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I think somebody at O'Reilly had a different implemtation for it.

Want to convince your business that open source is the best way to go? Why not get them to read, at minimum, chapter one of "Free as in Freedom"?

Even the idea that it can be read free online or printed out to read later is a selling point on all things open source.

http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/

I always start by saying, this software is totally free to use, but most importantly is designed as a tool to solve the problem - not just developed, packaged and sold to fill a market niche. If you explain the higher virtues of the software (correctly) to intelligent people they can't possibly turn it down.

(while I'm including a semi-evil link, let me say that Unix Power Tools is one of the best books ever written, and if you're just starting to learn unix, it will significantly boost your learning curve, AND it doubles as a great bludgeoning weapon)

DES, first and foremost, is not secure in the incarnation described above. Jim Bidzos, president of RSA Data Security, Inc. observed in 1999 that

It has been widely known that... the government's DES standard, offer[s] only marginal protection against a committed adversary

For a fun history lesson, you might enjoy reading Cracking DES (that is, if you can find it). It's worth noting that this book was first published in 1998. That's about it for the Dead Encryption Standard.

It's technically about Oracle, but it's a good introduction to DBMS performance and how use good science instead of urban legends to tune a database:
Optimizing Oracle Performance by Cary Millsap with Jeff Holt

Check out the High Performance MySQL book for info on how to speed it up. Most of it's probably obvious for the hardcore DBA guy, but I found it useful:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/hpmysql/

It's a cookbook! The Perl Cookbook is a cookbook! Auuugh!

Sera

• Lack of labels on early figures/diagrams I noticed that some of the first chapter examples and diagrams were not labeled correctly.
• Program names in examples don't match text (or vice-versa) The text will refer to an example with one name, but the actual screen print has a different name - not a huge deal, but combined with the previous point, it is a problem.
• Handfull of errata in first few chapters none really major, but the sum total makes the reader feel the publisher rushed the book.
• Instructional method not a good fit for early material The examples in the first few chapters are trivial, and strain the idea that this boo is aimed at anyone with programming experience. I would have prefered one big chapter that ends up with one, more complex example.
• No common theme to examples Again, I'm only in the first few chapters, but the author keeps introducing new premises for the examples - in contrast, the IMS/DB books I read back in my mainframe days all relied on examples from the hospital domain - the lack of consistency across the examples is a distraction to the reader, who has to endure new "let's pretend your a..." setups for each new topic.
• Inconsistent editing From my quick review of the last few chapters of the book, many of the above complaints are corrected, which makes me wonder about the editing/technical reviewing done on the manuscript.

Overall, this is a pretty good idea for a book, but the editors/author should not have rushed it to press - the quality of the book appears to have suffered.

I would strongly encourage a potential buyer of this book to spend several minutes with the book and see if the style suits your manner of learnig. Personally, I prefer the O'Reilly Learning series approach to teaching a topic, but preferences vary.

In addition to taking the opportunity to shamelessly plug my book, I've posted a detailed response on the O'Reilly Developer Weblogs site, touching on using XSLT, VBA, Perl, Ruby, and more to get those Word docs into shape.

Some have suggested using PDFs. To do this, I use Ghostscipt and Ghostword. Here is a good description from O'Reilly's Word Hacks on how to install it in Word.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/cisco.mov

Well compare your typical programming textbook that you'd have to buy in a CS program with a book from O'Reilly.

I had an O'Reilly book for a college course (Fall 1999 -- David Ackley is the best professor I've ever had).

You think you've got trouble? I bought this goddamn O'Reilly book, and right there in Bob-damned Chapter 15 if it ain't instructions on how to get Hot Coffee!

I have been using design patterns for some years now (in fact everybody who does OOP does, whether they know it or not), but I never had the patience to read a book on the subject. They were so boring and dull, and without the proper examples, I was usually forgeting everything anyway in a couple of days, even before I was applying it into a concrete design.

Now I got admitted into a Software Engineering MSc program, starting this autumn and I really felt I had to improve my design pattern skills this summer. So I started reading this great O'Reilly book De Lemming already told you about (yes, Head First Design Patterns). It is really amazing. Although it is very long, and covers a lot of ground, I never got bored while reading it. On the contrary, I had great time, laughing very often, and implementing every pattern myself in ..... JavaScript (I don't use Java because it would be too easy, and would spoil all the fun :) ). Really an amazing book, I would recommend it to anyone who is serious about learning design patterns.

