for your perusal ... ================================================================ O'Reilly UG Program News--Just for User Group Leaders June 2, 2005 ================================================================ -Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book -Put Up an O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Banner, Get a Free Book -Promotional Material Available -Looking for Web Site or Newsletter Content? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book Info ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Review books are available Copies of our books are available for your members to review-- send me an email and please include the book's ISBN number on your request. Let me know if you need your book by a certain date. Allow at least four weeks for shipping. ***Please send copies of your book reviews Email me a copy of your newsletters or book reviews. 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New titles include "eBay Hacks," "Project 2003 Personal Trainer," "Web Mapping Illustrated," and "Learning Perl." http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/ug_sample_chapters ================================================================ O'Reilly News for User Group Members June 2, 2005 ================================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Essential Sharepoint -Killer Game Programming in Java -Classic Shell Scripting -Infosec Career Hacking -Learning Java, 3rd Edition -DHTML Utopia SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition -Degunking Linux -Designing Embedded Hardware, 2nd Edition -Database in Depth -MySQL in a Nutshell -MAKE Subscriptions Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Events ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Adam Goldstein ("AppleScript: The Missing Manual"), SoHo Apple Store, New York, NY--June 3 -O'Reilly at Tech Ed 2005, Orlando, FL--Jun 5-10 -O'Reilly at Apple WWDC, San Francisco, CA--June 6-10 -Sinan Si Alhir ("UML in a Nutshell"), UML & Design World 2005, Austin, TX--June 13-16 -James Avery ("Visual Studio Hacks") Dayton .NET Developers, Fairborn, OH--July 25 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Conference News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Registration is Open for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 -Where 2.0 Conference Registration Open, San Francisco, CA--June 29-30 ---------------------------------------------------------------- News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -"Cult of Mac" and "Degunking Windows" Win IPPY Awards -E3 2005: War of the Consoles...Almost -Mapping the 802.11 Protocol -Embedded-system Programmers Must Learn the Fundamentals -Rendering Everything as Text -A Simpler Ajax Path -Rexx: Power Through Simplicity -Learning Lab: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate Special -An Introduction to Tiger Terminal -Japan Primer for the Mac Techno-Tourist -20 Cool Tiger Features You Might Not Have Heard About -Refactoring Support for Visual Basic 2005 -Ferreting Out Near-Identical Records in Access -Building Web Parts, Part 1 -Constructing Services with J2EE -Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring -Look Ma--Hands! Choosing and Using MIDI Controllers -Steve Turnidge: Turning Weed into Green -Consumer Camera Time-Lapse Movies -DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design -Search Engines Know More Than You Think -MAKE: Audio, Flickr, and del.icio.us ================================================ Book News ================================================ Did you know you can request a free book to review for your group? Ask your group leader for more information. For book review writing tips and suggestions, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html Don't forget, you can receive 20% off any O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, or Syngress book you purchase directly from O'Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering online or by phone 800-998-9938. http://www.oreilly.com/ ***Free ground shipping is available for online orders of at least $29.95 that go to a single U.S. address. This offer applies to U.S. delivery addresses in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. For more details, go to: http://www.oreilly.com/news/freeshipping_0703.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- New Releases ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Essential Sharepoint Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008805 This comprehensive guide covers all the key topics for getting you started with Microsoft SharePoint. Learn everything there is to know about creating a team-oriented website: how to turn it on, set it up, and set your applications to work with it. Covering hosting choices, administration, customization, and more, it's ideal for anyone who wants to improve productivity through information sharing and document collaboration. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/essentialsp/ Chapter 1, "Why Use SharePoint?" is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/essentialsp/ ***Killer Game Programming in Java Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007302 This comprehensive guide has everything you need to program Java games. It offers the most thorough coverage of Java 3D available, and clearly details the older, better-known 2D APIs, 3D sprites, animated 3D sprites, first-person shooter programming, sound, fractals, and networked games. This practical book is a must-have for anyone who wants to create adrenaline-fueled games in Java. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/killergame/ Chapter 22, "Flocking Boids," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/killergame/chapter/index.html ***Classic Shell Scripting Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596005954 The ability to program and customize the shell quickly, reliably, and portably is important for anyone operating and maintaining Unix or Linux systems. This book gives you everything you need to master these essential skills. The authors provide the tips, tricks, and organized knowledge necessary to create excellent scripts, as well as warnings of the traps that can turn your best efforts into bad shell scripts. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/shellsrptg/ Chapter 5, "Pipelines Can Do Amazing Things," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/shellsrptg/chapter/index.html ***Infosec Career Hacking Publisher: Syngress ISBN: 1597490113 Do you code for the sheer joy and challenge? If you want to refine your skills and learn new ones to build an InfoSec career, this book is for you. The authors have all applied their inherent hacker skills to build successful InfoSec careers. From them, you will learn about the variety of available jobs and the skills required to excel in each one. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1597490113/ ***Learning Java, 3rd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008732 This bestselling hands-on tutorial delivers a no-nonsense approach to Java 5.0 features, such as "generics," loops, and threads. It addresses all of the important uses of Java, such as web applications, servlets, and XML, that are increasingly driving enterprise applications. The accompanying CD includes the Java 5.0 SDK for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, plus the Eclipse IDE, the NetBeans IDE, and the many example programs from the book. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnjava3/ Chapter 8, "Generics," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnjava3/chapter/index.html ***DHTML Utopia Publisher: SitePoint ISBN: 0957921896 "DHTML Utopia" is a unique book about using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS together to create extremely usable, standards compliant and modern websites as well as updating your current designs to enhance the user experience. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0957921896/index.html ***SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008953 Written for a wide, technical audience, this book covers several implementations of SSH for different operating systems and computing environments. Whether you're an individual running your home system or a corporate network administrator with thousands of users, our indispensable guide has you covered. It starts with simple installation and use of SSH, and works its way to in-depth case studies on large, sensitive computer networks. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sshtdg2/ Chapter 8, "Per-Account Server Configuration," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sshtdg2/chapter/index.html ***Degunking Linux Publisher: Paraglyph ISBN: 1933097043 This book will help users get their Linux configurations working efficiently by providing them with a proven and time-saving 12-step program to get rid of clutter and organize everything from user files to system upgrades. This is the only book that is completely focused on helping Linux users learn the causes of sluggish performance and how to apply smart solutions to improve overall system performance. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1933097043/ ***Designing Embedded Hardware, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007558 This book steers a course between books dedicated to writing code for particular microprocessors and those that stress the philosophy of embedded system design without providing any practical information. Loaded with real examples, it also provides a roadmap of the pitfalls and traps to avoid. If you want to build your own embedded system, or tweak an existing one, this invaluable book gives you the understanding and practical skills you need. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dbhardware2/ Chapter 6, "Building Hardware," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dbhardware2/chapter/index.html ***Database in Depth Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100124 This concise guide sheds light on the principles behind the relational model, giving you an unbiased view that's not influenced by any vendor or product. Featuring an extensive set of exercises, this book is ideal not only for database developers and designers, but also for a diverse field of professionals and academics, including database administrators, information modelers, database consultants, and more. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/databaseid/ Chapter 1, "Introduction," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/databaseid/chapter/index.html ***MySQL in a Nutshell Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007892 This book clearly documents every detail you need to master MySQL. In addition to providing a thorough reference to MySQL statements and functions, the administrative utilities, and the most popular APIs, this book even includes several tutorial chapters to help newcomers get started. This wealth of information is conveniently packed into a concise, comprehensive, and easy-to-use format. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlian/ Chapter 6, "Date and Time Functions," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlian/chapter/index.html ***MAKE Magazine Subscriptions Available The annual subscription price for four issues is $34.95. When you subscribe with this link, you'll get a free issue--the first one plus four more for $34.95. So subscribe for yourself or friends with this great offer for charter subscribers: five volumes for the cost of four. Subscribe at: https://www.pubservice.com/MK/Subnew.aspx?PC=MK&PK=M5ZUGLA ================================================ Upcoming Events ================================================ ***For more events, please see: http://events.oreilly.com/ ***Adam Goldstein ("AppleScript: The Missing Manual"), SoHo Apple Store, New York, NY--June 3 Author Adam is a featured speaker at the SoHo Apple Store from 7:00-9:00pm. http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/week/20050320.html ***O'Reilly at Tech Ed 2005, Orlando, FL--Jun 5-10 Stop by our booth (#1046/1048), check out our new titles, and say hi to our authors while you attend Tech Ed. Some of latest books include ".NET Gotchas" and "Visual Studio Hacks." http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2005/default.mspx ***O'Reilly at Apple WWDC, San Francisco, CA--June 6-10 On Tuesday, June 7, grab a tasty bag lunch and spend your lunchtime with founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Tim O’Reilly. Tim will talk about the innovations that are on his radar, and how Mac developers can begin distributing the future today. http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ ***Sinan Si Alhir ("UML in