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25 Years of O'Reilly Books
wka writes "The year 2003 marks the 25th anniversary of publisher O'Reilly and Associates. O'Reilly has a site to mark the event. Readers can learn about the origin of the first animal covers in the time line, and read an anniversary message from Tim O'Reilly, stating his 'audacious' goal '[t]o change the world by capturing and transmitting the knowledge of innovators.'"
I think O'Reilly should make books comparing two different langauges, editors, computer topics. Why you ask? So they can show these crazy animals fighting it out on the cover. Wouldnt you love to see the Jave in a nut Shell Tiger beat up/eat the Dynamic HTML Flamingo? I thought so.
Grass-roots web hosting.We are poor colleg
We even ran O'Reilly WebSite for a number of years with no complaints. Take that Microsoft! No IIS for us!
Congrats and Well Done to an icon of the industry.
*votes to change RTFM to RTFO'Reilly Book*
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When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
I'm curious how many of us have an old UUCP or perhaps the first edition of Lexx/Yacc or some other now obsolete O'Reilly book
I also wonder how many of us proudly display an entire bookshelf full of them at work
Either way, here is a fun little parody to roll your own O'Reilly cover. Another fun one at O'Really. And a few images just for fun.
--- have you healed your church website?
I've always liked the O'Reilly books - good content at a decent price and very distinctive covers. Reminds me of all those math books from Dover Publications (http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-mat hematics.html) - excellent math books at rock bottom prices and very distinctive covers.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
>>Publishers like Manning, Wrox, and Microsoft Press have been able to offer books that blow away the competing O'Reilly books and at a fraction of the cost.
I agree that ORA books have been getting a wee bit more expensive lately. But I don't really think the quality of their content is slipping.
ADW has been putting out quality books for years. In some cases the books are better than ORA's. Though they're a bit dryer in content and style.
WROX and MS Press? I guess that we all have our tastes. If they work for you, then go for it. Personally, I have a hard time reading both. The typesetting is hard to read. And the books themselves...just look cheap. ORA's are easy to read and have a touch of class to them.
In the case of WROX, my past experience with them has been that their books are full of tecnical errors. More than the average textbook. If someone can confirm that their quality has improved, I'll start looking at their books again.
Huh?
Without trying to sound like an advertisment, I've found O'Reilly's Safari service is ebooks over the web done RIGHT. They get your contribution which funds the library, you get cheap access to books that would otherwise cost you a lot more money legitimately. The only downside is that you don't get the geek-cred of having all of those animal books on your shelf at work.
Has anyone seen any other publishers offering a similar service that is as good value wise? I wasn't particularly impressed by the offering from Wrox but I'm guessing that someone else out there will follow O'Reilly's lead.
No doubt about it, you are most definitely a geek if you find this funny:
True in a Nutshell
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
the story of o'reilly is one that could really be taken to heart by a lot of linux geeks.
they had and have a great product, but the first thing to come to mind is the animal cover. consistency and simplicity, combined with a superior product, make remembering that excellence simpler, and expand the brand and usage / sales.
the moral? KISS, of course, but also, keep it consistent.
go get it
The books tend to be prohibitably expensive to some. As a high school student who doesn't have enough money to lay down $50 a book it can be a hassel but thats what the library is for. I have talked to people who use books such as these to make money and they all say that the price is not an issue in a good book becuase they will help you gain far more. Personally i plan on making some money off what i have learned and then going and buying at least 10 of their books. One of the easiest ways to fix a problem on a computer is to find the book/chapter that covers your problem and read the whole thing. The "extra" knowledge that you get from these books makes it far more useful than another book where you simply learn which buttons to click in a GUI.
Even though i prefer O'Reilly books i still read others. After i read the O'Reilly book i like to go to the library and grab a couple of competing books. Even if the quality isn't any better knowledge absorbs better when you read the same thing said in two different ways for me.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I've been a unix system administrator for about 10 years now. In fact, I've never had another professional job outside of system administration. And I owe *all* of it to O'Reilly. Their books launched my career, and made me what I am today. I've paid full cover price for my entire library several times over (new editions, you know) but they deserve a larger chunk of my salary than that. Congratulations, and keep up the good work!
$comment =~ s/($verb)\s+($noun)/IN SOVIET RUSSIA, $2 $1s YOU!/g;
O'Reilly's "Running Linux" (Welsh and Kaufman, authors) is one of my "must-have" books. I have 3 copies -- one on my desk at work, one on my bookshelf at home, and one at my girlfriend's place. (Just in case!)
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
it is at least for a reason. They *open flat.*
Not only are the "eight hundred pound gorilla" books generally inferior to the O'Reilly offerings, but you have to break their "studier" bindings to make them actually usable at the keyboard.
I bless O'Reilly every day for this little, and for them more expensive to produce, nicety, even if the odd page does fall out of some of the older and more well thumbed volumes.
KFG
pink books. I also have brown books, mint books an orange book and one book that doesn't really have any color at all.
Yeah, I've got a couple red books and a handful of "bumble bee" books from the "other guys," but none of them are day to day usable like the O'Reillys. Even where I've found the odd book a bit superior for first contact with a particular subject it's the O'Reilly's that end up being my prefered reference down the road.
But most of all no other computer tech books give me the pure *pleasure* of O'Reilly books. I love books. I've always loved books. When I was two and could first answer on my own the question, " What would you like for your birthday?" I said, "Books!"
O'Reilly books aren't just manuals. They're honest to goodness, God almighty *Books.* No one else seems quite able to pull this off ( although New Riders is starting to get close).
If I could only take one tech book to a desert island it would be an O'Reilly because they're the only books of the genre just plain worth *reading*.
KFG