This was the case only until this book came out: Head First Design Patterns. Really an amazing book, I would recommend to anyone who is serious about learning design patterns.

Or a more current version:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jscript4/

Unfortunately, the IBM doc is missing a good description of the DevEdge sidebar which is available at:
http://lachy.id.au/dev/mozilla/sidebar/sidebar.xul

DevEdge toolbar is the perfect tool to link to often buried resources on the w3c website. It is ok for JavaScript but that, a good book is always a good idea:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jscript3/

JsD

When will Perl 6 ever get done?

And then we are supposed to know what Illustrator, Freehand and CorelDraw do also. And of those, CorelDraw is the only one running on a modern PC OS (if you can find an old version 3.5). The others require buying a Mac, or worse, Windows, and all of them cost shitload of money.

Okay, I'll byte :-).

What OS are you referring to, and what exactly do you think is modern about it. Surely you don't mean Linux. It's claims to fame are that it is open source and actually works darn well, but not that it is "modern". See Torvalds vs. Tannenbaum.

It may not be specifically perl (even if it is on O'Reilly's Perl page) but I find Mastering Regular Expressions invaluable too.
Mind you maybe I like Perl (though I don't get to use it as much I'd like) because I have the sort of mind to enjoy the Friedl...

I sort of concur, though you have to start somewhere just to pick up the syntax of the language. For that, I used Programming Perl (the bigger, more reference-oriented book). Probably the most enlightening one I read was Advanced Perl Programming, which has also just been updated. That was the one that made me say, "Ah-haaaaaa, so there's more to this than CGI scripts."

According to the O'Reilly page for the book, the 4th Edition it has a publication date of July 05. The 3rd Edition was published in July 01. So, I'd say it'll be at least a couple of years before a 5th Edition comes out. If you can hold onto that borrowed copy for that long, then waiting would make more sense. But my guess is that whoever you borrowed it from will want it back before the 5th Edition is published.

Perhaps you'll like Perl Best Practices then.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Regarding books by O'Reilly, I'd also recommend Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics, and, to a lesser extend, Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics -- quite personally, our lab has been using several custom-built sequencing tools, but I've found that Perl always gets the job done faster.

PS: Personally haven't checked this out, but you might want to take a gander at O'Reilly's Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Tools

Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Common Tools and Databases pulls together all of the vital information about the most commonly used databases, analytical tools, and tables used in sequence analysis. The book contains details and examples of the common database formats (GenBank, EMBL, SWISS-PROT) and the GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ Feature Table Definitions. It also provides the command line syntax for popular analysis applications such as Readseq and MEME/MAST, BLAST, ClustalW, and the EMBOSS suite, as well as tables of nucleotide, genetic, and amino acid codes. Written in O'Reilly's enormously popular, straightforward "Nutshell" format, this book draws together essential information for bioinformaticians in industry and academia, as well as for students. If sequence analysis is part of your daily life, you'll want this easy-to-use book on your desk.

Regarding books by O'Reilly, I'd also recommend Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics, and, to a lesser extend, Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics -- quite personally, our lab has been using several custom-built sequencing tools, but I've found that Perl always gets the job done faster.

PS: Personally haven't checked this out, but you might want to take a gander at O'Reilly's Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Tools

Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Common Tools and Databases pulls together all of the vital information about the most commonly used databases, analytical tools, and tables used in sequence analysis. The book contains details and examples of the common database formats (GenBank, EMBL, SWISS-PROT) and the GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ Feature Table Definitions. It also provides the command line syntax for popular analysis applications such as Readseq and MEME/MAST, BLAST, ClustalW, and the EMBOSS suite, as well as tables of nucleotide, genetic, and amino acid codes. Written in O'Reilly's enormously popular, straightforward "Nutshell" format, this book draws together essential information for bioinformaticians in industry and academia, as well as for students. If sequence analysis is part of your daily life, you'll want this easy-to-use book on your desk.

Regarding books by O'Reilly, I'd also recommend Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics, and, to a lesser extend, Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics -- quite personally, our lab has been using several custom-built sequencing tools, but I've found that Perl always gets the job done faster.

PS: Personally haven't checked this out, but you might want to take a gander at O'Reilly's Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Tools

Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell: A Guide to Common Tools and Databases pulls together all of the vital information about the most commonly used databases, analytical tools, and tables used in sequence analysis. The book contains details and examples of the common database formats (GenBank, EMBL, SWISS-PROT) and the GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ Feature Table Definitions. It also provides the command line syntax for popular analysis applications such as Readseq and MEME/MAST, BLAST, ClustalW, and the EMBOSS suite, as well as tables of nucleotide, genetic, and amino acid codes. Written in O'Reilly's enormously popular, straightforward "Nutshell" format, this book draws together essential information for bioinformaticians in industry and academia, as well as for students. If sequence analysis is part of your daily life, you'll want this easy-to-use book on your desk.

...his Smalltalk programming language was a predecessor to Sun Microsystems' Java

Windows XP Under the Hood

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

• Hack 18: Print Custom Charts (PDF)
• Hack 25: Learn Urban Observing Skills (PDF)
• Hack 41: Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope (PDF)
• Hack 58: Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail (PDF)

• Hack 18: Print Custom Charts (PDF)
• Hack 25: Learn Urban Observing Skills (PDF)
• Hack 41: Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope (PDF)
• Hack 58: Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail (PDF)

• Hack 18: Print Custom Charts (PDF)
• Hack 25: Learn Urban Observing Skills (PDF)
• Hack 41: Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope (PDF)
• Hack 58: Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail (PDF)

• Hack 18: Print Custom Charts (PDF)
• Hack 25: Learn Urban Observing Skills (PDF)
• Hack 41: Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope (PDF)
• Hack 58: Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail (PDF)

• Hack 18: Print Custom Charts (PDF)
• Hack 25: Learn Urban Observing Skills (PDF)
• Hack 41: Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope (PDF)
• Hack 58: Enhance Lunar and Planetary Contrast and Detail (PDF)

http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/q/all_hacks
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Tips-HOWTO.html
http://souptonuts.sourceforge.net/how_to_linux_and _open_source.htm
http://cyberciti.biz/nixcraft/vivek/blogger/blogge r.html

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

They tend to have everything you need. Here's some suggestions: Essential System Administration TCP/IP Network Administration Check out the rest of the sysadmin selection at O'Reilly.

They tend to have everything you need. Here's some suggestions: Essential System Administration TCP/IP Network Administration Check out the rest of the sysadmin selection at O'Reilly.

They tend to have everything you need. Here's some suggestions: Essential System Administration TCP/IP Network Administration Check out the rest of the sysadmin selection at O'Reilly.

Personally, I've found that the 'x for dummies' / 'x for complete idiots' are about as useful as a rudimentary Google search.

I like O'Reilly's "Missing Manual" series, so I'd suggest O'Reilly's Home Networking: The Missing Manual (coming in july 2005).

If you don't want to wait until this comes in print, I'd recommend Cisco's "Home Networking Simplified", which was reviewed on Slashdot a few days ago. From the review:

This is an almost perfect book on home networking for the person who has a Windows computer or two (and nothing else) and knows nothing. It pains me to admit that I have a number of friends who fall into this category and I would have no hesitation in lending them a copy of this book. Given the cost, I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to everyone, but I do feel that it is the perfect volume for the local library; borrowing it for two weeks while setting up the home net would be the ideal solution for people like my mate Tim, who (while a pediatric specialist) has trouble hooking up a router, or the neighbours downstairs who can't properly secure a wireless network.

Table of Contents:

Part II Simple Home Networks
Chapter 5 Creating a Basic Home Network
Planning a Network
Designing Your Network
Building Your Network

How to Build It: Connecting Two Computers
Decide on the Type of NICs
Physically Install the NIC
Internal NIC in a Desktop Computer
Internal PCMCIA NIC in a Laptop Computer
External NIC for a Desktop or Laptop Computer
Configure Windows to "Talk To" the NIC
Build a Network Between the Two Computers
Back-to-Back
Using a Hub, Switch, or Router
Set Up the Network in Windows
Troubleshooting Tips: Building a Network

Chapter 6 Sharing Network Resources
File Sharing
Printer Sharing
Practicing Safe Share
Sharing Guidelines
Network Design Guidelines
How to Build It: File and Printer Sharing
Enable File and Printer Sharing
Share a File Over the Network
Map a Shared File Folder as a Disk Drive
Share a Printer Over the Network
Map a Shared Printer
Add Security Precautions to File and Printer Sharing ...

What I always liked about Stevens, is that he delivered print-ready copy to his publisher. This guy did everything himself. Layout, typesetting, graphics, indexing, the whole works. Where can you find people like that nowadays who take so much pride in their product that they hand-hold it from draft to customer?