a Nutshell"), UML & Design World 2005, Austin, TX--June 13-16 Author Sinan Si Alhir leads two sessions at this event: "Enterprise Business Modeling" and "The Agile Unified Process (AUP)." http://www.cmpevents.com/SDUM5/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=84520 ***James Avery ("Visual Studio Hacks") Dayton .NET Developers, Fairborn, OH--July 25 Author James discusses getting the most out of Visual Studio's Integrated Development Environment with his talk titled "Pimp your IDE." James is the founder of the Cincinnati .NET Users Group and is the founder and president of InfoZerk, a software consulting company. http://www.daytondevgroup.net/schedule.htm ================================================ Conference News ================================================ ***Registration is Open for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 OSCON 2005 explores three deep trends affecting open source: the commoditization of software, network-enabled collaboration, and software customizability. Join us at this essential gathering of open source leaders and practitioners of every persuasion to exchange ideas and push the boundaries of vital open source technologies. This year, we introduce the Open Source Business Review, along with a host of other exciting presentations and events. http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/ User Group members who register before June 20, 2005 get a double discount. Use code "os05grpusr" when you register, and receive 15% off the early registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2005/create/ord_os05 ***Where 2.0 Conference Registration Open, San Francisco, CA--June 29-30 Join us at the first O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference. Location-based services and mapping are becoming mainstream technologies. Meanwhile, innovative new software makes it possible to apply the wealth of new data to old business problems. Come explore the emerging consumer and enterprise ecosystems around location-aware technologies that increasingly impact the way we work and play. http://conferences.oreilly.com/where/ Use code "whereug" when you register, and receive 15% off the registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/create/ord_where ================================================ News From O'Reilly & Beyond ================================================ --------------------- General News --------------------- ***"Cult of Mac" and "Degunking Windows" Win IPPY Awards Congratulation to No Starch Press and Paraglyph Press for winning the 2005 Independent Publisher Book Awards. No Starch's "The Cult of Mac" by Leander Kahney won for Most Unique Design and Paraglyph Press's "Degunking Windows" won in the Computer/Internet category. http://www.independentpublisher.com/ ***E3 2005: War of the Consoles...Almost E3 is the world's largest video game trade show, which means a lot of networking and deal brokering. However, E3 is also the first chance for the average gamer to get a sneak peek at the video games in development. In a hardcore gamer's world, the flashy and elaborate E3 exhibits are like Christmas morning--only in May. Stephen Cawood offers this report on E3 2005. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/05/23/E3expo.html ***Mapping the 802.11 Protocol A trip to London and a bit of unique inspiration gave Matthew Gast the ideas that would lead to the first draft of a visual map describing the relationship between the various components of the 802.11 standard and related security standards. Matthew details the road he took to the final version of his 802.11 protocol map. Matthew is the author of "802.11: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition." http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2005/05/20/80211map.html ***Embedded-system Programmers Must Learn the Fundamentals No Starch's Randy Hyde's article in the new issue of "EDN Magazine." Randy is the author of "Write Great Code" and "The Art of Assembly Language." http://www.edn.com/article/CA601846.html --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***Rendering Everything as Text Ah, the days of plain-text everything are long gone, what with media files (hooray!) and encumbered binary blobs (boo!). Is the solution to give up your comfortable, efficient, and effective text-based tools? No way. Philip Hollenback proposes that you can render any data format to meaningful text for mail reading, indexing, and more. Here's how. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2005/05/26/textonly.html ***A Simpler Ajax Path After years of hacks, tricks, and workarounds, there's finally a cross-browser, cross-platform way to communicate between client and server in web applications. Matthew Eernisse demonstrates how to send and receive structured data with XMLHttpRequest and shows off some tricks to make debugging and error handling easier. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/18/swingxactions.html ***Rexx: Power Through Simplicity The P-languages get most of the press these days, but they're not the only dynamic languages in the world. Arguably, Rexx is the grandfather of them all. It's received little attention in the open source world, despite several good open source implementations. Howard Fosdick shows off some of the features of the language with practical examples. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/05/26/rexx.html ***Learning Lab: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate Special Learn system administration skills online and receive certification from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Courses include: The Unix File System, Networking and DNS, Unix Services (including email and web servers), and Scripting for Administrators with Sed, Awk, and Perl. It's all at the O'Reilly Learning Lab. Enroll and save 40%. http://www.oreilly.com/redirector.csp?link=UASys&type=news --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***An Introduction to Tiger Terminal Now that you've had a chance to enjoy all of the GUI goodies in Mac OS X 10.4, you might be ready to check out what's happening with the Terminal app. This article will introduce you to Tiger's Terminal app and CLI (command-line interface). http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/20/terminal1.html ***Japan Primer for the Mac Techno-Tourist Many of us believe that Japan is the land of geek nirvana. If you're contemplating a visit to the gadget promise land, you'll enjoy Todd Ogasawara's report on everything from cell phone coverage to buying Mac accessories. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/27/japan.html ***20 Cool Tiger Features You Might Not Have Heard About Even though Tiger has been out for a while now, many of its major features have nuances that haven't received much press--and there are a zillion minor tweaks to discuss. Scott Knaster takes you on a tour of clever, and sometimes even obscure Tiger goodies. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/13/tiger_tips.html --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***Refactoring Support for Visual Basic 2005 Microsoft recently announced that they have teamed up with Developer Express Inc. to release Refactor! for Visual Basic 2005 Beta 2, a free plugin for Visual Studio that enables Visual Basic developers to simplify and restructure source code inside of Visual Studio 2005. Wei-Meng Lee walks you through the new refactoring. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/05/31/vbrefactoring.html ***Ferreting Out Near-Identical Records in Access Working with lists of contacts is a common database activity, but as a list grows, so do the chances for duplicate records. Ken Bluttman shows one technique for ferreting out these near-identical records in Access using the InStr function to find when one value in one field is inside the value of the same field in another record. Ken is the author of "Access Hacks." http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/05/24/ accesshacks.html ***Building Web Parts, Part 1 Web sites today contain a wealth of information; so much that a poorly designed site can easily overwhelm users. To better help users cope, portal web sites today (such as MSN) often organize their data into discrete units that support a degree of personalization. In this first of three articles, Wei-Meng Lee discusses how to use Web Parts for user customization in your ASP.NET 2.0 web sites. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/05/23/webparts_1.html --------------------- Java --------------------- ***Constructing Services with J2EE Web services are a popular means of deploying service-oriented applications, and the standards in J2EE 1.4 make it easier to develop services that are portable and interoperable. Debu Panda shows you how, and takes a look at how things will get easier in J2EE 5.0. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/25/j2ee-services.html ***Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring The proper handling of transactions across multiple data stores, supporting multiple application flows, is the kind of heavy lifting J2EE servers were built for. But what if you're using the lighter-weight Spring framework? Binildas C.A. shows how you can wire Spring and Hibernate together to achieve the transaction support you desire. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/18/swingxactions.html --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Look Ma--Hands! Choosing and Using MIDI Controllers If you really want to play today's wonderful software instruments, drop that mouse and grab a dedicated MIDI controller. In this MP3-enhanced tutorial, you'll hear the dramatic difference controllers make in musical expressivity, then get buying and usage tips. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/01/controller1.html ***Steve Turnidge: Turning Weed into Green Go behind the scenes with the co-founder of Weedshare.com, the service that pays you--and the original artist--to share music. Driven by ex-Microsoft and Real Networks employees, Weed is totally legal, and even supports surround sound. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/25/weed.html ***Consumer Camera Time-Lapse Movies Pocket digicams are great for still photos, and some of them even record quality video. But you can push the envelope even further with these devices. Here's how two photo novices created their first time-lapse production. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/18/timelapse.html --------------------- Web --------------------- ***DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design What do Flickr, Google Suggest, Google Maps, and GMail have in common? They all employ some of the latest methods in modern, unobtrusive DHTML. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/dhtml-utopia-modern-web-design ***Search Engines Know More Than You Think Learn how Google's personalized web search and Yahoo's Mindset work and how they take searching to a whole new level. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=268282 --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***MAKE: Audio The MAKE Team thought it would be fun to talk with pal Richard Giles in Australia. They chatted about MAKE Volume 02, E3, Astromechs, VoIP for the Nintendo DS, NASA's O2 challenge, the XBOX 360, Broadcast Flag part 2, and more. Next up, they interview Jordan Kanarek and Jim Garretson from roadcasting.org. What's roadcasting? Interactive, collaborative, mobile radio stations for cars. It could be a glimpse of what's to come for our daily commutes! http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast/ ***MAKE Flickr Join the MAKE Flickr photo pool today. You never know what you'll see or what we'll be giving away next! Where else can you see a potato cannon in action? http://www.flickr.com/groups/make/pool/ ***MAKE del.icio.us On the MAKE bookmark page, there are over 1,500 links to hacks, mods, DIY projects, and all-around tinkering goodness. Be a MAKE voyeur and read what we're reading. http://del.icio.us/makemagazine This week's faves include: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/ Abusing Amazon Images http://aaugh.com/imageabuse.html WSJ on Gaming http://www.oreilly.com/go/wsj_on_gaming How to Stock Your Bar for a Party http://www.degraeve.com/howto/stock-your-bar.php ***The MAKE blog is available at: http://www.makezine.com/blog/ ================================================ From Your Peers =============================================== ***Don't forget to check out the O'Reilly UG wiki to see what user groups around the globe are up to: http://wiki.oreillynet.com/usergroups/index.cgi -- steve ulrich sulrich at botwerks.org PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC