do with Windows 95. The book even provides a detailed look at the Win95 architecture, getting you under the hood and showing you how the operating system really works.

Book Description
In the past when code was tight and memory scarce, it was standard practice to use two-digit storage (for example 68 for the year 1968) for date code within software. Unfortunately, when the clock rolls over at midnight on the last day of December 1999, many computers won't recognize "00" as the correct date. This Year 2000 (Y2K) dilemma may potentially render many applications and hardware ineffective, unless the code is altered. This is a global problem that will affect everybody and must be seriously addressed since time is a crucial factor.

The Year 2000 situation affects the mainframe environment most heavily, but it can affect PCs as well. Any company that is running older software and hardware must pay attention to revising date code in programs, and possibly even updating software, the operating system, and even hardware. Other areas of concern are the millions of access-control, point of sale, process-control, and other peripherals that utilize date-stamping and grouping functions embedded in firmware.

Year 2000 in a Nutshell addresses three main aspects of the Year 2000 dilemma:

• Awareness. Covers main issues such as: compliance, costs, event-horizons, embedded dates and systems, date-stamping, timing, staffing, and benefits of Y2K conversion.
• Managerial. Covers considerations such as: triage (when the Y2K conversion process isn't started soon enough), legal issues, budgets, and standards. Also covers a project-plan: inventory, analysis, logistical estimates, planning and strategies, conversion, and testing and implementation.
• Technical. Covers: dates, Julian day, windowing, single-digit century, file and database date conversion, and PC issues.

In addition, this book provides reference information on the date and time functions in those languages most likely to be affected by Year 2000 problems, including Cobol, PL/1, and Visual Basic. This section will be valuable for those programmers forced to dredge up old skills to analyze or revise code that may not be Year 2000 compliant. Because Cobol is particularly likely to be a problem, the book provides a complete Cobol quick reference. This is a valuable guide for those programmers who have been assigned the task of making the Cobol code Y2K compliant, but haven't had much experience with the Cobol language.

The book also provides Visual Basic source code for a simple scanner designed to look for date and time functions that need to be altered for Y2K compliance. Although the code is written in Visual Basic, it can easily be converted into other languages.

Whether you are a manager, a programmer, or even a user faced with the Year-2000 date compliance issue, this is an essential book that will help guide you through this crisis.

Amazon.com
Macromedia Flash is the obvious choice for delivering multimedia over the Web. At the heart of Flash's power is ActionScript, the product's powerful object-oriented scripting language. ActionScript is based on JavaScript, making it easy for Web developers new to Flash to get up to speed. ActionScript: The Definitive Guide is a tutorial and reference to ActionScript that meets the needs of both new Flash developers learning the language and experienced coders who need a daily reference.

Author Colin Moock starts off with a primer to Flash terminology and a quick example application--an interactive quiz. Following that, the book quickly gets down to ActionScript nuts and bolts. The first part covers the basics of the language, such as operators, variable scope, and conditional logic, in a traditional presentation. A few lines of example code illustrate each concept.

Critical topics like arrays, movie clips, and object-oriented programming are covered well at the detail level, though a more extensive example application would really have come in handy to illustrate the big picture. The back of the book contains an excellent reference to the ActionScript language, complete with inline example code. ActionScript is an important tool to master, and ActionScript: The Definitive Guide is a fine means to that end. --Stephen W. Plain

Book Description
Given its ability to deliver high-impact experiences even over low-bandwidth connections, Flash has become the de facto standard for hundreds of thousands of multimedia web developers worldwide.

Flash 5 now includes a new full-fledged programming language called "ActionScript" for controlling animation and multimedia. It's a quantum leap from the bare-bones "Actions" supported in Flash 4, andActionScript: The Definitive Guide is the first book dedicated entirely to documenting and demonstrating this new language.

ActionScript includes all fundamental programming constructs (variables, loops, conditionals, functions, etc.), and is inextricably fused with Flash's authoring behaviors and animation timelines. Because ActionScript is based heavily on the ECMAScript Language Specification (ECMA-262) and is syntactically nearly identical to JavaScript, Macromedia expects thousands of existing JavaScript programmers to migrate to ActionScript.

This book is divided into three sections.

• "ActionScript Fundamentals" introduces both programmers and non-programmers to the new language by first describing fundamental programming concepts and then delineating in detail the components, syntax, and usage of ActionScript.
• "Applied ActionScript Code Depot" shows you how to use common applications, such as processing online forms.
• "Language Reference" is a concise and detailed reference that makes all ActionScript globals, properties, and objects, including extensive implementation samples, easy to find quickly.

Code samples are also available from the "Code Depot" on theauthor's web site devoted to Flash developers.

Topics covered in this book include:

• Step-by-step tutorials of the most common ActionScript behaviors
• Object-oriented programming in Flash
• Intelligent interface development
• Server communication
• Dynamic content generation
• Password protection
• String handling
• Message boards
• Basic physics
• Games

ActionScript: The Definitive Guide is structured so both programmers and non-programmers can learn how to use ActionScript. This book will take you well beyond simple Flash animations so you can create your own enhanced Flash-driven sites.

Amazon.com
With the new JavaHelp standard from Sun, Java programmers can now deliver online help that rivals traditional help systems on other platforms such as Windows. Aimed at Java developers and technical writers, Creating Effective JavaHelp provides a very concise guide to creating help systems using this new standard.

Even before HTML was widely used, help systems provided hyperlinks and browsing capabilities. The book does a good job at orienting the reader to JavaHelp and how it relates to these earlier help systems. It also includes a short, useful section on project planning for online help. The text next shows how the JavaHelp standard uses XML to structure content layout (for such options as navigation and the table of contents; help content itself is organized into HTML pages). Creating Effective JavaHelp works through a sample help system from Sun and shows you how to create a simple, custom help system to illustrate these concepts.

For developers, the book ventures into a discussion of the JavaHelp APIs, which allow a program to call up context-sensitive help at run-time. Other sections show how to take advantage of more advanced help features, like using secondary windows to display content or using embedded help within custom applications. The book ends with reference material on relevant XML tags, plus the JavaHelp API itself.

Chances are JavaHelp won't change the way you create help systems. (As the book notes, third party tools will actually let you deploy help systems to JavaHelp automatically.) But this compact text points out the differences and advantages of JavaHelp for creating online help on the Java platform. Whether you are a technical writer, developer, or project manager, you'll want a copy of Creating Effective JavaHelp to see the future of online help for the next generation of Java applications. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Overview of the JavaHelp help system; JavaHelp versus other help systems; standalone, context-sensitive, and embedded help
• Deploying JavaHelp
• HelpSet basics
• Map and navigation files
• Project planning guide for creating help systems
• Help topics
• XML basics for HelpSet navigation and table of contents (TOC) files
• Popup and secondary windows
• Customizing stopwords
• Using the JavaHelp API: implementing context-sensitive and embedded help, third-party help authoring tools, reference for HelpSet, Lightweight Component Tags and the JavaHelp API

Book Description
Effective, instantly available online help is a requirement for today's interactive applications. Until now, Java application developers have been forced to develop their own help system. That's no longer necessary. With the release of JavaHelpâ„¢, there is a complete and standard online help system for the Javaâ„¢ platform. Creating Effective JavaHelp covers the main features and options of JavaHelp. It shows how to create a basic JavaHelp system, prepare help topics, and deploy the help system in an application. Written for all levels of Java developers and technical writers, the book takes a chapter-by-chapter approach to building concepts. It imparts a complete understanding of how to create usable JavaHelp systems and integrate them into Java applications and applets. Topics covered include:

• Understanding JavaHelp
• Creating your first HelpSet
• Planning the JavaHelp project
• Preparing Help topics
• Creating HelpSet data and navigation files
• Enhancing the HelpSet
• Using the JavaHelp API for advanced presentation options
• Deploying the help system to your users
• Using third-party help-authoring tools

Book Description
Like travelers in a foreign land, Mac users working in Windows or Windows users working on a Mac often find themselves in unfamiliar territory with no guidebook. Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook, with information presented in a translation dictionary-like format, offers users a handy way of translating skills and knowledge from one platform to the other. Whether it's explaining the difference between Macintosh aliases and Windows shortcuts or explaining how a Windows user would go about setting up Internet access on a Mac, this book provides readers a simple means to look up familiar interface elements and system features and learn how that element or feature works on the other platform. Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook includes:

• A general introduction to the key differences between the Mac and Windows
• A to Z sections for each platform: one section where Mac users look up familiar Macintosh terms to find the equivalent function in Windows along with an explanation of the differences; and another section where Windows users find familiar Windows terms with pointers to the Macintosh equivalent along with full descriptions of how the function works on the Mac and important differences between the two platforms

Book Description
Each iteration of Windows has meant a corresponding improvement in the techniques used for transferring data among its applications. Today's leading technique is called Automation. It allows you to work directly with objects in an application's interface using their object models. But if you want to write code in a programming language, such as Visual Basic, in order to work with the apps that support Automation, you must understand the inner workings of an application's object model--or in the case of Microsoft's Access, its *two* object models.

Microsoft Access is the bestselling stand-alone relational database program for Windows offering both power and ease of use. And in many respects, Microsoft has made Automation the centerpiece of its vision for application development. DAO Object Model: The Definitive Reference will guide you through the Access object models, allowing you, with the support of Automation, to reference the application components you want to manipulate. An understanding of the object models is essential for developers who work with data in Access tables, or who want to manipulate components of the Access interface from other Office apps. The Data Access Objects (DAO) model is used to write and read data in Access tables. The Access object model is used to manipulate forms, reports, queries, macros, and other components of the Access interface, including most of the commands by means of the DoCmd object.

This book will include an introduction and a brief description of the differences between VBA (used in most Office applications) and VBScript (used in Outlook). This chapter will also cover Office utilities and add-ons helpful in writing and debugging code, such as the Object Browser, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for VBA and the Interactive Debugger for VBScript. The book will then be divided into two parts; one covering the Access Object Model and the other, the Data Access Objects. Each section will have a description of what the object represents; listings of properties, events, and methods; and one or more code samples illustrating its use in VBA and/or VBScript code. Each property, event, or method section will have an explanation of the language element, and many will have code samples (either VBA or VBScript) as well.

This book will detail, to an advanced user or keen intermediate user, the Access object models and how they are used. It will be *the* reference guide VB developers reach for when working with data in Access tables, or for manipulating components of the Access interface from other Office applications.

Amazon.com
The Java Database Connectivity classes (JDBC) sensibly provide an interface between a platform-independent programming language (Java) and a standardized database language (Structured Query Language, or SQL). Pretty much every Java program that's involved in transactions or other business operations connects to a database through JDBC; so, familiarity with the JDBC classes can magnify your other Java skills. Database Programming with JDBC and Java explains how JDBC fits into unitized software applications in which various functional parts communicate over a network. Author George Reese also shows how to write programs that take advantage of the JDBC classes, emphasizing the most commonly used ones (such as those that perform INSERT and SELECT operations), but giving also the more obscure classes their due.

This book is essentially an ongoing lecture of increasing complexity. To cite one thread, it begins with clear but academic examples that involve discrete transactions (opening a connection, performing a query, and closing the connection). It then moves on to connection pooling and other JDBC-supported optimizations for the real world. A menagerie of specialized sections on such topics as security and persistence rely heavily on long code examples. A section on Swing programming seems kind of out of place, but it's short. In sum, this slim volume is a great introduction to JDBC for those who are looking to approach Java distributed applications by way of database work.

Punk music fans, however, will object to the misidentification of the Sex Pistols' classic album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. It's actually Never Mind the Bullocks, Here Come the Sex Pistols. Rotten fact-checking, obviously. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) classes, with emphasis on how JDBC code fits into distributed applications (so-called enterprise applications) that use Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) and Remote Method Invocation (RMI). Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI), serialization, persistence, security, and (especially) application design receive plenty of attention. Fully a quarter of this book is a reference (including statements of syntax and brief descriptions) to the JDBC Core API and the JDBC Optional Package classes.

Book Description
Java and databases make a powerful combination. Getting the two sides to work together, however, takes some effort--largely because Java deals in objects while most databases do not.

This book describes the standard Java interfaces that make portable object-oriented access to relational databases possible and offers a robust model for writing applications that are easy to maintain. It introduces the JDBC and RMI packages and uses them to develop three-tier applications (applications divided into a user interface, an object-oriented logic component, and an information store).

The book begins with a quick overview of SQL for developers who may be asked to handle a database for the first time. It then explains how to issue database queries and updates through SQL and JDBC. It also covers the use of stored procedures and other measures to improve efficiency, where these are available.

But the book's key contribution is a set of patterns that let developers isolate critical tasks like object creation, information storage and retrieval, and the committing or aborting of transactions.

The second edition includes more basics of JDBC and SQL, with more examples, and a deeper discussion about the architecture of a robust, maintainable database application. The second edition also explains the relationship between JDBC and Enterprise JavaBeans.

Amazon.com
Designing Active Server Pages provides an important tool for often-overworked ASP programmers: a set of techniques for making the wisest use of the technology in a production environment. Targeting an audience of readers who already are seasoned in ASP, author Scott Mitchell explores techniques for producing "reusable and robust ASP applications."

Presentation and example compose the approach here, with concise tables of information and descriptions that make the book a fast read. Mitchell explores the benefits of the VBScript 5.0 scripting engine, and illustrates how to exploit the new RegExp object fully and build object-oriented code by using VBScript classes--another welcome addition to the coding platform. ASP programmers will find techniques for which they've been longing, such as centralized error-handling pages and reusable database administration forms.

Creation of and best practices for implementing COM components, useful standard components (like the Content Linker and AdRotator), and third-party components (such as ASPEncrypt and SA-FileUp) are discussed. Designing Active Server Pages doesn't stop with mere descriptions of these components, but also provides solutions for common needs, such as uploading files to binary fields in Microsoft SQL Server and sending encrypted e-mail.

With its advanced techniques and practical perspective, this book is perfect for those who look to stay on the cutting edge of ASP programming. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• Choosing a server-side scripting language
• Exception handling
• Regular expressions
• Building reusable forms
• Reusable database administration pages
• COM overview
• Lesser-known Microsoft COM components
• Important third-party COM components

Book Description
Developers of Active Server Pages often reinvent the wheel. Their background in web design, with its separate HTML page for each viewable web page on a site, leads many ASP developers to create a distinct ASP page each time they think they need one. Often times, these pages are functionally similar. With intelligent planning, an ASP developer stands to save a great deal of time by creating reusable ASP pages. Designing Active Server Pages is tailor-made for these developers. There is currently a plethora of Active Server Pages books. However, the vast majority of these books are either technical references or how-to books for beginners. Designing Active Server Pages is written for the intermediate to advanced user. Furthermore, nearly every other book on ASP focuses on using VBScript, even though ASP supports an array of scripting languages, including JScript and PerlScript. Designing Active Server Pages shows how to start using these other languages. The latest version of the scripting engines (Version 5.1 for VBScript) adds new features not available before the 5.0 release. These features include class support for VBScript, and Regular Expression searching through the use of a COM object. Designing Active Server Pages explains why using classes in VBScript is beneficial, and demonstrates the power of regular expression searching. This book shows how to simplify the process by only requiring one ASP page to handle ALL of the Forms throughout a web site, thus reducing the amount of code one has to write. Topics include:

• Using various Microsoft and third-party components to enhance ASP pages
• Creating components using VB and/or VC++
• Sample code for performing routine ASP tasks
• Techniques to allow for reusable database scripts on the database system and on ASP pages
• How to obtain and register third-party components, thus saving massive amounts of time by reusing someone else's code

Book Description
Although the computer industry has made enormous advances in the last 25 years, the development of error messages has somehow been left behind. Error messages themselves have only progressed from reporting errors as numerical codes to popping up rather simple text messages. The vast majority of the error messages that are currently in use seem to be aimed more at the programmer than the user. It is, however, the user who utilizes the software applications that contain the error messages, and the programmer needs to consider this when writing error messages.

This book focuses on three elements that should be incorporated into any proper error message: notification, explanation, and solution. Many of the error messages that are in use today lack one or more of these important traits. Throughout the book the author uses examples that illustrate incomplete error messages contributed by various sources and then describes how to make them more effective. The book also contains methods on preventing and trapping errors before they occur and provides details on creating flexible input and response routines to keep unnecessary errors from happening.

In addition to providing detailed information about how to improve the utilization of error messages, Windows Error Messages also covers important topics such as:

• Popup menus
• Rich text format messages
• HTML messages
• Simple and sophisticated event logs
• Reporting data to technical support
• Online documentation

The accompanying CD-ROM contains a dynamic link library, ErrorMessage.DLL, that is accessible by VB, C, C++, and MFC programs. This DLL contains routines that, when called by the programmer, will present all error messages in a standard format and provide responses for different levels of errors. This will reduce the time programmers will need to spend calling and creating dialogs for error messages, allowing them to concentrate on the code at hand. The ErrorMessage.DLL has been created by the author using Visual C++ along with the MFC AppWizard, and the source code for the program has been granted to the public domain.

With the help of Windows Error Messages, C, C++, and Visual Basic programmers will be able to write consistent error messages that notify the user of an error, provide an explanation of the error, and most important, supply a solution to the error.

Amazon.com
People don't sit at desks in offices the way they used to, and that's why the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) makes sense: it allows efficient allocation of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and other configuration values to a shifting pool of networked devices. DHCP for Windows 2000 explains how Windows 2000 implements the eminently handy protocol, and shows how to make administrative decisions about how your network provides DHCP services.

The book does a great job of explaining what goes on behind the scenes, even when Windows 2000 tries to sugarcoat DHCP and related functions with wizard interfaces. Each prompted-for value and how it relates to the larger configuration is explained, along with how to do the same configurations without the wizards, plus comprehensive lists of legal options and parameters. Readers will appreciate the care the book takes in framing how DHCP fits into the rest of the Windows 2000 networking architecture, especially Domain Name Service (DNS) and the server-clustering services. References to standards documents make additional research easy. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), as implemented by Microsoft Windows 2000 on the server side and other Microsoft operating systems (including MS-DOS) on the client side. Chapters address (pun intended) basic configuration scenarios, as well as scopes, superscopes, multihomed DHCP servers, and clustering. For those for whom DHCP won't do, there's a section on multicast configuration with Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP) under Windows 2000.

Book Description
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is an open standard Internet protocol used to allocate and manage IP addresses dynamically. Before DHCP came along, administrators had to manually configure each host on a network with an IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway. Maintaining the changes and the associated logs took a tremendous amount of time and was prone to error. DHCP uses a client/server model in which the system updates and maintains the network information dynamically. Windows 2000 provides enhanced DHCP client-server support. DHCP for Windows 2000 is custom-designed for system administrators who are responsible for configuring and maintaining networks with Windows 2000 servers. It explains the DHCP protocol and how to install and manage DHCP on both servers and clients--including client platforms other than Windows 2000. Readers get detailed and explicit instructions for using Windows 2000 DHCP to manage their network IP configurations much more efficiently and effectively.They get background information for using DHCP in general, plus complete information about the Windows 2000 use of DHCP. For those interested in what's on the horizon, the author steps up to the plate with an analysis of the future direction of DHCP and Windows support for IPv6.

Book Description
DNS and BIND discusses one of the Internet's fundamental building blocks: the distributed host information database that's responsible for translating names into addresses, routing mail to its proper destination, and many other services. As the authors write in the preface, if you're using the Internet, you're already using DNS -- even if you don't know it.

The third edition covers BIND 4.9, on which most commercial products are currently based, and BIND 8, which implements many important new features and will be the basis for the next generation of commercial name servers. It also covers topics like DNS security (greatly improved with BIND 8.1), asynchronous notification of changes to a zone, dynamic updates, and programming with Perl's Net::DNS module.

Whether you're an administrator involved with DNS on daily basis, or a user who wants to be more informed about the Internet and how it works, you'll find that this book is essential reading.

Topics include:

• What DNS does, how it works, and when you need to use it
• How to find your own place in the Internet's name space
• Setting up name servers
• Using MX records to route mail
• Configuring hosts to use DNS name servers
• Subdividing domains (parenting)
• Securing your name server: restricting who can query your server, preventing unauthorized zone transfers, avoiding bogus name servers, etc.
• Mapping one name to several servers for load sharing
• Troubleshooting: using nslookup, reading debugging output, common problems
• DNS programming, using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module

Book Description
Windows NT systems are often said to "manage themselves." This book is for those times when things don't quite work out that way, when somebody who knows what's going on needs to intervene.

Essential Windows NT System Administration helps you manage Windows NT systems as productively as possible, making the task as pleasant and satisfying as can be. It combines practical experience with technical expertise, helping you to work smarter and more efficiently. It not only covers the standard utilities offered with the Windows NT operating system, but also those from the Resource Kit, as well as important commercial and free third-party tools. It also pays particular attention to developing your own tools by writing scripts in Perl and other languages to automate common tasks.

Essential Windows NT System Administration covers:

• How Windows NT systems boot and how to shut them down
• User account administration, including tips for managing large numbers of accounts
• Creating file systems, including striped and fault-tolerant file systems, and securing their contents from unauthorized access
• Sharing file systems via the network, using Windows NT's native share facility and other facilities such as Samba and NFS
• General and advanced network configuration, including DHCP, DNS, WINS, routing, and RAS
• Managing printers, including local printers, network printers, and printer pools
• Managing processes, including the Windows NT schedule service, as well as performance optimization and capacity planning
• Securing Windows NT systems, including implementing security policies and system auditing

This book covers the workstation and server versions of Windows NT 4.0 on both Intel and Alpha processor-based systems.

AEleen Frisch is a Windows NT and UNIX system administrator, and is the author of several books, including O'Reilly's bestselling Essential System Administration.

Book Description
First, the good news: Microsoft Excel is a very powerful and popular spreadsheet program that has been around for quite some time. And this newest version, which ships with Office 97, is very robust and contains some great new features, including a 32,000 character limit per cell, support for the new IntelliMouse (which provides for better spreadsheet navigation), and reliable pivot tables.

Now the bad news: Excel is annoying. Often, the reason is that Excel is so feature-rich that it's hard to know how to access or use particular features efficiently. Since an Excel 97 worksheet supports 65,536 rows, how do you easily navigate from cell A1 to cell E6990, for instance? And how can you take advantage of Excel's powerful features when they're buried so deep in the Excel interface that you don't even know they're there?

Excel 97 Annoyances steps the reader through all of these and many other annoyances, showing how to eliminate them so the user can accomplish tasks easily and efficiently with Excel in order to get some real work done. Some of the topics covered in the book are:

• Construction of a perfect toolbar that reflects the way you work, and not the way Microsoft markets its software
• Techniques for taking full advantage of Excel's auditing features to prevent the ultimate annoyance: an incorrect spreadsheet
• How to effectively use Excel's Internet features
• How to use Excel's data validation features to insure users enter valid data into your spreadsheets

This book also introduces users to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), illustrates how to use the VBA/Excel Editor, and shows how to use VBA to fight off many annoyances, by modifying Excel to work the way you want it to.  Excel 97 Annoyances is aimed at users who prefer to use Excel 97 in the most effective way possible. Spending a small amount of time following the tips in this book to eliminate annoyances will save countless hours when working with Excel.

Amazon.com
You can do anything with Sendmail, the saying goes, but why would you want to? The Exim mail-handling daemon is just as capable as the old stalwart of handling everyday electronic mail duties, and far easier to administer. With a style and polish that's typical of the blue-cover series of system administration books from O'Reilly, Exim: The Mail Transfer Agent shows how to set up and use Exim. You'll be very pleased with this book if you've chosen to work with Exim and require better information than the online documentation can provide. Philip Hazel has done a good job of combining a comprehensive set of details--including lots of command listings--with advice and practical examples that will make an administrator's life easier.

Typical of this approach is the treatment of methods for blocking traffic from bad hosts that attempt to mail to your Exim station. The book runs through alternative techniques--using a public blocking list, blocking hosts explicitly, and so on--in series. Each technique is described in terms of what happens and why, and includes listings of the relevant configuration commands. Other sections, such as those concerned with SMTP configuration, are more reference-like. They contain long lists of commands and options, in which the purpose of each is explained. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to set up, configure, and administer the Exim mail-handling agent. Directors, routers, transports, filters, and the integration of Exim with Perl, shell scripts, and database lookups are covered.

Book Description
Exim delivers electronic mail, both local and remote. It has all the virtues of a good postman: it's easy to talk to, reliable, efficient, and eager to accommodate even the most complex special requests. It's the default mail transport agent installed on some Linux systems, runs on many versions of Unix, and is suitable for any TCP/IP network with any combination of hosts and end-user mail software. Exim is growing in popularity because it is open source, scalable, and rich in features such as the following:

• Compatibility with the calling interfaces and options of Sendmail (for which Exim is usually a drop-in replacement)
• Lookups in LDAP servers, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, and NIS or NIS+ services
• Support for many kinds of address parsing, including regular expressions that are compatible with Perl 5
• Sophisticated error handling
• Innumerable tuning parameters for improving performance and handling enormous volumes of mail

Book Description
Of course you love your Mac, but don't you wish you could program it yourself?

Instead of looking for an application that does what you need, what if *you* could write a program to concatenate files, change file-types, munge text? What if you could automate repetitive processes, and tie existing applications together: Have QuarkXPress construct a whole catalog based on a FileMaker database, or have Clip2GIF transform all the PICTs in a Microsoft Word file into GIFs? What if you could send email without an email program, or download Web pages without a browser? What if you could control remote computers across a network? What if you could beef up your Web site by writing your own CGI scripts, or by generating hundreds of related Web pages automatically? With UserLand Frontier, you can do all this and more. What is Frontier?

• It's a simple but sophisticated scripting language (UserTalk), with speed that blows AppleScript away and a far easier learning curve -- plus it's multi-threaded and includes an elegant debugging environment.
• It's an integrated database with instant access to data, text, outlines, and tables.
• It's a totally automated environment, where scripts can create dialogs, open windows, edit text, alter menus.
• It's a hook to the system, able to read and write files, open documents, read the clipboard.
• It's a base for sending and receiving Apple events, so it can drive any scriptable application and can be integrated into other scripting applications.
• It's a network application, able to function as a client or server over AppleTalk or the Internet.
• It's a powerful scripting environment for Web site management and system level scripting.

Frontier: The Definitive Guide is the first book devoted exclusively to teaching and documenting this wonderful program. With it, you can learn all about Frontier or find out about just those aspects that interest you. Whether you're a complete Frontier beginner or an experienced hand in need of a clear, ordered reference, this book is for you.

Packed with examples, advice, tricks and tips, Frontier: The Definitive Guide teaches you Frontier from the ground up. Even if you've never programmed before, you'll be cranking out Web pages or writing your own custom scripts in no time. Before you know it, you'll have joined the ranks of thousands of Macintosh power users who make Frontier their "home base."

Covers Frontier 4.2.3 for the Macintosh.

Book Description
Everywhere you turn -- newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, even eavesdropping at the local coffee shop -- the news is inescapable: The nation is hooking up to the Internet. Business people who see the opportunity to publicize their products; educators reaching out to rural communities; scientific researchers who collaborate long-distance; consulting groups, church groups: Everybody's getting wired.

But getting your organization connected to the Internet is not as simple as calling the phone company for a telephone line. You have to learn about telecommunications technologies such as frame relay and ISDN, the differences among networking hardware options, and internal networking issues. You need to figure out not only which Internet service provider is best for you, but which services you really need. You'll be faced with a series of technical decisions concerning network security, routing management, and email gateways. And, you'll want to know what's the best free software out there for rounding out your investment.

Getting Connected: The Internet at 56K and Up, a comprehensive guide to dealing with these issues, explains in detail everything you need to know to make informed decisions. And it does much more. Once you've set up your Internet connection, it helps you to troubleshoot problems and introduces you to an array of Internet services, such as the World Wide Web. Tackles issues for PC, Macintosh, and UNIX platforms.

This book:

• Gives you an overview of the Internet: how it's organized, ts demographics, and legal issues.
• Introduces telecommunications technologies (atm, isdn, dedicated lines, T1 and T3, to name a few) and networking hardware (routers, dsu/csu, modems, terminal servers).
• Discusses how to assess bandwidth requirements, select an Internet service provider, and pricing.
• Explains IP and routing protocols, and describes the Doman Name Service.
• Describes how to set up an email hub using POP to support desktop and remote clients. Also covers gateways to other email systems such as cc:Mail and MS Mail.
• Introduces you to the basic Internet services: World Wide Web, gopher, WAIS, Netnews, anonymous ftp.
• Shows you how to secure your network with a firewall.
• Helps you to support remote users via slip and ppp connections.

Amazon.com
Plenty of books can teach you HTML quickly, getting you up to speed and hacking out Web pages in no time. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide offers a more comprehensive and pragmatic look at the de facto markup language of today, as well as the emerging next step.

This title systematically presents HTML markup, beginning with the basics--such as the anatomy of an HTML document, text, and links--and proceeding to cascading style sheets, JavaScript, and XML. Along the way, it discusses related issues, such as problems with displaying background images, and browser-specific behavior with tables and other elements. Each element is covered in as much depth as is necessary to frame the key implementation issues.

Most of the book is entirely relevant to basic HTML coding without any concern for XHTML. The latter, more cutting-edge flavor of markup is covered in depth near the end of the book. The entire specifications for the HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 Document Type Definitions (DTDs) are included among the appendices.

While HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide is an excellent tutorial for learning markup the right way, it is also a superb desktop reference guide to keep nearby for daily use. Perhaps, there is no greater compliment for a Web development book. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• Markup basics
• HTML document structure
• Text handling
• Images
• Multimedia
• Links and URLs
• Formatted lists
• Tables
• Forms
• Cascading style sheets
• Frames
• JavaScript
• Applets and objects
• Dynamic documents
• Netscape Layout Extensions
• XML
• XHTML

Book Description
HTML is changing so fast it's almost impossible to keep up with developments. XHTML is HTML 4.0 rewritten in XML; it provides the precision of XML while retaining the flexibility of HTML. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition, brings it all together. It's the most comprehensive book available on HTML and XHTML today. It covers Netscape Navigator 6.0, Internet Explorer 5.0, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, JavaScript, Style sheets, Layers, and all of the features supported by the popular web browsers.

Learning HTML and XHTML is like learning any new language, computer or human. Most students first immerse themselves in examples. Studying others is a natural way to learn, making learning easy and fun. Imitation can take learning only so far, though. It's as easy to learn bad habits through imitation as it is to acquire good ones. The better way to become HTML-fluent is through a comprehensive reference that covers the language syntax, semantics, and variations in detail and demonstrates the difference between good and bad usage.

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition, helps in both ways: the authors cover every element of HTML/XHTML in detail, explaining how each element works and how it interacts with other elements. Many hints about HTML/XHTML style smooth the way for writing documents that range from simple online documentation to complex presentations. With hundreds of examples, the book gives web authors models for writing their own effective web pages and for mastering advanced features, like style sheets and frames.

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition, shows how to:

• Implement the XHTML 1.0 standard and prepare web pages for the transition to XML browsers
• Use style sheets and layers to control a document's appearance
• Create tables, from simple to complex
• Use frames to coordinate sets of documents
• Design and build interactive forms and dynamic documents
• Insert images, sound files, video, Java applets, and JavaScript programs
• Create documents that look good on a variety of browsers

The book comes with a handy quick reference card listing HTML tags.

Book Description
HTML is changing so fast it's almost impossible to keep up with developments. How do you know what's real, and how do you use it? The third edition of HTML: The Definitive Guide brings it all together for you. It is the most comprehensive book available on HTML today. It covers Netscape Navigator 4.5, Internet Explorer 4.0, HTML, JavaScript, Style sheets, Layers, and all of the features supported by the popular Web browsers. Learning HTML is like learning any new language, computer or human. Most students first immerse themselves in examples. Studying others is a natural way to learn, making learning easy and fun. Imitation can take you only so far, though. It's as easy to learn bad habits through imitation as it is to acquire good ones. The better way to become HTML-fluent is through a comprehensive reference that covers the language syntax, semantics, and variations in detail and that helps you distinguish between good and bad usage.

HTML: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition helps you both ways: the authors cover every element of HTML in detail, explaining how each element works and how it interacts with other elements. Many hints about HTML style help you write documents ranging from simple online documentation to complex marketing and sales presentations. With hundreds of examples, the book gives you models for writing your own effective Web pages and for mastering advanced features, like style sheets and frames.

HTML: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition shows you how to:

• Use style sheets and layers to control a document's appearance
• Create tables, from simple to complex
• Use frames to coordinate sets of documents
• Design and build interactive forms and dynamic documents
• Insert images, sound files, video, Java applets, and JavaScript programs
• Create documents that look good on a variety of browsers

A handy quick reference card listing HTML tags is included.

Book Description
Some web sites "work" and some don't. Good web site consultants know that you can't just jump in and start writing HTML, the same way you can't build a house by just pouring a foundation and putting up some walls. You need to know who will be using the site, and what they'll be using it for. You need some idea of what you'd like to draw their attention to during their visit. Overall, you need a strong, cohesive vision for the site that makes it both distinctive and usable.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is about applying the principles of architecture and library science to web site design. Each web site is like a public building, available for tourists and regulars alike to breeze through at their leisure. The job of the architect is to set up the framework for the site to make it comfortable and inviting for people to visit, relax in, and perhaps even return to someday.

Most books on web development concentrate either on the aesthetics or the mechanics of the site. This book is about the framework that holds the two together. With this book, you learn how to design web sites and intranets that support growth, management, and ease of use. Special attention is given to:

• The process behind architecting a large, complex site
• Web site hierarchy design and organization

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is for webmasters, designers, and anyone else involved in building a web site. It's for novice web designers who, from the start, want to avoid the traps that result in poorly designed sites. It's for experienced web designers who have already created sites but realize that something "is missing" from their sites and want to improve them. It's for programmers and administrators who are comfortable with HTML, CGI, and Java but want to understand how to organize their web pages into a cohesive site.

The authors are two of the principals of Argus Associates, a web consulting firm. At Argus, they have created information architectures for web sites and intranets of some of the largest companies in the United States, including Chrysler Corporation, Barron's, and Dow Chemical.

Book Description
This book details the Windows 95 File System, depicting the role it plays in providing opportunities and challenges for developers. Over the course of the book, Stan Mitchell progressively strips away the layers of the Win95 File System, which reside in a component named Installable File System Manager or IFSMgr, providing the reader with information that is crucial for effective File System development. With the knowledge gained from this book, developers will have the ability to make crucial design decisions with the vast amount of new File System features.

At present, there is a dearth of information about the Windows 95 File System. Microsoft has documented the Installable File System (IFS) in the Windows 95 device driver kit, yet it lacks example programs and background information on the File System's architecture or design. Stan's book, however, takes a "hands-on" approach and, where appropriate, demonstrates ideas with example code. The reader gets a view of the File System like a building that is going up, before the floors and walls are erected and the plumbing is in clear view.

The book doesn't attempt to rebuild Windows 95 from the ground up, but it does trace through Windows 95 from the "Big Bang" to its quiescent state (Kernel idle). Armed with this background, the reader will approach examples of the Windows 95 operating system modes in the book, and examine how the File System is accessed from each of them.

This book is vital to the large audience of people who don't write device drivers for a living, but who need to know about this new File System in Win95 that, appearances aside, is quite different from what the PC world has used for the last ten years. Includes a diskette containing MULTIMON, a general-purpose monitor developed by Stan Mitchell for examining Windows internals.

Book Description
What Windows 95 developers have been looking for! An in-depth examination of the Windows 95 registry, the new central "storage facility" for settings that replaces most of the old SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI settings found in Windows 3.x. This book covers remote registry access, differences between the Win95 and NT registries, and registry backup. You'll also find a thorough examination of the role that the registry plays in OLE, coverage of undocumented registry services, and more. Petrusha shows programmers how to access the Win95 registry from Win32, Win16, and DOS programs in C and Visual Basic. VxD sample code is also included. The book includes a diskette with registry tools such as REGSPY, a program that shows exactly how Windows applications, libraries, and drivers use settings in the registry.

Book Description
The power of XSLT is its ability to change the structure or format of any content that can be converted to XML. Java and XSLT shows you how to use XSL transformations in Java programs ranging from stand-alone applications to servlets. After an introduction to XSLT, the book focuses on applying transformations in some real-world scenarios, such as developing a discussion forum, transforming documents from one form to another, and generating content for wireless devices. Java and XSLT discusses several common XSLT processors and the TRAX API, paying special attention to performance issues. Although there's a brief tutorial introduction to the XSLT language, the primary focus of the book isn't on learning XSLT or developing stylesheets; it's on making practical use of transformations in Java code. The book covers:

• Introduction and Technology Review
• XSLT--The Basics
• XSLT--Beyond The Basics
• Java Web Architecture
• Programmatic Interfaces to XSLT Processors
• Using XSLT with Servlets
• Discussion Forum Implementation
• Advanced XSLT Web Techniques
• Testing, Tuning and Development Environments
• WAP and WML
• XSLT and Wireless Examples

Book Description
The network is the soul of Java. Most of what is new and exciting about Java centers around the potential for new kinds of dynamic networked applications. Java Network Programming describes the java.net package, which contains classes for communications and working with networked resources. It is a complete introduction to developing network programs (both applets and applications) using Java, covering everything from networking fundamentals to remote method invocation (RMI). Whether you're an experienced network programmer, or just want to see what's possible, you'll find Java Network Programming is a thorough guide to Java's networking potential. It covers Java 1.1, contains many complete programs (available online), and covers all aspects of basic network programming. You'll find chapters on TCP and UDP sockets, multicasting protocol and content handlers, and servlets, part of the new Server API. It also covers what you can do without explicitly writing newtork code: how you can accomplish your goals using URLs and the basic capabilities of applets.

Book Description
A few years ago, the hype surrounding applets put Java on the map as a programming language for the Web. Today, Java servlets stand poised to take Java to the next level as a Web development language. The main reason is that servlets offer a fast, powerful, portable replacement for CGI scripts.

The Java Servlet API, introduced as the first standard extension to Java, provides a generic mechanism to extend the functionality of any kind of server. Servlets are most commonly used, however, to extend Web servers, performing tasks traditionally handled by CGI programs. Web servers that can support servlets include: Apache, Netscape's FastTrack and Enterprise Servers, Microsoft's IIS, O'Reilly's WebSite, and JavaSoft's Java Web Server.

The beauty of servlets is that they execute within the Web server's process space and they persist between invocations. This gives servlets tremendous performance benefits over CGI programs. Yet because they're written in Java, servlets are far less likely to crash a Web server than a C-based NSAPI or ISAPI extension. Servlets have full access to the various Java APIs and to third-party component classes, making them ideal for use in communicating with applets, databases, and RMI servers. Plus, servlets are portable between operating systems and between servers -- with servlets you can "write once, serve everywhere."

Java Servlet Programming covers everything you need to know to write effective servlets and includes numerous examples that you can use as the basis for your own servlets. The book explains the servlet life cycle, showing how you can use servlets to maintain state information effortlessly. It also describes how to serve dynamic Web content, including both HTML pages and multimedia data. Finally, it explores more advanced topics like integrated session tracking, efficient database connectivity using JDBC, applet-servlet communication, inter-servlet communication, and internationalization.

Book Description
JavaScript is a powerful, object-based scripting language; JavaScript programs can be embedded directly in HTML web pages. When combined with the Document Object Model (DOM) defined by a web browser, JavaScript allows you to create Dynamic HTML content and interactive client-side web applications. JavaScript syntax is based on the popular programming languages C, C++, and Java, which makes it familiar and easy to learn for experienced programmers. At the same time, JavaScript is an interpreted scripting language, providing a flexible, forgiving programming environment in which new programmers can learn. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide provides a thorough description of the core JavaScript language and both the legacy and standard DOMs implemented in web browsers. The book includes sophisticated examples that show you how to handle common tasks, like validating form data, working with cookies, and creating portable DHTML animations. The book also contains detailed reference sections that cover the core JavaScript API, the legacy client-side API, and the W3C standard DOM API, documenting every JavaScript object, method, property, constructor, constant, function, and event handler in those APIs. This fourth edition of the bestselling JavaScript book has been carefully updated to cover JavaScript 1.5 (ECMAScript version 3). The book also provides complete coverage of the W3C DOM standard (Level 1 and Level 2), while retaining material on the legacy Level 0 DOM for backward compatibility. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is a complete programmer's guide and reference manual for JavaScript. It is particularly useful for developers working with the latest standards-compliant web browsers, like Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 6, and Mozilla. HTML authors can learn how to use JavaScript to build dynamic web pages. Experienced programmers can quickly find the information they need to start writing sophisticated JavaScript programs. This book is an indispensable reference for all JavaScript programmers, regardless of experience level.

Amazon.com
Provides a rapid and thorough exposition of the JavaScript programming language, as well as an in-depth reference section covering each JavaScript function, object, method, and even handler. Experienced programmers will quickly find the information they need to start writing JavaScript programs.

Book Description
JavaScript is a simple programming language from Netscape that can be embedded in your HTML Web pages. It allows you to control the behavior of the Web browser, add dynamically created text to your Web pages, interact with the user through HTML forms (without CGI scripts), and, in version 3.0 of Netscape Navigator, even control and interact with Java applets and Navigator plugins.

JavaScript is not an alternative to Java, but an ideal partner. The two languages have separate but very complementary features. Since JavaScript is a simple language that can be embedded directly into a Web page, without need for compilation, it is accessible to more Web page authors, and may actually have a larger short-term impact on the Web and on Internet computing than Java itself.

This book is a definitive guide for JavaScript. The first eight chapters document the core JavaScript language, and the next six describe how JavaScript works on the client-side to interact with the Web browser and with the Web page. These chapters are followed by acomplete reference section that documents every object, property, method, event handler, function, and constructor used by client-side JavaScript. In a separate reference section, you will find the interaction between JavaScript and HTML documented -- mainly aspects of HTML that relate to JavaScript. A forthcoming edition of this book will cover the use of JavaScript on Web servers, as well as the object, properties, and methods of server-side JavaScript.

This book documents the version of JavaScript shipped with Navigator 2.0, 2.0.1, and 2.0.2, and also the much-changed version of JavaScript shipped with beta versions of Navigator 3.0. The 3.0 information is current as of the 3.0b4 release. JavaScript is also supported in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, and this book discusses JavaScript support in Beta 1 of MSIE. A notable feature of these versions of JavaScript is the frustrating number of bugs that still exist. The book contains a long list of known bugs and is careful to document commonly encountered bugs on the reference pages of the JavaScript objects.

Why is this book in "Beta"? We printed this book in a "beta" edition because JavaScript is rapidly evolving. Within Netscape, the version of JavaScript that will be in Navigator 3.0 is being called "JavaScript 1.0." This is an implicit admission that JavaScript as implemented in Navigator 2.0 was still a beta version of the language.

Despite JavaScript's beta status, a tremendous number of people are using it and need quality documentation for it. At the same time, however, we realize there have been a lot of changes to JavaScript since Navigator 2.0 was released. As this book is being written, Navigator is at the 3.0b4 stage, and we are beginning to hear about the new features that will be available in the 3.0b5 release. It seems, in fact, that JavaScript is changing faster at this point than at any other time in its development. Since we intend for this book to be a definitive guide for the Navigator 2.0 and Navigator 3.0 versions of JavaScript, we are not ready to release the first edition of the book until Navigator 3.0 is released in final form.

Since beta software has become the norm in these days of rapid innovation on the Internet, we realized that there was no reason we couldn't apply the same model to our high-priority books. By printing this beta edition we can get timely information out to our customers without giving the impression that the book is in its final form.

In order to get the beta version of the book out quickly (which is the whole point!) we have not put it through all the quality-control checks that O'Reilly books usually go through. So forgive us if you find typos or awkward prose. As a reader of this beta edition of the book, you can help us to improve the final edition by serving as a beta-tester. If you find errors, inaccuracies, or typos anywhere in the book, or explanations that are not clear, or statements that are misleading, please let us know about them by sending email to bookquestions@ora.com.

Amazon.com
This comprehensive guide to JavaServer Pages (JSPs), a fast-growing technology for Web developers, teaches you how to embed server-side Java into Web pages, while also offering full access to other features such as JavaBeans, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), and JDBC database access. The reference JSP implementation is the freely available Apache Tomcat server, so it won't cost a thing to get started. All the example code in the book has been tested on Tomcat, in fact.

The first part of JavaServer Pages covers the essentials of HTTP and Java Servlets, on which JSPs are based. There is also a guide to installing Tomcat on your Windows or Unix system. The next part, aimed at Web page designers as well as programmers, covers JSP application development. There is material on scripting elements, error handling, managing user sessions, database access, security, and using XML and XSL with JSP. Part 3, for programmers, broadens the scope to include EJB and other Java components, developing custom tags, and achieving highly scalable applications using database connection pools. A comprehensive reference section finishes things off.

The author has been an active participant in the official servlet and JSP working groups, and this book is both well informed and well organized. It provides experts with invaluable tips and insights, while newcomers will find all they need to assess and implement their first JSP applications. --Tim Anderson, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description
JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology provides an easy way to create dynamic web pages. JSP uses a component-based approach that allows web developers to easily combine static HTML for look-and-feel with Java components for dynamic features. The simplicity of this component-based model, combined with the cross-platform power of Java, allows a web development environment with enormous potential.

JavaServer Pages shows how to develop Java-based web applications without having to be a hardcore programmer. The author provides an overview of JSP concepts and discusses how JSP fits into the larger picture of web applications. Web page authors will benefit from the chapters on generating dynamic content, handling session information, accessing databases, authenticating users, and personalizing content. In the programming-oriented chapters, Java programmers learn how to create Java components and custom JSP tags for web authors to use in JSP pages.

Amazon.com
For Mac developers of all levels, Learning Cocoa provides an approachable guide to creating applications using Objective-C and the programming tools built into the new Mac OS X operating system. This efficiently packaged text will help virtually anyone master basic Mac application development.

Written by the experts at Apple Computer, Inc., this book sets an admirable standard of clarity for a basic programming tutorial. It begins with the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and Objective-C, the default language used for the Mac platform. Much of the book consists of hands-on exercises for creating a variety of simple Mac applications built on the Cocoa application framework (a rich set of classes that make it simple to create software). Learning Cocoa is not just a source of raw source code; rather, its salient feature is a series of step-by-step guides to working with Mac OS X tools like the Interface Builder and the built-in Apple IDE. From a simple "Hello, World" program and a currency converter to a "Travel Advisor" application (with information on three countries) and a "To Do" application, the book provides exercises that show you all the steps for creating software using a variety of tools.

The discussion of the user interface widgets that are available in the Mac OS X is excellent. You will learn how to design interfaces (which are saved to .nib files), and about the Model-View-Controller architecture recommended by Apple for designing reusable and flexible classes. Later in the book, the same classes are reused in a multiple-document version of the Travel Advisor program. Sample code for a custom widget that displays a calendar will show you how to build custom components.

Throughout this book, there's plenty of information on the nuts and bolts of building successful applications for the Mac OS X, especially memory and resource management. There're also plenty of diagrams and background on the architecture of using Cocoa application framework classes together to create software.

Even Mac beginners should benefit from this concise and well-presented text. It will have you writing simple applications fast, while giving you the latest on the classes and tools available on the newest Mac OS X. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Overview of the Cocoa framework for Mac OS X
• Object-oriented programming tutorial
• Objective-C language quick start
• Mac application development tools (including Project Builder, Interface Builder, and command-line tools)
• A "Hello, World" application in Cocoa
• Fundamental Cocoa classes (including collections and controls)
• Memory and resource management in Cocoa
• A "Currency Converter" application (including basic GUI programming with Cocoa components)
• Event-handling basics
• Using table views and data sources
• Persistence and "flattening" Cocoa objects
• A "Travel Advisor" sample application (including the Model-View-Controller architecture)
• The Cocoa Multiple-Document Architecture
• A "To Do" scheduling application (including a custom calendar component and timers)
• Deployment in Cocoa (application settings, icons, and document types)
• Compiler optimization in Cocoa
• Reference for basic graphics in Cocoa

Book Description
Cocoa™ is one of the principal application environments for Mac® OS X. Among Cocoa's many attributes, its advanced object-oriented APIs allow you to develop in both Java and Objective-C. This revolutionary new way of developing sophisticated applications for the Macintosh is both powerful and easy.

With Learning Cocoa you'll become familiar with Cocoa application development, using Objective C, not merely by reading, but by doing. The book begins with a discussion of essential object-oriented programming concepts for those with no previous experience. It proceeds through an introduction to the Cocoa environment, development, tools, and some simple tutorials to help you become familiar with the basic elements of Cocoa programming. The remaining tutorials guide you as you create a series of increasingly complex example applications. The techniques and concepts you learn in one tutorial lay the foundation for the more advanced techniques and concepts in the next.

You don't need extensive programming experience to complete the examples in this book, though it would be helpful to have some experience with the C programming language. The code for each example is included in the text so you can simply type it in. If you're already familiar with an object-oriented programming language like Java or Smalltalk, you'll quickly feel right at home with Objective-C, the language used throughout this book.

As you ease your way into the experience of Cocoa programming, you're encouraged to play, to explore, to "kick the tires." You'll finish this book much better prepared to take on serious application development with Cocoa, and you'll find Apple's development environment not only less mysterious, but one that you'll be eager to program in.

Written by insiders at Apple Computer, the book brings you information that you can't get anywhere else--and a potential leg up in the Mac OS X application development market.

Amazon.com
In this smooth, carefully paced course, a leading Perl trainer teaches you to program in the language that threatens to make C, sed, awk, and the Unix shell obsolete for many tasks. This book is the "official" guide for both formal (classroom) and informal learning. It is fully accessible to the novice programmer.

Book Description
In this update of a bestseller, two leading Perl trainers teach you to use the most universal scripting language in the age of the World Wide Web. With a foreword by Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, this smooth, carefully paced book is the "official" guide for both formal (classroom) and informal learning. It is now current for Perl version 5.004.

Learning Perl is a hands-on tutorial designed to get you writing useful Perl scripts as quickly as possible. Exercises (with complete solutions) accompany each chapter. A lengthy new chapter in this edition introduces you to CGI programming, while touching also on the use of library modules, references, and Perl's object-oriented constructs.

Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files, and processes. It comes standard on most UNIX platforms and is available free of charge on all other important operating systems. Perl technical support is informally available -- often within minutes -- from a pool of experts who monitor a USENET newsgroup (comp.lang.perl.misc) with tens of thousands of readers.

Contents include:

• A quick tutorial stroll through Perl basics
• Systematic, topic-by-topic coverage of Perl's broad capabilities
• Lots of brief code examples
• Programming exercises for each topic, with fully worked-out answers
• How to execute system commands from your Perl program
• How to manage DBM databases using Perl
• An introduction to CGI programming for the Web

Book Description
Since the dawn of computing, software designers and developers have searched for ways to describe the systems they worked so hard to create. Flowcharts enabled the concise documentation of program-flow and algorithms. Entity-relationship diagrams enabled database designers to convey the structure underlying the collection of tables and columns that made up a schema. From the beginning, technologists recognized the descriptive power inherent in visual representations of a system, yet it wasn't until 1997 that the first attempt to create a visual language that could be used across all aspects of a system development project came to fruition. Unified Modeling Language (UML) was born. UML has taken the software development industry by storm. Widely supported by development and documentation tools, UML can be used on the one hand by programmers to record such things as the detailed design of classes in an object-oriented system and on the other hand by business analysts to give the broad-brush picture of how a system interacts with users and other systems. UML has become the lingua franca of software development, and no one in the software industry can afford to be without knowledge of this powerfully expressive visual language. Learning UML introduces UML and places it in perspective, then leads you through an orderly progress towards mastery of the language. You'll begin by learning how UML is used to model the structure of a system. Many key UML concepts, especially that of the general (classes) versus the specific (objects), are illustrated in the chapter on class and object diagrams. Next, you'll learn how to use use-case diagrams to model the functionality of a system. Finally, you'll see how component and deployment diagrams are used to model the way in which a system is deployed in a physical environment. Structural modeling answers the "who" and "what" questions of systems development. Behavioral modeling addresses the questions of "when," "how," and "why." You'll learn how to use sequence and collaboration, to model the interaction over time between system components, how to use state diagrams to describe the life cycle of system components, and how to use activity diagrams to document control-flow and responsibility. Throughout this book, author Sinan Si Alhir maintains a clear focus on UML the language and avoids getting caught up in the cobwebs of methodology. His presentation is direct and to-the-point. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises that you can use to test your growing knowledge of UML and its concepts. As you work your way through the book, you'll find yourself warming up to the simple yet expressive language that is UML, and using it to communicate effectively and professionally about all aspects of system design.

Book Description
The next generation of mobile communicators is here, and delivering content to them will mean programming in WML (Wireless Markup Language) and WMLScript, the languages of the Wireless Application Environment (WAE). The WAE allows information in almost all applications to be formatted for display on mobile devices, such as cell phones, and enables the user to interact with the information. Why learn yet another technology? According to some estimates, 75 percent of web document viewing by the year 2002 will be through non-desktop devices, many using wireless technologies. Clearly, the future is wireless. For web developers who want to get up to speed quickly in these languages, Learning WML & WMLScript maps out in detail the WAE and its two major components, WML and WMLScript. Fortunately, the WAE provides a World Wide Web-like model for writing applications, incorporating several key features of the Web to ease the transition for developers. Almost all wireless applications can be written with WML, which replaces HTML in the wireless environment, and WMLScript, which replaces JavaScript. With this book, web developers with some knowledge of programming and C, Java, or JavaScript syntax can easily master both languages. Chapter by chapter, Learning WML & WMLScript takes readers through the following WML topics:

• Decks, templates and cards
• User Interaction
• Variables and contexts
• Tasks, events, and timers
• Text and text formatting

• Data types, conversions and variables
• Operators and expressions
• Statements
• Functions
• Standard libraries

Topics covered: Network File System (NFS) and Network Information System (NIS) for Unix machines, especially Solaris (through version 8) and Linux (through version 2.2). Auto mounting, security, diskless workstations, and performance tuning are among the many details the authors address.

Book Description
A modern computer system that is not part of a network is an anomaly. But managing a network and getting it to perform well can be a problem. This book describes two tools that are absolutely essential to distributed computing environments: the Network Filesystem (NFS) and the Network Information System (formerly called the "yellow pages" or YP).