You're right: that level of pride in workmanship is nearly (but not quite) unheard of in modern technical publishing. But can a publisher ever really measure up to the exacting standards of the most extreme of precise-minded (aka anal) authors? Probably not. That sort of author is apt to be seen as more than half-mad and too much of a hassle for the publisher to try to work with. "After all," says the publisher, "it's just a book." "Sure, but it's my book!" carps back the meticulous author.

You asked where one can find such people. The best living example of fastidious attention to detail that springs to mind is Jeffrey Friedl, as seen in his 500-page arcane tome, Mastering Regular Expressions, now it its second edition. If I recall correctly, Jeffrey did the typesetting, indexing, etc, which means that he was his own production team. This is nearly universally deemed far more trouble than it's worth, but at least you'll have no one to complain about if, for example, the index doesn't measure up--which it seldom if ever does.

Check out Jeffrey's index for MRE (it's in PDF format). Give it a glance. Notice the richness, the usefulness. Notice the multiple levels of headings, rather than just two. Notice the careful treatment of fonts and of the ordering of analphabetic symbols. Many another gem is hidden within that index, which you'll notice if you skim it a bit.

This sort of quality you will never, ever get from some freelance, paid-by-the-hour indexer who doesn't know the problem space, who won't have their name on that book's cover. It does make a difference.

Whoops. We now return you from this unintentional pæan to MRE's production quality.

On Richard Stevens, he was a marvelous and wonderful human being, and he is missed, not just by me, but by many.

--tom

What I always liked about Stevens, is that he delivered print-ready copy to his publisher. This guy did everything himself. Layout, typesetting, graphics, indexing, the whole works. Where can you find people like that nowadays who take so much pride in their product that they hand-hold it from draft to customer?

You're right: that level of pride in workmanship is nearly (but not quite) unheard of in modern technical publishing. But can a publisher ever really measure up to the exacting standards of the most extreme of precise-minded (aka anal) authors? Probably not. That sort of author is apt to be seen as more than half-mad and too much of a hassle for the publisher to try to work with. "After all," says the publisher, "it's just a book." "Sure, but it's my book!" carps back the meticulous author.

You asked where one can find such people. The best living example of fastidious attention to detail that springs to mind is Jeffrey Friedl, as seen in his 500-page arcane tome, Mastering Regular Expressions, now it its second edition. If I recall correctly, Jeffrey did the typesetting, indexing, etc, which means that he was his own production team. This is nearly universally deemed far more trouble than it's worth, but at least you'll have no one to complain about if, for example, the index doesn't measure up--which it seldom if ever does.

Check out Jeffrey's index for MRE (it's in PDF format). Give it a glance. Notice the richness, the usefulness. Notice the multiple levels of headings, rather than just two. Notice the careful treatment of fonts and of the ordering of analphabetic symbols. Many another gem is hidden within that index, which you'll notice if you skim it a bit.

This sort of quality you will never, ever get from some freelance, paid-by-the-hour indexer who doesn't know the problem space, who won't have their name on that book's cover. It does make a difference.

Whoops. We now return you from this unintentional pæan to MRE's production quality.

On Richard Stevens, he was a marvelous and wonderful human being, and he is missed, not just by me, but by many.

--tom

"Imaginative developers, like Alan Taylor (Transparency concept), are digging deep into experimentation to dream up new uses for the maps. It's great to see the innovation when hacks turn to apps."

... facts are facts. ;)

FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

NetBSD:
NetBSD, for When Portability and Stability Matter (Oct 2004)
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (Sep 2004)

OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
OpenSSH (OpenBSD subproject) has become a de facto Internet standard.

*BSD in general:
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
BSD Success Stories (O'Reilly, 2004) (pdf) ~ from Onlamp BSD DevCenter
"The BSDs - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and others - have earned a reputation for stability, security, performance, and ease of administration."
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)

--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

Take a random computer and peripherals[1], to include an 802.11x network, and set up WinXP with the default Admin and a Limited account, and make it all work smoothly for the Limited account.
Still haven't unkinked it all, even with O'Reilly's WinXP Hacks book, 2th Edition.
And my other partition is a source-based GNU/Linux distro, so, while I may be an idiot, I lay claim to being a clever idiot.
Back on topic, the problem is the amount of MSFT in the portfolios of decision makers.
The stock market is a vast, perfectly legal, source of conflict-of-interest.
Sorry, no realistic remedy.

[1] common, non-MS hardware

I know the slashdot crowd doesn't like Java, but the reality is that it has a major foothold and it is not letting go. Take for example, this graph. You can clearly see the decline in .NET and the sustainability of Java. Go Mono!