================================================================ O'Reilly UG Program News--Just for User Group Leaders May 13, 2005 ================================================================ -Put Up an O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Banner, Get a Free Book -Looking for Amateur Astronomers -Safari Affiliate Program for User Groups ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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. For tips and suggestions on writing book reviews, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html ***Discount information Don't forget to remind your members about our 20% discount on O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, and Syngress books and O'Reilly conferences. Just use code DSUG. ***Group purchases with better discounts are available Please let me know if you are interested and I can put you in touch with our sales department. ---------------------------------------------------------------- General News ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Put Up an O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Banner, Get a Free Book We're looking for user groups to display our conference banner on their web sites. If you send me the link to your group's site with our O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference banner, I will send you the O'Reilly book of your choice. Where 2.0 Conference Banners: http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/where/ ***Looking for Amateur Astronomers I am looking for reviewers for our upcoming "Astronomy Hacks" book. If you or someone you know can write a review for Amazon, I'd be happy to send you our book. Thanks for your help. ***Safari Affiliate Program for User Groups Give your members access to content from Safari's thousands of technology books, right on your site--for free--and raise money for your user group at the same time. For more information and to sign up for the Safari Affiliate Program, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/safari_affl.html?CMP=EMC-U1L284871961 ================================================================ O'Reilly News for User Group Members May 13, 2005 ================================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -GDB Pocket Reference -Deploying Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 -Digital Audio Essentials -802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition -Don't Click on the Blue E! -Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook -The Art of Project Management -Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook -iMovie HD and iDVD 5: The Missing Manual -Access Hacks -MAKE Subscriptions Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Events ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Cary Millsap at the NoCOUG Spring Conference, Sunnyvale, CA--May 19 -Mike Clark ("Pragmatic Project Automation") at Agile Denver, Boulder, CO--May 23 -O'Reilly Sponsors the Coalition Summit for IPv6, Reston, VA--May 23-26 -Dan Gillmor ("We the Media"), WTC's Technology Breakfast Series, Mountain View, CA--May 26 ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -EuroOSCON Call for Papers Now Open, Amsterdam, The Netherlands--October 17-20 ---------------------------------------------------------------- News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -How to Build a Nonprofit for Your Community -Addison-Wesley Professional on SafariU -The Geospatial Web: A Call to Action -Learning Lab: Certificate Series $200 Instant Rebate -Tales of Rescuing Old Hardware -(No Starch) Author describes keys to business-ready Linux clusters -CVS Trouble -The Soul of WWDC 2005 -Build a Dashboard Widget -Magnificent Seven: What's New for Users in QuickTime 7 -O'Reilly books Recommended on AARP's article "Windows: Better Safe (Mode) Than Sorry" -Putting A Browser Into Your Windows Application -Five Things I Love About Spring -Configuring Database Access in Eclipse 3.0 with SQLExplorer -Ed Carreon: Making the Connection -Hands On: Create Insane Reason Grooves -On the Go with the Motorola MPx220 Camera Phone -Build an eCommerce Application with eZPublish -Radical Interface Approaches -Validate User Input in PHP 5 -MAKE: Audio -Call MAKE -MAKE: Weather ================================================ 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***GDB Pocket Reference Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100272 Covering several popular programming languages, this handy guide details the essentials of using GDB in a testing environment. This book shows you how to specify a target for debugging, perform a careful examination to find the cause of program failure, and make quick changes for further testing. Having a quick way to refer to GDB's essential functions is the key to making the process work smoothly, and this book is the only reference you'll need. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/gdbpr/ ***Deploying Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 Publisher: Syngress ISBN: 193226650X This book covers all the topics needed to plan, design, and implement a reliable, scalable server-based computing solution in a Citrix/Windows 2003 environment. Whether you're building thin client environments for disaster recovery purposes or rolling Citrix MetaFrame out as the network model for the day-to-day activities of a company, you will find this book to be a great resource. It also offers invaluable advice and direction on optimization, redundancy, troubleshooting, and scalability. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/193226650X/ ***Digital Audio Essentials Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008562 This indispensable reference helps you avoid time-consuming, costly trial and error in downloading audio files, burning CDs, converting analog music to digital form, publishing music to and streaming from the web, setting up home stereo configurations, and creating your own MP3 and other audio files. Designed for both Mac and PC users, it includes reliable hardware and software recommendations, tutorials, resources, and it even explains the basics of the DMCA and intellectual property law. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/digaudio/ Chapter 16, "Setting Up an Internet Radio Station," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/digaudio/chapter/index.html ***802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100523 If you want to deploy your own wireless network, this book is the perfect starting place to gain an understanding of the capabilities and risks associated with the 802.11 protocols. This updated edition covers everything you need to know about integrating wireless technology into your current infrastructure. Designed with the system administrator or serious home user in mind, it's a no-nonsense guide for setting up 802.11 on Windows and Linux. Chapter 21, "Logical Wireless Network Architecture," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/802dot112/chapter/index.html ***Don't Click on the Blue E! Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009399 For anyone who has grown disenchanted with Internet Explorer, this book is here to help. With its straightforward approach, it gives non-technical users a step-by-step roadmap for switching to a better web browser: Firefox. As the only book that covers the switch to Firefox, this how-to guide is a must for all those who want to browse faster, more securely, and more efficiently. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bluee/ A sample excerpt, "Safety and Security," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bluee/chapter/index.html ***Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007264 This practical book offers nearly 50 hands-on projects in an informal, code-intensive style. Each project explores a new feature of the language, with emphasis on changes that can increase productivity, simplify programming tasks, and help you add new functionality to your applications. This one-of-a-kind book also offers suggestions for further experimentation and links to online documentation and other sources of information. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vbadn/ Chapter 2, "The Visual Basic Language," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vbadn/chapter/index.html ***The Art of Project Management Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007868 In this book, you'll learn from a veteran manager of software and web development how to plan, manage, and lead projects. This personal account of hard lessons learned over a decade of work in the industry distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice. Inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, this is the book you and your team need to have within arm's reach. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/artprojectmgmt/ Chapter 3, "How to Figure Out What to Do," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/artprojectmgmt/chapter/index.html ***Visual C# 2005: A Developer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 059600799X This unique "all lab, no lecture" guide covers all of the great new features in C# with 50 hands-on projects. Each project explores a new feature, with emphasis on changes that increase productivity, simplify programming tasks, and add functionality to applications. You'll find suggestions for further experimentation, links to online documentation, plus practical notes and warnings. The book also shows developers how to acquire, install, and configure Visual Studio .NET 2005. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/visualcadn/ Chapter 1, "C# 2.0," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/visualcadn/chapter/index.html ***iMovie HD and iDVD 5: The Missing Manual Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100337 For both professional and amateur moviemakers, David Pogue's witty and entertaining guide details every step of iMovie HD video production, from choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto DVDs. In addition, this book provides a firm grounding in basic film technique so that the quality of a video won't rely entirely on magic. It's your ultimate moviemaking-made-easy source. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/imoviehdtmm/ ***Access Hacks Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009240 This valuable guide provides hands-on solutions to help users master Access. For experienced users, "Access Hacks" offers a unique collection of proven techniques and tools that will take their database skills and productivity to the next level. For Access beginners, this book helps them acquire a firm grasp of the program's most productive features. Topics covered range from utilizing SQL inquiries to working with Access in multi-user environments. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/accesshks/ Sample Hack 61, "Use Excel Functions Inside Access," is available online (along with five others): http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/accesshks/chapter/index.html ***MAKE 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 The MAKE blog is available at: http://www.makezine.com/blog/ ================================================ Upcoming Events ================================================ ***For more events, please see: http://events.oreilly.com/ ***Cary Millsap at the NoCOUG Spring Conference, Sunnyvale, CA--May 19 Author Cary Millsap ("Optimizing Oracle Performance") is giving a keynote address at the Northern California Oracle Users Group Spring Conference. http://www.nocoug.org/next.html ***Mike Clark ("Pragmatic Project Automation") at Agile Denver, Boulder, CO--May 23 Pragmatic Bookshelf author Mike Clark presents "Building Software, Better and Faster." You'll learn good practices (and see some bad ones) while you take a peek inside a well-oiled agile project that's using the essential practices covered in the Pragmatic Starter Kit: version control with Subversion, unit testing with JUnit, and automation with Ant and friends. http://www.agiledenver.org/2005MayMeeting.php ***O'Reilly Sponsors the Coalition Summit for IPv6, Reston, VA--May 23-26 Join leaders from dozens of forward-looking governments and companies shaping the New Internet at the Coalition Summit for IPv6. And keep an eye out for our new book "IPv6 Network Administration." http://www.coalitionsummit.com/ ***Dan Gillmor ("We the Media"), WTC's Technology Breakfast Series, Mountain View, CA--May 26 Author Dan Gillmor and other panelists discuss the impact open source has, not only on business strategy in developing revenue models, but also license implications and what open source development means for engineers. http://www.wtc-sf.org/eml_tbseries_052605.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/ User Group members who register before May 31, 2005 get a double discount. Use code "whereug" when you register, and receive 15% off the early registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/create/ord_where ***EuroOSCON Call for Papers Now Open, Amsterdam, The Netherlands--October 17-20 EuroOSCON 2005, to be held October 17-20 in Amsterdam, will explore the best and newest open source technologies, with a focus on what's particularly useful to companies, governments, and non-profits. Session and tutorial proposals are due by midnight, May 23rd. We're interested in all aspects of building applications, services, and systems that utilize the new capabilities of the open source platform. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/eurooscon/create/e_sess Submit your proposal: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/eurooscon/create/e_sess#form ================================================ News From O'Reilly & Beyond ================================================ --------------------- General News --------------------- ***How to Build a Nonprofit for Your Community Many open source projects have already created nonprofit organizations that support their communities, while other projects are considering ways to establish nonprofits. David Boswell details how mozdev.org built a nonprofit organization and shows you how to do the same for your community. He covers fundraising, obtaining legal advice, staffing, and more. David is the coauthor of "Creating Applications with Mozilla." http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2005/04/28/nonprofits.html ***Addison-Wesley Professional on SafariU SafariU, O'Reilly's web-based platform for creating, publishing, and sharing textbooks, now includes 416 Addison-Wesley Professional titles. With books covering topics from programming, data mining, AI, networking, security, web design, web programming, databases, and a whole range of subjects in between, Addison-Wesley is a welcomed addition to the SafariU repository. Log on to SafariU now to see this incredible new content. https://www.safariu.com/ ***The Geospatial Web: A Call to Action What needs to happen to build a sustainable geospatial web? Mike Liebhold offers ten steps designed to help tap the as yet unharvested business opportunities in a geospatial web. If this topic gets your creative juices flowing, you belong at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 Conference, coming up in June in San Francisco. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/05/10/geospatialweb.html ***Learning Lab: Certificate Series $200 Instant Rebate Learning programming languages and development techniques has never been easier. Using your web browser and Useractive's Learning Sandbox technology, the Learning Lab gives you hands-on, online training in a creative environment (and a Certificate from the University of Illinois College of Extended Education upon course completion). Only in May, receive a $200 instant rebate when you enroll in any Certificate Series. http://www.oreilly.com/redirector.csp?link=UACert&type=news --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***Tales of Rescuing Old Hardware If you're careful, you can often pick up viable hardware from companies throwing out machines too old to run the latest and greatest Windows software. This is viable for free Unixes, if you can get past the installation. Mikhail Zakharov walks through a tale of exploration, discovery, and patch-writing to install NetBSD over NFS through the serial port of a Pentium I-era Toshiba notebook. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/05/05/hardware_rescue.html ***No Starch Author describes keys to business-ready Linux clusters SearchEnterpriseLinux.com interviews Karl Kopper, author of No Starch's "Linux Enterprise Cluster." http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/ 0,289142,sid39_gci1083586,00.html ***CVS Trouble Noel Davis looks at problems in CVS, PostgreSQL, Squid, Gaim, Debian's lsh, Xine-lib, Caroline, Convert-UUlib, Rootkit Hunter, snmppd, Kommander, kimgio, RealPlayer, Helix Player, xli, and Debian's samba. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2005/05/06/ security_alerts.html --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***The Soul of WWDC 2005 A few years ago, Apple moved WWDC from San Jose to the brand new Moscone West building in San Francisco. The new location improved the face of its developer conference. This year, Apple wants to enhance its very soul. Here's how O'Reilly is going to help them do that. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/03/wwdc.html ***Build a Dashboard Widget A little HTML, a dash of JavaScript, and a sprinkle of CSS and you can create your own Dashboard widget. Andrew Anderson shows you how. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/06/dashboard.html ***Magnificent Seven: What's New for Users in QuickTime 7 Tiger is cool, but it's not the only new cat on the block. Apple has also released an updated version of QuickTime. Chris Adamson examines the user-visible features and changes in QT 7, including QT 7 Pro, renovations to the QuickTime Player application, and the implications of the powerful new H.264 video codec. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/10/qt7.html --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***O'Reilly books Recommended on AARP's article "Windows: Better Safe (Mode) Than Sorry" Gabe Goldberg's states "Windows XP books' indexes provided surprisingly few entries for Safe Mode. I found the best coverage in two O'Reilly books, 'Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual' and 'Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual.'" In addition to writing for www.aarp.org, Gabe contributes to the "Washington Post" and computer industry/trade publications. He's active in his local PC user group, CPCUG (Capital PC User Group) serving as Outreach Director and Program Director. He's also Region 2 Advisor for APCUG, helping user groups from VA to NJ. Thanks Gabe! http://www.aarp.org/learntech/computers/howto/better_safe_mode.html ***Windows XP Annoyances Needed for New Book We're looking for your gripes, complaints, hassles, and other frustrations with Microsoft's favorite OS. Billions of people use Windows, and we want to help them...and your help would be much appreciated. We'll be covering XP in all its flavors (including XP with Service Packs 1 and 2, Windows Media Center Edition), and in all its settings (from standalone PCs to running on a WiFi network). If you have an annoyance you'd like to see solved, email marsee at oreilly.com with "Windows XP Annoyances" in the subject line. Just note which version of XP your're using (with SP1? SP2? Windows Media Center Edition?) As thanks for sharing, we'll make sure to get copies of "Windows XP Annoyances" sent to your group shortly after publication. ***Putting A Browser Into Your Windows Application There are times when it would be awfully convenient to have the capabilities of Internet Explorer inside your Windows application. The classic case is when you want to look at an XML document, and you'd like to take advantage of IE's ability to show the document as a collapsible and expandable hierarchy. In this article, Jesse Liberty will show you how to do that, in just a few easy steps. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/05/10/liberty.html --------------------- Java --------------------- ***Five Things I Love About Spring For hardcore enterprise development, Bruce Tate turns to Spring, the topic of his latest collaboration, "Spring: A Developer's Notebook." In this article, Bruce describes five reasons why he's hooked on Spring. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/11/spring.html ***Configuring Database Access in Eclipse 3.0 with SQLExplorer It's 2005 and you're using Eclipse. Should you still be creating your database tables and seeding them with data by hand, from an SQL command-line utility? Deepak Vohra introduces the SQLExplorer plugin for Eclipse, which allows you to put a GUI on your development-time database access. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/11/sqlexplorer.html --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Ed Carreon: Making the Connection During a four-month visit to a remote village in Mexico, Ed Carreon photographed a world with one foot still in the past, a distant place he had heard about as a boy through family stories. His images capture the beauty and the struggle of a land that few of us will ever see. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/11/featured.html ***Hands On: Create Insane Reason Grooves Don't settle for the same loop everyone else is using! This MP3-packed tutorial shows how to blast beats apart in Propellerhead Reason, then shape them into unique, twisted grooves. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/04/reasonbeat.html ***On the Go with the Motorola MPx220 Camera Phone The Motorola MPx220 is a 3.88-ounce, portable multimedia tool cleverly disguised as a mobile phone. The ROM-based Microsoft Windows Media Player can play back MP3 and WMA audio, as well as WMV video files. The integrated camera can record 1.3-megapixel still photos. Todd Ogasawara explores all in this in-depth review. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/04/mpx220.html --------------------- Web --------------------- ***Build an eCommerce Application with eZPublish Launch into the world of ecommerce using eZ publish. Bard Farstad explains step-by-step how to create a fully functional product catalogue with online credit card processing functionality. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ecommerce-website-ez-publish ***Radical Interface Approaches Alex Walker takes a look at several web sites which feature radical interfaces for users. Read along and find out what's possible with just a little bit of imagination. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=261889 ***Validate User Input in PHP 5 Discover how to validate user data in PHP and produce user-friendly error messages when something goes wrong, or when someone attempts a malicious attack. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=261554 --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***MAKE: Audio Here's the latest audio from MAKE Magazine. In this MAKE audio show, Cory Doctorow talks about the Brodcast Flag--it's history, the fight, and now its (hopeful) permanent demise. Right click or Control + click to download this MP3 to you local system or add the MAKE Audio feed to your podcasting application and get the show automatically! http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast/ ***Call MAKE Call in to our MAKE voicemail and ask a question; anything is fine. How about something like, "I have an old PC, what can I do with it?" We'll try and answer these on our audio program or on the MAKE: Blog. It's not a toll-free call, so keep that in mind. 206-888-6253 (MAKE) ***MAKE: Weather http://makezine.com/weatherlink/ More about our Weather Experiment http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/04/davis_vantage_p.html ================================================ 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