The Network Filesystem, developed by Sun Microsystems, is fundamental to most UNIX networks. It allows systems ranging from PCs running DOS to UNIX workstations to large mainframes to access each other's files transparently. It is the standard method for sharing files between different computer systems. As popular as NFS is, it is a "black box" for most users and administrators. This book provides a comprehensive discussion of how to plan, set up, and debug an NFS network. It is the only book we're aware of that discusses NFS and network performance tuning. This book also covers the NFS automounter, network security issues, diskless workstations, and PC/NFS. NFS isn't really complete without its companion, NIS. NIS provides a distributed database service for managing the most important administrative files, such as the passwd file and the hosts file. NIS centralizes administration of commonly replicated files, letting you make a single change to the database rather than making changes on every system on the network.

This book tells you how to set up and use NIS to simplify network management. It also tells you how to use NIS to manage your own database applications, ranging from a simple telephone list to controlling access to network services. If you are managing a network of UNIX systems, or are thinking of setting up a UNIX network, you can't afford to overlook this book.

Book Description
The Windows NT Registry is the repository for all hardware, software, and application configuration settings, and Managing the Windows NT Registry is the system administrator's guide to maintaining, monitoring, and updating the Registry database. The book addresses four main areas:

• What is the Registry? Where does it live on disk? How do system services access and use it? What do you do if it's damaged or corrupted? Every NT administrator faces questions like this, often in a desperate attempt to fix something that's broken.

• What tools are available? Detailed descriptions of Regedit, RegEdt32, the System Policy Editor, and selected Resource Kit utilities explain how to edit and secure the Registry both on local and on remote computers.

• How can I access the Registry from a program? Regularly monitoring the Registry's contents is one way to preclude unpleasant surprises. Using examples in C++, Visual Basic, and Perl, Managing the WIndows NT Registry demonstrates how to create Registry-aware tools and scripts.

• What's in the Registry? Not all Registry keys are adequately documented by Microsoft or by the other vendors who store configuration data in the Registry. Managing the Windows NT Registry offers a guided tour of some of these undocumented keys; in addition, the associated Web site provides a "living database" of Registry keys that readers can search (and contribute to).

  This book is a "must have" for every NT system manager or administrator.

Amazon.com
Paperless office, paperless schmoffice: if you can't get your document to look right on paper, you might as well not waste time creating it at all. For administrators, printing across a local area network (LAN) was hard enough when everyone was running the same operating system. Now, with at least three widespread versions of Windows, several Mac OS flavors, and Linux servers making inroads all the time, printing can be hairier than ever. Network Printing aims to clarify the mechanisms by which various operating systems--particularly Unix variants--speak to one another about printing matters. It also seeks to explain the procedures that administrators need to follow to get Macs and Windows machines printing on Unix and Linux boxes via Samba. Though it would be nice to see a section on getting Macs to print to Windows printers and vice versa, this book meets its goal.

In the section on Unix printing, all the popular print daemons are explained, including lp, lpr, lpd, and LPRng, relying heavily (and helpfully) on command-line listings. The Samba section on how to install Samba 2.0.6 under Unix and Linux and exercise its important commands is more procedural. Later you learn how to hook up Macs, Windows machines, and NetWare servers to Samba-enabled print servers. --David Wall

Topics covered: Printing over a network, with emphasis on Unix, Linux, Samba, and the means by which they connect to computers running Windows, Mac OS, and NetWare. Popular Unix print utilities are documented, plus how to install Samba and open its services to a heterogeneous network.

Book Description
On today's networks it's common to have users running Windows, Apple, Novell, and many versions of Unix. Each operating system has its own printing facility and there is little or nothing in common between them--there is no single system for print spooling. Yet all users want to be able to print, and most of the time they have to share the same printers. The network administrator has to solve this problem as efficiently as possible. O'Reilly's Network Printing shows network administrators a way out of this problem. It details how to set up a network printing system that's based on Linux, but can handle printing from Windows, Novell, Apple, and any version of Unix. To this end, it offers thorough discussions of the Unix printing facility (both LPR and LPRng); Samba's printer sharing; Netatalk, a free implementation of the AppleTalk protocol; and ncpfs, a Linux implementation of the Netware protocols. The book also shows how to get printers to boot correctly on a network, using solutions like bootp and DHCP; how to manage printers remotely using SNMP; and how to set up a network-wide printer configuration repository with LDAP.

Book Description
First, the promise: Because Microsoft Office 97 is an integrated suite of applications, your spreadsheet, word processor, database, presentation graphics program, and personal information manager not only share a common user interface, but allow you to share data among the programs seamlessly.

Now the reality: Despite marked improvements from version to version, there is much in Office 97 that remains annoying. Maybe it's the fact that identical user interface options are implemented differently -- and sometimes are not implemented at all -- in individual Office applications. Or maybe it's that Office is too integrated; there are pan-Office "sticky" settings that, when set in one application, affect all other Office applications too. Office 97 Annoyances takes a look at these and other annoyances and shows how to get rid of them so that you can get your work done more easily and efficiently. For instance, the book shows you how to:

• Configure the Office Shortcut Bar to provide an effective tool for accessing your Office applications and documents
• Customize the toolbar of each Office application except Outlook so that it reflects the way that you work rather than the needs of Microsoft's marketing machine
• Use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as a macro language to control the behavior of the individual Office components, in the process removing many of their annoyances

Sometimes, you can't do anything to improve Office's integration -- or lack of it. But you can reduce your annoyance level simply by knowing where Office's integration is most problematic. Office 97 Annoyances also arms you with knowledge in the following areas:

• The pan-Office "sticky" settings
• Shortcomings in the Office Binder, an integration utility developed to address shortcomings in Office integration

Office 97 Annoyances is for the users who want to be as productive as possible when using Office 97. Learning which Office annoyances you can and can't eliminate will save you countless hours (and endless aggravation) when working with Microsoft Office 97.

Amazon.com
Oracle made a big decision a couple of years ago. The company decided to open certain aspects of its relational database management system (RDBMS) to manipulation by outside software. That architectural decision enabled a whole community of specialized software developers to thrive. In Oracle & Open Source, Andy Duncan and Sean Hull explore the universe of open source (that is, modifiable and largely free) software for Oracle applications. The authors approach the subject from two angles: that of database administrators who simply want to locate, download, and use tools that others have created, and that of the software developer who wants to learn about and take advantage of the hooks Oracle has built into its products.

The downloaders will be pleased with documentation of Orac, Oddis, Karma, Oracletool, GNOME-DB, and other ready-to-run administration and design tools. The book explains what each tool does, where it comes from, how to install it, and how to use it (complete with hallmark O'Reilly options lists in most cases). The programmer set, eager to contribute to the collection of open-source Oracle tools, will learn a lot from documentation of Oracle-specific libraries for various languages, including Oratcl for Tcl/Tk, several Perl modules, DCOracle for Python, and the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) classes for Java. Some programmers may find the introductory sections too general in focus, but they'll be pleased by sections that explain the use of specific methods and functions. --David Wall

Topics covered: The collection of libraries that have come into existence to facilitate interaction with Oracle databases from within home-grown software, as well as programs that others have written to take advantage of those libraries.

Book Description
Oracle & Open Source is the first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software. As this book reveals, these two worlds are not as far apart as they may seem. Today, there are many excellent and freely available software tools that Oracle developers and database administrators can use, at no cost, to improve their own coding productivity and their system's performance. Moreover, many of the finest Oracle developers are now making their source code freely available so their peers can build upon this code base. Oracle Corporation is even porting its RDBMS to Linux and starting to incorporate a growing number of open source tools in the company's own software. Oracle & Open Source describes close to 100 open source tools you can use for Oracle development and database administration, from large and widely known open source systems (like Linux, Perl, Apache, TCL/Tk and Python) to more Oracle-specific tools (like Orasoft, Orac, OracleTool, and OraSnap). You'll learn how to obtain the software and how to adapt it to best advantage. The book abounds with code examples, download and installation instructions, and helpful usage hints. Not only does it tell you how to find and use existing open source code; Oracle & Open Source gives you the details and the motivation to build your own open source contributions and release them to the Oracle community. You'll learn all about tools like the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) and Perl-DBI (Database Interface), which provide the glue allowing new open source tools to link into commercial Oracle software. With Oracle & Open Source as a guide, you'll discover an enormous number of highly effective open source tools, while getting involved with the thriving community of open source development.

Amazon.com
Oracle's Net8 technologies are what make Oracle databases more than just repositories of values. They facilitate communication between Oracle servers and their clients, as well as among servers for purposes of synchronization, replication, and load balancing. Oracle Net8 Configuration and Troubleshooting documents the Net8 software in full, explaining to system implementers and administrators what talks to what, and how. The emphasis is on design constraints--for example, the way many operating systems limit the number of simultaneous connections to a single process and so require multiple dispatcher processes. Diagnosis and repair of problems are also explored, and quite a lot of information about console utilities is included.

Syntax statements and annotated lists of parameters complement the text in this book. You'll probably learn the most about the subject that interests you by locating a page reference in the index, then reading straight through a couple of sections on either side of the reference--the pages are rich in information and casual detail. Of course, a book isn't an O'Reilly system administration guide without configuration file documentation, and Oracle Net8 Configuration and Troubleshooting upholds the tradition with option-by-option coverage of the lines that must and can appear in the four key .ORA files: SQLNET, TNSNAMES, LISTENER, and NAMES. --David Wall

Topics covered:

• Overview of Net8
• The setup process
• Multi-Threaded Server (MTS)
• Integration with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
• Oracle Names
• Clustering for load balancing and redundancy

Book Description
Net8 is the fundamental Oracle technology that allows Oracle services and clients to communicate with each other over a network. Net8 is most often used to connect client software to Oracle database servers. It may also be used to connect database servers to one another, allowing communication between distributed databases. This practical guide provides the information that readers, especially database administrators, need to know in order to install configure, tune, and troubleshoot Net8. It discusses how Oracle's network architecture, products, and name resolution methods work, and it provides the details of client and server configuration using a variety of Oracle protocols and networking products, including:

• The Oracle Internet Directory (OID), Oracle's implementation of the standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). This directory can be used to maintain a central repository of net service names that can be referenced by all clients.
• Oracle Names, a networking component used mainly in earlier versions of Oracle, that allows net service names to be defined centrally.
• Multi-Threaded Server (MTS), an environment in which the client connections share access to a pool of shared server processes.
• Oracle Connection Manager, a Net8 component that acts much like a router and provides protocol conversion, connection concentration, and access control.

Book Description
Parallel processing is becoming increasingly important to database computing. Databases often grow to enormous sizes and are accessed by huge numbers of users. This growth strains the ability of single-processor and single-computer systems to handle the load. More and more, organizations are turning to parallel processing technologies to give them the performance, scalability, and reliability they need. Anyone managing a large database, a database with a large number of concurrent users, or a database with high availability requirements--such as a heavily trafficked e-commerce site--needs to know how to get the most out of Oracle's parallel processing technologies. Oracle Parallel Processing is the first book to describe the full range of parallel processing capabilities in the Oracle environment, including those new to Oracle8i. It covers:

• What is parallel processing--features, benefits, and pitfalls. Who needs it and who doesn't? What features does Oracle provide, and what are their requirements and overhead implications? The book answers these questions and presents the various parallel architectures (SMP, or Symmetric Multiprocessing; MPP, or Massively Parallel Processing; clustered systems; and NUMA, or Non Uniform Memory Access).
• Oracle parallel execution--Oracle supports a variety of parallel execution features in the database. The book covers the use, administration, and tuning of these features: parallel query, parallel data loading, parallel DML (Data Manipulation Language), parallel object creation (through DDL, or Data Definition Language), and parallel replication propagation.
• Oracle Parallel Server--Oracle also provides the OPS option, which work to be spread over both multiple CPUs and multiple nodes. This book covers OPS architecture, requirements, administration, tuning, storage management, recovery, and application failover issues.

Book Description
Oracle8i, the long-awaited "Internet database" from Oracle Corporation, has hit the streets running--and you may find yourself struggling to keep up with Oracle's fast-moving technology. Oracle boasts that Oracle8i offers more than 150 new features, many of them designed to make its popular database programming language, PL/SQL, faster, more powerful, and easier to use.

This concise and engaging book is both a companion to Oracle PL/SQL Programming (widely recognized as the "bible" for PL/SQL developers) and a guide designed to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible on the new PL/SQL features of Oracle8i. Following the style of Feuerstein's earlier books, the Guide to Oracle8i Features combines easy-to-understand descriptions of the new Oracle8i features with a wealth of interesting and informative examples.

The major Oracle8i PL/SQL features include the following:

• Autonomous transactions--the ability to commit or roll back changes without affecting the "main" transaction in the rest of your session
• Invoker rights--At compilation time, you can now decide whether a program (or all programs in a package) should run under the authority of the definer or the invoker of that program
• Native dynamic SQL--A native implementation of dynamic SQL that's faster and easier than the DBMS_SQL built-in package
• Bulk binds and collects--A major performance improvement that lets you process multiple rows in a single operation
• System-level database triggers--With this feature and Advanced Queueing (AQ), you can take advantage of the publish/subscribe capabilities of Oracle8i
• Fine-grained access control--This feature lets you implement security policies with functions and then use those functions to implement row-level security on tables or views.
• Many new and enhanced built-in packages--New packages include DBMS_JAVA, DBMS_PROFILER, DBMS_TRACE, and more. DBMS_UTILITY, DBMS_AQ, and others have been enhanced as well.
• Calling Java methods from within PL/SQL--The book includes enough Java know-how to help you build simple Java classes, load them into the Oracle8i database, and leverage those classes from within your PL/SQL code.

Some PL/SQL developers are uneasy about what the introduction of Java means to their applications--and their programming future. But the two languages are expected to work well together in Oracle8i. You'll be able to take advantage of all the power of Java without giving up the performance and usability advantages of PL/SQL!

Included with this book is a diskette containing an online tool developed by RevealNet, Inc., that provides point-and-click access to approximately 100 files of reusable source code and examples.

The Guide to Oracle8i Features showcases all the powerful new features of Oracle8i designed especially for PL/SQL developers. You'll find it indispensable as you strive to take the fullest possible advantage of everything this exciting new version has to offer.

Table of Contents:

1. Oracle8i: A Bounty for PL/SQL Developers
2. Choose Your Transaction!
3. Invoker Rights: Your Schema or Mine?
4. Native Dynamic SQL in Oracle8i
5. Bulking Up with PL/SQL 8.1
6. New Trigger Features in Oracle8i
7. New and Enhanced Built-in Packages in Oracle8i
8. Deploying Fine-Grained Access Control
9. Calling Java from PL/SQL
10. More Goodies for Oracle PL/SQL Developers

Amazon.com
If you're doing database application development in the Oracle environment, you're going to have to know PL/SQL, the company's extended query and update language. If you want your programs to exploit the special capabilities of Oracle software, you'll need to know the language well. That's where the third edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming comes into play. It's an absolutely comprehensive reference (as well as a rather extensive tutorial) on PL/SQL, ideally suited to answering your questions about how to perform some programming tasks and reminding you of the characteristics of functions, triggers, and other elements of the database programmer's toolkit. The new edition covers calls to Java methods from within PL/SQL programs, autonomous transactions, object type inheritance, and the new Timestamp and XMLType data types. There's also more information about server internals--the way PL/SQL programs are run--than before, better enabling readers to optimize their code for fast and safe execution.

Steven Feuerstein takes care to explain, with prose and example code, the characteristics of PL/SQL elements. In explaining number conversions, for example, he explores Oracle's different ways of formatting numbers, then details the behavior of the to_number function under different conditions (with and without a specified format model, and with National Language Support information attached). It's a helpful approach that will have readers using the index to locate places in which Feuerstein mentions language elements of interest. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use Oracle PL/SQL in all its manifestations through Oracle9i. Fundamentals of program structure (loops, cases, exceptions, etc.) and execution get attention, as do data types, transaction management, triggers, and the object-oriented aspects of the language. There's also coverage of calls to external Java and C programs.

Book Description
The first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming quickly became an indispensable reference for both novice and experienced PL/SQL developers. Packed with examples and recommendations, it helped everyone using PL/SQL (from the Oracle Forms developer to the database administrator) make the most of this powerful language.

Oracle8 presents PL/SQL programmers with new challenges by increasing both the possibilities and complexities of the language. This new edition updates the original book for Oracle8, adding chapters describing the new PL/SQL object features (object types, collections, object views, and external procedures). The second edition also contains a much-requested chapter on tuning PL/SQL, as well as expanded discussions of debugging and tracing PL/SQL execution.

The book comes with a companion diskette containing the Companion Utilities Guide for Oracle PL/SQL Programming, an online tool developed by RevealNet, Inc. The online guide contains more than 100 file of source code and documentation prepared by the authors.

Even if you've already read the first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, you'll find an enormous amount of new and revised information in this second edition and on its companion diskette. If you're new to PL/SQL, you'll soon find yourself on the road to mastery.

NOTE: To make room for the new material, some summaries and code from the first edition have been moved to the companion disk.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming is divided into seven parts:

Foreword Preface

Part I: Programming in PL/SQL

• 1. Introduction to PL/SQL
• 2. PL/SQL Language Fundamentals
• 3. Effective Coding Style

• 11. Character Functions
• 12. Date Functions
• 13. Numeric, LOB, and Miscellaneous Functions
• 14. Conversion Functions

• 15. Procedures and Functions
• 16. Packages
• 17. Calling Stored PL/SQL Functions from SQL

• 18. Object Types
• 19. Nested Tables and VARRAYs
• 20. Object Views
• 21. External Procedures

• 22. Code Design Tips
• 23. Managing Code in the Database
• 24. Debugging PL/SQL
• 25. Tracing PL/SQL
• 26. Tuning PL/SQL

• A. What's on the Companion Disk?
• B. Calling Stored Procedures from PL/SQL Version 1.1
• C. Built-in Packages

Topics covered: Naming conventions, SAPDBA, SAPGUI, optimizing file access, reorganizing Oracle objects for better performance, administration tasks and utilities, and Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) as it applies to SAP. Burleson uses SAP R/3 and Oracle versions 7 and 8 in his documentation.

Book Description
SAP is the leading vendor of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in the world. (The name SAP is an acronym for the German "Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung", which roughly translates to "Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing".) Developed and marketed by SAP-AG, a Germany company that was founded in 1972 by IBM application developers, SAP has historically sold to the European market. During the 1990s, the company has increasingly dominated the U.S. market as well among large Fortune 500 companies. Nearly half the SAP user base is now in the U.S. Now that SAP-AG is beginning to penetrate the small to medium-size companies, client/server sales are accelerating.

The SAP system performs a wide range of business functions, from manufacturing, sales, and distribution to accounting and human resources. By linking together these business functions, SAP helps the entire enterprise run more smoothly. The system can be used with virtually any hardware or operating system and with most database systems. Oracle is the dominant DBMS - about 80% of SAP systems use Oracle. Conversely, about 20% of large Oracle sites run SAP -- and the numbers are growing. Although overall SAP numbers are tightly guarded, it appears that there are about 20,000 SAP sites, in 90 countries. SAP-AG's 1998 sales were approximately 8.47 billion.

Although there is voluminous documentation on using SAP and using Oracle, until now there has been no book that described the intersection between the two systems. Experienced Oracle administrators have a lot to learn when their organizations start using SAP. Oracle SAP administration differs from traditional Oracle administration in many ways. SAP provides its own tools for Oracle administration; Oracle DBAs need to learn how to use these tools -- and need to learn when the tools are not the best way to accomplish a task. There are special settings for initialization (INIT.ORA) parameters, special monitoring and tuning guidelines, and a variety of other special situations.

This concise book is aimed at experienced Oracle database administrators, system administrators, and developers who are using either Oracle8 or Oracle7. It emphasizes the differences between traditional Oracle administration and Oracle/SAP administration, and it supplements the Oracle and SAP documentation. The book covers the most useful administration tools, SAPDBA and SAPGUI. It provides recommendations for the most efficient placement of data files; monitoring databases; reorganizing tables, tablespaces, and indexes; backing up and recoving databases; and tuning Oracle/SAP databases for best performance. There are chapters on special issues for parallel processing and for very large SAP databases and a summary of additional resources for the Oracle/SAP administrator. The tried-and-true tips and techniques contained in this book should save you hundreds of hours of aggravation while you adapt to using Oracle and SAP in combination.

Book Description
SQL (Structured Query Language) is the heart of a relational database management system. It's the language used to query the database, to create new tables in the database, to update and delete database fields, and to set privileges in the database. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference is for everyone who needs to access an Oracle database using SQL--developers, DBAs, designers, and managers. SQL is based on research dating back to the late 1960s, but its first commercial release was in the RDBMS announced by the fledgling Oracle Corporation in 1979. Since that time, every other database vendor has adopted SQL, and ANSI and the ISO have made it a standard. Although vendors diverge in their extensions to SQL, the core language is standard across vendor boundaries. Despite SQL's long history and relative simplicity, few developers and database administrators are truly masters of SQL. The constant stream of vendor enhancements, the hard-won experience in tuning SQL for best performance, and the requirements of particular operational environments mean that there is always more to learn about SQL. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference delivers all the information needed to keep ahead of the learning curve on standard SQL and Oracle's extensions to it. This single, concise reference volume will hold its own against a stack of Oracle manuals and even yield insights and examples not available in those manuals. There are chapters on basic SQL elements (naming requirements, column types, pseudo-types, data conversion rules, operators); Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML); common language elements (constraints, storage clause, predicates); SQL functions; PL/SQL (including procedures, functions, and packages); SQL*Plus, and Oracle SQL optimization and tuning. The book covers Oracle 8i, release 8.1.6.

Book Description
The wireless revolution has touched off a huge demand for Palm OS network applications. But information on how to connect a Palm is fragmented across dry function listings in the SDK documentation, a couple of book chapters, some sample code, and a few articles on the Palm web site (each of which assumes prior knowledge of network applications). Palm OS Network Programming pulls all the necessary elements together in the first complete guide to developing network applications for the Palm Computing Platform. The author assumes knowledge of Palm programming in C, but no network experience is required. You'll learn Palm network concepts such as transport protocols and client-server applications from the ground up, clearly illustrated with examples using Metrowerks CodeWarrior development environment. The Palm Net Library, essential to any network application development, gets the detailed treatment it deserves, with sample network applications demonstrating how to make the best use of this powerful system library. Palm OS Network Programming is the first complete developer's resource to building creative--and connected--applications for the fastest-growing platform of the 21st century.

Book Description
3Com's PalmPilot is the world's bestselling hand-held computer platform. In three years, its 16 models from 5 different manufacturers have captured 80 percent of the palmtop market. About the size of a playing card, Palm devices are lightweight (under 6 ounces), offering two-month battery life, handwriting recognition, Internet connectivity, and a touch-screen display. Above all, these devices are fast and elegantly designed.

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide was an instant classic when it debuted in 1998, becoming, and remaining, the bestselling Palm book (and a top ten title among all computer books) every month since. Dense with previously undocumented information, this newly updated bible for Palm users delivers hundreds of timesaving tips and surprising tricks, plus a CD-ROM containing over 3,100 Palm programs. The second edition offers exclusive insider coverage of all models, including 1999's Palm IIIx, Palm V, laser-equipped Symbol 1500, and the revolutionary, wireless Palm VII.

The book is divided into five sections:

• Section One details every hardware and software aspect of PalmPilot as it comes out of the box: the stylus and screen, the buttons, and the current line of models. A tutorial takes the reader through the palmtop's preferences and settings panels, teaches the Graffiti alphabet, and unearths surprising features of the machine's eight built-in programs.
• Section Two explains step-by-step how your PalmPilot can work with your PC: how data gets from your palmtop to your desktop computer and back again (HotSyncing). New chapters give special coverage to the separate Windows and Macintosh (Mac Pac 2.0) versions of Palm Desktop, which duplicates the functions of the PalmPilot (calendar, phone book, to-do list, memo pad, email, and expense tracking) on the desktop machine.
• Section Three takes the reader beyond the built-in Palm software to the best of the add-on programs included with the book. They include such graphics programs as DinkyPad, TealPaint, and the amazing ImageViewer (which unlocks the "black-and-white" Pilot screen's grayscale features); electronic books in Doc format; and music programs that use the hand-held's built-in speaker. New in this edition: how-to advice for using PalmPilot database programs to collect data in the field, and syncing them with such popular PC programs as FileMaker and Microsoft Access.
• Section Four covers the new Palm VII, the first one-piece, pocket-sized, wireless Internet device ever marketed, offering cell-network-based email and Web access anywhere in the country. As this section makes clear, any PalmPilot model can access the Net when equipped with the tiny PalmPilot modem. Such an arrangement is ideal for reading and replying to email--a great time-shifter for anyone who'd otherwise consider plane, train, or automobile time as downtime. Additional chapters cover the five Palm Web browsers, paging, faxing, and infrared beaming features.
• Section Five explains simple ways to troubleshoot both software and hardware, including HotSync snafus and various software glitches. Special chapters cover Palm fans' options for upgrading and accessorizing their palmtops. Two new appendixes debut in this edition; one explains how to write Palm VII Web-querying applets; the other, for the first time, covers the PalmPilot's synergy with Unix and Linux machines.

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition is the most comprehensive Palm-platform book yet written. With the cooperation of Palm Computing, and 3Com, bestselling computer-book author David Pogue succinctly answers every conceivable question, unlocks Palm features most users never suspected, and radiates the fun, passion, and sense of community shared by Piloteers the world over. The enclosed CD-ROM (for Windows 9x, NT, and the Macintosh) is a disc-based version of the #1 Palm-software Web site, palmcentral.com, offering over 3,100 programs organized in a searchable, sortable database catalog with auto-install features and web links. PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide is the essential guide for the PalmPilot owner.

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Peer-to-Peer is a book about an emerging idea. That idea is that the traditional model of participating in the Internet, in which a small computer operated by an everyday user (a "client") asks for and receives information from a big computer administered by a corporation or other large entity (a "server"), is beginning to give some ground to a new (new to the fringes of the Internet, anyway) model called peer-to-peer networking. In peer-to-peer networking, all participants in a network are approximately equal. Furthermore, the participants are usually ordinary computers run by everyday people. The ICQ chat service and the Napster music-sharing community are examples of what this book is about.

The chief advantage of peer-to-peer networks is that large numbers of people share the burden of providing computing resources (processor time and disk space), administration effort, creativity, and--in more than a few cases--legal liability. Furthermore, it's relatively easy to be anonymous in such an environment, and it's harder for opponents of your peer-to-peer service to bring it down. The primary disadvantage of peer-to-peer systems, as anyone will attest who's had an MP3 download prematurely terminated when a dialup user went offline will attest, is the tendency of computers at the edge of the network to fade in and out of availability. Accountability for the actions of network participants is a potential problem, too.

This is a book about the idea of equipping ordinary Internet users' computers with mechanisms that enable them to connect, more or less automatically and without human attention, to other everyday Internet users' machines. By forming networks of computers at the so-called "edge" of the Internet, it's possible to offer valuable services without the burden of building and administering large, centralized computer systems of the sort that host traditional Web sites. Napster is the most successful example to date, though nerds will note that it's not a completely peer-to-peer system because users register their file libraries with a central server when they log on to the service.

Don't approach this book expecting to learn how to build the next Napster system. It's not a how-to book. It's not even much of a why-to book. Rather, it's a book that aims to get its readers thinking about what happens when information systems shift away from the client-server model and toward the peer-to-peer model (that's one of the book's points, by the way, that this is not a one-or-the-other architectural decision).

Mostly, Peer-to-Peer makes its point by letting experts in peer-to-peer take turns in the spotlight. Any other approach would be kind of ironic, wouldn't it? In any case, David Anderson explains how SETI@home puts space buffs' idle computing cycles to use in analyzing radio noise from outer space. Gene Kan explains how Gnutella (a truly serverless environment) works. The architects of Publius explain how distributed computing is especially resistant to censorship and denial-of-service attacks. Other contributors discuss peer-to-peer chat software, anonymous remailing services, and other applications of peer-to-peer design.

There's no one from Napster represented as an author in this collection of essays, but Clay Shirky presents an essay called "Listening to Napster." In that essay, Shirky gives an opinion on why Napster has succeeded: It focused on providing something consumers wanted, and bypassed Internet conventions (like the Domain Naming System) because they weren't the best way to provide the service. This is not an earth-shattering revelation, but it's true, and it's something developers of any new service (Internet-based or otherwise) need to keep in mind.

Some of the technical proposals presented here will get readers thinking. An example: Require that senders of e-mail solve a moderately complex math problem before recipients' mailboxes will accept their mail. The problem would be no big deal for a mailer to solve if he or she were sending messages one at a time, but the processor load would really add up for spammers who blast tens of thousands of unwanted emails onto the Internet in a single session. Another idea: mechanizing the concept of reputation so people know whose thoughts and whose creative works (like software) are worth using or believing.

More business-oriented readers might want to read more about the more subtle ways of incorporating peer-to-peer components into business models. Lots of traditional Web services--Amazon.com is an example--are supplementing their client-server activities with others that have peer-to-peer characteristics. Amazon.com, for example, lets operators of small Web sites promote goods and rely on the centralized resources for billing and fulfillment. There's no distributed software (other than a few links), but the company takes advantage of creativity and marketing efforts outside of its official core. Coverage of that sort of "soft" distributed computing might be a good supplement for the second edition of this book.

Peer-to-Peer is a thought-provoking book that will help its readers understand an exciting, still-emerging application architecture for the Internet. --David Wall

Topics covered: Peer-to-peer applications that run at the edges of the Internet, usually on home computers run by ordinary people. Much of this book comprises case studies on SETI@home, Gnutella, Freenet, Jabber, and other peer-to-peer services. Later chapters address technical issues, such as accountability, security, efficient use of limited bandwidth, and data cataloging.

Book Description
The term "peer-to-peer" has come to be applied to networks that expect end users to contribute their own files, computing time, or other resources to some shared project. Even more interesting than the systems' technical underpinnings are their socially disruptive potential: in various ways they return content, choice, and control to ordinary users. While this book is mostly about the technical promise of peer-to-peer, we also talk about its exciting social promise. Communities have been forming on the Internet for a long time, but they have been limited by the flat interactive qualities of email and Network newsgroups. People can exchange recommendations and ideas over these media, but have great difficulty commenting on each other's postings, structuring information, performing searches, or creating summaries. If tools provided ways to organize information intelligently, and if each person could serve up his or her own data and retrieve others' data, the possibilities for collaboration would take off. Peer-to-peer technologies along with metadata could enhance almost any group of people who share an interest--technical, cultural, political, medical, you name it. This book presents the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer systems, the problems they've faced, and the technical solutions they've found. Learn here the essentials of peer-to-peer from leaders of the field:

• Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund of target="new">Popular Power, on a history of peer-to-peer
• Clay Shirky of acceleratorgroup, on where peer-to-peer is likely to be headed
• Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly & Associates, on redefining the public's perceptions
• Dan Bricklin, cocreator of Visicalc, on harvesting information from end-users
• David Anderson of SETI@home, on how SETI@Home created the world's largest computer
• Jeremie Miller of Jabber, on the Internet as a collection of conversations
• Gene Kan of Gnutella and GoneSilent.com, on lessons from Gnutella for peer-to-peer technologies
• Adam Langley of Freenet, on Freenet's present and upcoming architecture
• Alan Brown of Red Rover, on a deliberately low-tech content distribution system
• Marc Waldman, Lorrie Cranor, and Avi Rubin of AT&T Labs, on the Publius project and trust in distributed systems
• Roger Dingledine, Michael J. Freedman, and David Molnar of Free Haven, on resource allocation and accountability in distributed systems
• Rael Dornfest of O'Reilly Network and Dan Brickley of ILRT/RDF Web, on metadata
• Theodore Hong of Freenet, on performance
• Richard Lethin of Reputation Technologies, on how reputation can be built online
• Jon Udell of BYTE and Nimisha Asthagiri and Walter Tuvell of Groove Networks, on security
• Brandon Wiley of Freenet, on gateways between peer-to-peer systems

Amazon.com
Jesse Liberty's Programming C# provides an adept and extremely well conceived guide to the C# language and is written for the developer with some previous C++, Java, and/or Visual Basic experience.

It's no secret that many computer books are pretty much devoid of an authorial personality. This title is a winning exception. The author is able to weave in clever examples (using such topics as his own long experience in computing, his dog, Star Trek, etc.) without being coy or getting in the way of presenting real technical information. Liberty's wide experience in computers and general writing skill shows, as he is able to draw on a wealth of examples to move his text forward.

These are a couple of goals at work in Programming C#. First, it's an excellent language tutorial, certainly one of the smartest and best available guides to C# as a language. Early chapters explore basic and obscure language options using inheritance, delegation, interface, and the conventions in C# used to implement these techniques. The middle part of the book turns toward the .NET Framework itself, with two useful (and somewhat introductory) chapters on both Windows Forms and Web Forms, for standalone and Web-based applications, respectively.

Later sections crank up the technical knowledge again with several advanced topics on understanding .NET assemblies and deployment in detail, as well as "reflection" APIs that allow .NET programs to essentially modify their code at run time. (One technique, reflection emit, which literally writes bytecodes, will definitely interest expert readers, though it's unlikely most programmers will need to do this.) Final sections look at the .NET stream classes (rivaled only by Java's for complexity). Liberty looks at basic file and network I/O as well as how objects get serialized and marshaled both for SOAP and Web services and "normal" .NET remoting.

The author's sure hand here in navigating the difficult waters of C# and .NET makes for a relatively concise text that is chock-full of useful information on C#. Filled with notably clever and inventive examples, this book is possibly this veteran computer author's best title to date, and it's sure to be a noteworthy resource as experienced developers tackle C# for the first time. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Introduction to C# and the .NET platform
• A "Hello World" example in C#
• Tutorial to C# as an object-oriented programming language (types and variables, operators, namespaces, and preprocessor directives)
• Defining classes in C# (including static members, finalizers, overloading, and read-only fields)
• Inheritance and polymorphism implemented in C#
• Operator overloading
• Structures in C#, interfaces, arrays, and indexers
• Built-in .NET collections, strings, and regular expression support
• Structured exception handling
• Delegate and events
• Introduction to programming with Windows Forms
• ADO.NET database APIs (including basic XML support)
• Quick introduction to Web Forms and ASP.NET used with C#
• Introduction to Web services (SOAP, WSDL, and Discover services described)
• In-depth guide to .NET assemblies (including metadata, versioning, private and shared assemblies)
• C# support for attributes and reflection (including reflection emit techniques)
• Marshaling and remoting (with and without SOAP)
• Threads and synchronization
• Tutorial to C#/.NET streams (including basic I/O techniques, Web streams, and serialization)
• COM and .NET interoperability

Book Description
C# is designed from the ground up for development on Microsoft's new .NET framework. As such, it's a high-performance language that's simple, safe, object-oriented, and Internet-centric. Programming C# teaches this new language in a way that experienced programmers will appreciate--by grounding its applications firmly in the context of Microsoft's .NET platform and the development of desktop and Internet applications.

The first part of this book introduces C# fundamentals, then goes on to explain:

• Classes and objects
• Inheritance and polymorphism
• Operator overloading
• Structs and interfaces
• Arrays, indexers, and collections
• String objects and regular expressions
• Exceptions and bug handling
• Delegates and events

Part two of Programming C# focuses on development of desktop and Internet applications, including Windows Forms, ADO.NET and ASP.NET. ASP.NET includes Web Forms, for rapid development of web applications, and Web Services for creating objects without user interfaces, to provide services over the Internet.

Part three gets to the heart of the .NET Framework, focusing on attributes and reflection, remoting, threads and synchronization, and streams. Part three also illustrates how to interoperate with COM objects.

In much the way that you can see the features and personality of the parents and grandparents in young children, you can easily see the influence of Java, C++, Visual Basic, and other languages in C#. The level of information in Programming C# allows you to become productive quickly with C# and to rely on it as a powerful addition to your family of mastered programming languages.

Book Description
The Be operating system is a great platform just waiting for applications. Elegant, object-oriented to the core, and primed for great graphical interfaces, Be meets the needs of computer users at the turn of the century -- but they call for equally elegant applications for displaying and manipulating content. This book gives C++ programmers their start to developing those applications.

Be will prove to be a pleasure for developers who have struggled with APIs on Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh, or the X Window System. It provides consistent and intuitive methods for creating interfaces and handling messages. But you'll still have a hard time if all you have to learn from is official reference documentation like the Be Developer's Guide (also published by O'Reilly & Associates). This book is a traditional guide to application development that starts with the most basic concepts and leaves you with a firm foundation for further research.

The book begins with typical "Hello, world" programs and gradually adds elements of the graphical interface. It carefully describes drawing and message handling. While the focus is on the graphical interface, basic OS features like threads and file handling are also introduced.

Be runs on both PowerPC and Intel platforms, offering the same API on both. The programs in this book will therefore compile and run on any platform. Be's own integrated development environment, BeIDE (originally Metrowerks CodeWarrior), is used to develop all examples.

Book Description
From access counters and log-report graphs to scientific plots and on-the-fly animated GIFs, graphics scripting is within the grasp of most Web authors. It is a little documented field, however, and the many valuable free libraries and tools available on the Internet remain under-utilized. Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software is aimed at intermediate and advanced Web users who want to use CGI scripts to generate dynamic graphic content. It will also help to demystify the manipulation of graphics formats for newcomers to the Web.

Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software takes a practical, resource-like approach to the content. It is not a book about design or aesthetics of Web graphics; its focus is on programming or, more accurately, scripting programs that manipulate graphics file to be published on the Web. Most of the examples in the book use Perl as a scripting language, though the concepts are applicable to any programming language. However, several powerful Perl modules for generating graphics (GD, PerlMagick, GIFgraph) should help position Perl as a major contender for your Web graphics applications. Most of the topics covered in the book are applicable to any platform (NT, Linux, Un*x, MaxOS), with the exception of the chapter detailing the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (a free Adobe Photoshop-like application), which requires a connection to an X server. The focus is always on free software, when it is available.

This book covers the following:

• a tour through the most popular Web graphics file formats by implementing parsers for GIF, JPEG, and PNG files
• descriptions of the PNG, JPEG, and giflib libraries, as well as many other free and proprietary libraries and SDKs
• extensive documentation and examples using the Perl graphics modules GD and GIFgraph, and the Perl interface to the powerful ImageMagick libraries
• documentation on the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and the Perl interface that lets you easily script plug-ins or interface to the GIMP via the Web
• the creation of image maps from data extracted from a database
• the implementation of several new Perl modules for the creation of neatly formatted PostScript files
• details on interfacing to a fax gateway
• reusable recipes for many popular applications such as Web counters and Web cams
• the creation of animated GIFs on-the-fly

One of the key ingredients to the success of the Web is that anyone who wanted to could participate in publishing to the world. This book will take its readers to the next level of publishing to the world: learning to use scripting programs to create dynamic graphics for their Web sited. The information in this book is written in a practical, easy manner with high-quality documentation and useful examples throughout. It is a detailed reference that provides Web designers and programmers and with the information they need to program.

Book Description
REALbasic is a very inexpensive program that allows users to design full-fledged applications. Simply put, it is like having Visual Basic on the Mac. It is an application for writing applications that are astonishingly small and fast. REALbasic uses a simple interface and an object- and event-oriented language; this makes development, maintenance, and alteration of projects very easy. There is no other program like this for the Mac. If you want to write a Mac application, you have little choice of application frameworks, and REALbasic is the only one with visual design, object orientation, and an easy language.

With the Macintosh's popularity on the rise and REALbasic, which presently only runs on Mac, with plans to make Windows applications, the interested audience is wider than the platform implies. Presently there are no ordered instructional books for REALbasic.

REALbasic: The Definitive Guide gives people the information they can't get from the documentation alone and provides new users with the details they need to grasp the program's essential concepts. This book takes the reader from zero knowledge of programming to the ability to program every aspect of REALbasic. The book is divided into three main sections:

• Fundamentals: a detailed and comprehensive summary of the language that quickly shows you how to think about programming and accomplish your goals in less time
• User Interface: how to create a complete application using the rich classes and pre-defined tools that make life so much easier for the REALbasic programmer.
• Reaching Out: comprehensive coverage of Internet communications, databases, multimedia, game programming and more!

This book covers REALbasic 1 and REALbasic 2. Version 2 adds an internal database, an interface to SQL servers, and the ability to compile for Windows and Java. REALbasic: The Definitive Guide is poised to become an essential reference for the expanding legion of developers who are discovering the power and flexibility of this program.

Book Description
Once a little-known productivity boost for personal computers, Linux is now becoming a central part of computing environments everywhere. This operating system now serves as corporate hubs, Web servers, academic research platforms, and program development systems. All along it's also managed to keep its original role as an enjoyable environment for personal computing, learning system administration and programming skills, and all-around hacking.

This book, now in its third edition, has been widely recognized for years in the Linux community as the getting-started book people need. It goes into depth about configuration issues that often trip up users but are glossed over by other books.

A complete, UNIX-compatible operating system developed by volunteers on the Internet, Linux is distributed freely in electronic form and at a low cost from many vendors. Developed first on the PC, it has been ported to many other architectures and can now support such heavy-duty features as multiprocessing, RAID, and clustering.

Software packages on Linux include the Samba file server and Apache Web server; the X Window System (X11R6); TCP/IP networking (including PPP, SSH, and NFS support); popular software tools such as Emacs and TeX; a complete software development environment including C, C++, Java, Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Python; libraries, debuggers, multimedia support, scientific and database applications, and much more. Commercial applications that run on Linux range from end-user tools like word processors and spreadsheets to mission-critical software like the Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and IBM DB/2 database management systems.

Running Linux has all the information you need to understand, install, and start using the Linux operating system. This includes a comprehensive installation tutorial, complete information on system maintenance, tools for document development and programming, and guidelines for network, file, printer, and Web site administration.

New topics in the third edition include:

• KDE, a desktop that brings the friendliness and ease-of-use of Windows or the Macintosh to Linux
• Samba, which turns Linux into an office hub that serves files and printers to Microsoft systems
• PPP, the most popular software for logging into remote systems over phone lines
• Revised instructions for installation and configuration, particularly covering the Red Hat, SuSE and Debian distributions

Amazon.com
Suitable for both Web and Perl developers, Running Weblogs with Slash provides a lively and thorough tour of how to get started with your own moderated Web log community powered by Slash 2.0, an open-source content-management solution.

With sometimes arcane online help (or the lack of it), open-source software is often tough to master, and Slash 2.0, the open-source Web log software package, is probably no exception. Written in a notably clear--and often entertaining--style, this title provides an insider's view of what works best with Slash. Starting with the history of the software behind Slashdot (www.slashdot.org), a popular developer Web site, the authors trace the evolution of Slash as an open-source software package. While this is interesting reading on its own, you'll also get acquainted with the concepts behind a moderated Web log, where individual users contribute content which is edited for others in the community.

A chapter on installing and configuring Slash (along with Apache and Perl support) will help demystify the process of getting started. The authors include a suitable level of detail here, which should help newbies get started with Slash without much trouble.

The heart of this book looks at how Slash works and what features you'll need to master to run a Web log effectively. You'll master basic Slash terminology (like "authors," "moderators," and "stories") and the process of getting different users to contribute, edit, and post content to a site. The in-depth coverage of different configuration options available in Slash will help you customize your site, while taking advantage of built-in features (like user polls, for example).

Slash moderators not only edit and police content, but "meta-moderation" ensures that moderators' behavior can be adjusted on the fly. The authors discuss how all this works (including earning and losing "karma" points). There's also plenty here on the nuts and bolts of managing your site--whether it's getting new content, controlling abuse, or filtering out the bad stuff (using regular expressions)--in order to keep your Web log running smoothly.

Later sections dig into how to customize your Slash site, from using basic content options (like Slashboxes to display stories) to how to customize the look and feel of your site. Advanced material on ways to tweak Perl scripts provides even more options for developers. For programmers, the book concludes with handy references to the architecture, database, template language, and Perl APIs used within Slash.

Written with notable wit, Running Weblogs with Slash will allow just about anyone to get started with Slash successfully, whether you want to run it out of the box or do more heavy-duty customization. Along with some valuable technical detail, it provides an in-depth look at one of the most intriguing open-source software efforts to emerge from recent online culture. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Introduction to Slashdot, Web logs, and the Slash open-source project; overview of the Slash user and author interfaces; the Slash publishing cycle, installing and configuring Slash (including Apache and mod_perl hints); basic administration tasks in Slash (editing authors and configuration variables); editing and updating stories (basic story-editing options plus linking stories to other content); reviewing and approving submissions; comments and filters (including using regular expressions to filter submissions effectively); content moderation (including criteria for allowing moderation rights for users); meta-moderation (evaluating moderators, plus karma points explained); guidelines for topics and sessions (including choosing icons); hints for managing Slash communities (establishing tone, how to choose stories, finding content, site promotion); managing authors and users (the self-governing moderation system); deleting stories and anti-abuse features; customizing Slash sites (the Site Block Editor); headline swapping with XML, RDF, and RSS; Slashboxes; managing user polls; advanced customization techniques (changing the look and feel of your site); using templates and banner ads; themes and plug-ins (including the Slashprint plug-in); hints for customizing Perl modules in Slash; internationalization tips; advanced administration techniques (tweaking daemons used to run Slash tasks); Slash utilities (including template-tool, and runtask); and appendices for Slash architecture, database tables, template language reference, the Slash APIs, and configuration variables.

Book Description
Slash is the open source software system that drives the hugely popular Slashdot web site and many others. Slash implements the kind of web site that has come to be called a "weblog": a moderated list, in reverse chronological order, of timely items with links to further discussion on-site, or to further information off-site. Essentially, a weblog is a cooperatively authored daily newspaper for some defined community on the net.

Slash has spawned several imitators. The existence of so many different systems for operating a weblog site demonstrates that there are many people and groups on the net who want to run their own online community newspapers. Slash is based on open source technologies (Perl, Apache, and MySQL), and it makes use of open protocols (XML and RDF) for exchanging headlines with other sites.

Anyone who wants to get a weblog site up and running will want to read this book, particularly system administrators who may not have the time or the background to learn all about Slash by reading the source code. Content managers of Slash sites who want to be able to use the system more effectively will also benefit from this book, which organizes the knowledge currently distributed throughout the Slash source code, Slashcode web site, and mailing lists, and provides it in an organized package.

Book Description
While termcap and terminfo are no longer as important as they once were, due to the growth of the X terminal market and increased standardization among ASCII terminals, handling different terminal types can still be a headache for system administrators. The termcap and terminfo databases are UNIX's solution to the difficulty of supporting many terminals without writing special drivers for each terminal. Termcap (BSD) and terminfo (System V) describe the features of hundreds of terminals, together with a library of routines that allow programs to use those capabilities. This book documents hundreds of capabilities and syntax for termcap and terminfo, writing and debugging terminal descriptions, and terminal initialization. Contents include:

• Terminal independence: the need for termcap and terminfo.
• Reading termcap and terminfo entries.
• Capability syntax.
• Initializing the terminal environment.
• Writing termcap and terminfo entries.
• Converting between termcap and terminfo.
• Detailed descriptions of the capabilities.
• Screen dimensions and cursor movement.
• Initialization and reset.
• Special and equivalent terminals.
• Many useful appendices.

Amazon.com
Samba, the Server Message Block (SMB) server software that makes it relatively easy to integrate Unix or Linux servers into networks of Microsoft Windows workstations, has to date been mostly explained as an afterthought. Most often, it's appeared in the latter chapters of books about Linux. It deserves better, and the authors of Using Samba have delivered exactly that.

This book documents Samba 2.0.4 fully (version 2.0.5, source and binary, appears on the companion CD-ROM), focusing on smbd, nmbd, the command-line tools, and Samba's newfound ability to integrate itself securely with Windows NT domains.

Though it includes a bit of information on the SMB and Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocols that underlie Samba, the emphasis here is on setting up and configuring software. Explicit sections explain how to install Samba on a Unix/Linux system and how to set up Microsoft clients to communicate with the Samba machine. The authors pay lavish attention to the Samba configuration file, smb.conf, and explain exactly what settings you need to include in it to allow disk shares, network browsing, and integration with Windows domains. A highly useful reference that lists all Samba configuration options (along with their valid values, default values, and explanations) appears in an appendix. --David Wall

Topics covered: All aspects of setting up and configuring Samba 2.0 and its variants, including client configuration, file sharing, network browsing, file system differences between Windows and Unix/Linux, security, and the contents of the Samba configuration file.

Book Description
This book, which has been officially adopted by the Samba team under an open content license, is a comprehensive guide to Samba administration, including such recent additions as integration with Windows NT domains and the SWAT graphic configuration tool.

Samba is a cross-platform triumph: it turns a Unix or Linux system into a file and print server for Microsoft Windows network clients. Now you can let users store their files (and even important executables) in a single place for easy sharing and backup, protected by Unix or NT security mechanisms, and still offer such transparent access that PC users don't even realize they're going to another system. The magic behind Samba is that it recognizes and speaks the SMB protocol developed by Microsoft for file and printer sharing on its own systems.

Basic Samba configuration is simple, but you'll want to make sure your security settings are just right and find out about the full range of options (how do you like your filenames mangled?). Trouble-shooting, security, connectivity, performance, and logging are thoroughly covered with examples in this book.

Samba is so robust, flexible, and secure that many people are choosing it over Windows NT for their file and print services. Furthermore, Samba is proving to be a necessity for the many organizations that have an existing Unix or Linux system and want to tie in PCs running Microsoft software. Samba is also open source software, licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The authors present the most common configurations and problems in an easy-to-follow manner, along with instructions for getting the most out of Samba. Whether you're playing on one note or a full three-octave range, this book will give you an efficient and secure server. The included CD-ROM holds sources and ready-to-install binaries, plus other useful information.

Book Description
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is gaining a lot of attention these days, as more companies and individuals switch from standard telephone service to phone service via the Internet. The reason is simple: A single network to carry voice and data is easier to scale, maintain, and administer. As an added bonus, it's also cheaper, because VoIP is free of the endless government regulations and tariffs imposed upon phone companies.

VoIP is simply overflowing with hack potential, and VoIP Hacks is the practical guide from O'Reilly that presents these possibilities to you. It provides dozens of hands-on projects for building a VoIP network, showing you how to tweak and customize a multitude of exciting things to get the job done. Along the way, you'll also learn which standards and practices work best for your particular environment. Among the quick and clever solutions showcased in the book are those for:

• gauging VoIP readiness on an enterprise network
• using SIP, H.323, and other signaling specifications
• providing low-layer security in a VoIP environment
• employing IP hardphones, analog telephone adapters, and softPBX servers
• dealing with and avoiding the most common VoIP deployment mistakes

In reality, VoIP Hacks contains only a small subset of VoIP knowledge-enough to serve as an introduction to the world of VoIP and teach you how to use it to save money, be more productive, or just impress your friends. If you love to tinker and optimize, this is the one technology, and the one book, you must investigate.

Amazon.com
Web Caching explores the intricacies of implementing caching in Web server environments to reduce network traffic and improve performance. Like so many areas of Internet technology, the topic of Web caching comprises a number of architectural and practical issues that could take a career to learn the hard way. Fortunately, author Duane Wessels has organized all the nuts-and-bolts technical information in this short book.

This guide to turbo-charging the Web is primarily geared toward system administrators; however, Web developers can also learn much about the proper--and improper--use of caching their pages. The book begins with excellent chapters on the big picture of how Web caching works, including the various types of caches, hit measurements, validation, and cache refreshing. Before turning to this guide's core focus--designing and implementing caching--the author spends a chapter to explore the political issues surrounding the technology, such as privacy, content distribution, and copyrights.

Both client and server configurations are considered, and the benefits of Netscape and Microsoft implementations are explored. The journey through the efficient travels of Web requests is fascinating as you learn about proxies, intercache protocols, cache hierarchies, and benchmarking methodologies for measuring the efficiency of your solutions. Dishing up requests elegantly is not a trivial task on today's Web, but this no-nonsense book is a great help toward that goal. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• Web transport protocols
• HTTP and proxy requests
• Cache replacement and refreshing
• Political concerns
• Client configuration
• Interception proxying
• Server configuration
• Cache hierarchies
• Intercache protocols
• Cache clustering
• Monitoring/benchmarking
• Cache trace analysis

Book Description
On the World Wide Web, speed and efficiency are vital. Users have little patience for slow web pages, while network administrators want to make the most of their available bandwidth. A properly designed web cache reduces network traffic and improves access times to popular web sites--a boon to network administrators and web users alike. Web Caching hands you all the technical information you need to design, deploy, and operate an effective web caching service. It starts with the basics of how web caching works, from the HTTP headers that govern cachability to cache validation and replacement algorithms. Topics covered in this book include:

• Designing an effective cache solution
• Configuring web browsers to use a cache
• Setting up a collection of caches that can talk to each other
• Configuring an interception cache or proxy
• Monitoring and fine-tuning the performance of a cache
• Configuring web servers to cooperate with web caches
• Benchmarking cache products

Book Description
Attacks on government Web sites, break-ins at Internet service providers, electronic credit card fraud, invasion of personal privacy by merchants as well as hackers--is this what the World Wide Web is really all about?

Web Security & Commerce cuts through the hype and the front page stories. It tells you what the real risks are and explains how you can minimize them. Whether you're a casual (but concerned) Web surfer or a system administrator responsible for the security of a critical Web server, this book will tell you what you need to know. Entertaining as well as illuminating, it looks behind the headlines at the technologies, risks, and benefits of the Web. Whatever browser or server you are using, you and your system will benefit from this book.

Topics include:

• User safety--browser vulnerabilities (with an emphasis on Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer), privacy concerns, issues with Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, and plug-ins.
• Digital certificates--what they are, how they assure identity in a networked environment, how certification authorities and server certificates work, and what code signing all about.
• Cryptography--an overview of how encryption works on the Internet and how different algorithms and programs are being used today.
• Web server security--detailed technical information about SSL (Secure Socket Layer), TLS (Transport Layer Security), host security, server access methods, and secure CGI/API programming.
• Commerce and society--how digital payments work, what blocking software and censorship technology (e.g., PICS and RSACi) is about, and what civil and criminal issues you need to understand.