================================================================ O'Reilly UG Program News--Just for User Group Leaders July 8, 2005 ================================================================ -UG Book Discount Increases to 30% Off -Going to OSCON? -Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book -Promotional Material Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 newsletter or book review. 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 the 30% discount on O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, and Syngress books. 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***UG Book Discount Increases to 30% Off Please let your members know about our 30% discount on O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, and Syngress books. Just use code DSUG. (See New Discount Bookmarks in promo materials.) ***Are you going to OSCON in Portland, Oregon this year? Please let me know! ***Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON 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 2005 Open Source Convention banner, I will send you the O'Reilly book of your choice. OSCON Banners: http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/oscon2005 ***Promotional Material Available: The following items are available for your next meeting. Numbers are limited so please don't wait too long. Let me know the item and the amount you'd like and I'll do my best. -Brand new hot off the press 30% UG Discount bookmarks in color! -O'Reilly Open Source Convention Brochures -MAKE Magazine (limit one per group) -LinuxWorld Passes (PDF) ================================================================ O'Reilly News for User Group Members July 8, 2005 ================================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -JBoss: A Developer's Notebook -SharePoint Office Pocket Guide -Project 2003 Personal Trainer -Astronomy Hacks -UML 2.0 in a Nutshell -Maven: A Developer's Notebook -Web Mapping Illustrated -Exchange Server Cookbook -ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook -Knoppix Pocket Reference -Mapping Hacks -Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide -Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger -MAKE Magazine Subscriptions Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Events ---------------------------------------------------------------- -O'Reilly at LinuxWorld, San Francisco, CA--August 8-11 -David Pogue at Macworld Boston, SOHO Apple Store, and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center ---------------------------------------------------------------- Conference News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Register for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 ---------------------------------------------------------------- News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Top Ten Questions People Ask About Switching to Internet Telephones -Anti-spam Techniques -Hacking Maps -Making Your RSS Feed Look Pretty in a Browser -Google Launches Payment System to Compete With PayPal -ESR: "We Don't Need the GPL Anymore" -Problems in OpenSSH, Sudo, and Java -Secure Your MySQL Databases -What Developers Want -Music Gadgets -Going to the Movies (and More) in iTunes -Tweaking Tiger Mail -Is This Security Alert Really from Microsoft? -Atlas: Microsoft's Answer to Ajax -Generics in .NET 2.0 -Getting Your Bluetooth Headset to Work in XP -Java City: The Java Enterprise Ecosystem -Getting Started with Maven -Seven Steps to Noise-Free Digital Audio -The Ultimate Portable Studio -MAKE: Audio--Interview with John Maushammer -MAKE: Blog--Podcasts on Audible ================================================ 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 30% 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***JBoss: A Developer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100078 This Developers Notebook takes you on a complete tour of JBoss in a very unique way: rather than long discussions, you will find code--lots of code. In fact, the book is a collection of hands-on labs that take you through the critical JBoss features step-by-step. Don't just read about JBoss, learn it through direct practical application. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jbossadn Chapter 9, "Rolling Out JBoss," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jbossadn ***SharePoint Office Pocket Guide Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596101120 With this handy reference as your guide, you can reap all the benefits of SharePoint. It shows you, in plain language, how to construct websites where individuals from all over can capture and share ideas. Learn how to upload documents, edit content, send alerts, track work items, add new team members, and much more. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sharepointpg ***Project 2003 Personal Trainer Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008546 Entertaining, clear, and informative, this book begins with the fundamentals of planning and managing a project with Microsoft Project 2003, and then includes sections on working with task lists, updating a project, tracking progress, creating reports, and more. This fully illustrated Personal Trainer features dozens of time-saving, task-oriented lessons, includes detailed diagrams, and comes with an interactive CD tutorial to guide your learning. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/projectpt Chapter 5, "Working With Tasks," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/projectpt/chapter/index.html ***Astronomy Hacks Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100604 Do you relish viewing and identifying celestial objects? Whether you're a first timer or an advanced hobbyist, this book makes a brilliant cosmic companion. This handy field guide covers the basics of observing, and what you need to know about tweaking, tuning, adjusting, and tricking out a telescope. It includes priceless tips and tools for using a Dobsonian Telescope that you can build in your garage inexpensively. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astronomyhks Sample Hack 18, "Print Custom Charts," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astronomyhks/chapter/index.html ***UML 2.0 in a Nutshell Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007957 This comprehensive guide has been crafted to help IT professionals read, create, and understand system artifacts expressed using UML, and its fully revised to cover UML 2.0. It not only provides a quick-reference to all UML 2.0 diagram types, it also explains key concepts in a way that appeals to readers already familiar with UML or object-oriented programming concepts. Also includes an example-rich tutorial for those new to the system. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/umlnut2 Chapter 7, "Use Case Diagrams," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/umlnut2/chapter/index.html ***Maven: A Developer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007507 If you're a Java programmer, this book will arm you with all the critical information you need to get up to speed on Maven. It forces you to get hands-on experience by working through a series of poignant exercises that speak to you instead of at you. In the end, you'll find yourself spending less time working on your project's build system and more time working on your project's code. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mavenadn Chapter 1, "Maven Jump-Start," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mavenadn/chapter/index.html ***Web Mapping Illustrated Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008651 This clear and concise book shows you how to create maps (even interactive maps) with open source tools, including MapServer, OpenEV, GDAL/OGR, and PostGIS. It also explains how to find, collect, understand, use, and share mapping data, both over the traditional web and using OGC-standard services like WFS and WMS. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/webmapping Chapter 3, "Converting and Viewing Maps," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/webmapping/chapter/index.html ***Exchange Server Cookbook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007175 This comprehensive how-to guide covers the most common tasks for both Exchange 2000 and Exchange Server 2003, everything from installation and maintenance to configuration and optimization. In addition, you'll find solutions to many uncommon tasks, advanced procedures, and ways to write scripts for Exchange management and deployment tasks. What's more, you'll get answers quickly because chapters are laid out by recipe with cross-references to related solutions. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/exchangeckbk Chapter 9, "Public Folder Management," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/exchangeckbk/chapter/index.html ***ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008120 To bring you up to speed with ASP.NET 2.0, this practical book offers nearly 50 hands-on projects. Each one 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. You get the goods straight from the masters in an informal, code-intensive style. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/aspnetadn Chapter 1, "What's New?" is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/aspnetadn/chapter/index.html ***Knoppix Pocket Reference Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100752 If you want more information than the average Knoppix user, this book is an absolutely essential addition to your personal library. This handy reference shows you how to use Knoppix to troubleshoot and repair your computer, how to customize the Knoppix CD, run RAM memory checks, recover data from a damaged hard drive, scan for viruses on a Windows system, and much more. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/knoppixpr ***Mapping Hacks Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007035 This collection of one hundred simple techniques is ideal for developers and power users who want to draw digital maps. You'll learn where to find the best sources of geographic data, how to interpret the data, and how to integrate it into your own creations. It even provides practical, integrative uses for GPS devices. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mappinghks Sample Hack 15, "Zoom Right in on Your Neighborhood," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mappinghks/chapter/index.html ***Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009143 This concise guide introduces you to the fundamental concepts of using Mac OS X Tiger, including over 250 tips and tricks for using and configuring your system. It concentrates a wealth of tables, common keyboard shortcuts, tips for configuring your Mac, and an introduction to issuing basic Unix commands using the Terminal application into a package that is literally small enough to fit in your pocket. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mactigerpg ***Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009151 Thoroughly revised and updated for Mac OS X Tiger, this new edition introduces Mac users to the Terminal application and shows how to navigate the command interface, explore hundreds of Unix applications that come with the Mac, and, most importantly, take advantage of both the Mac and Unix interfaces. If you want to master the command line, look no further. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ltigerunix Chapter 8, "Taking Unix Online," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ltigerunix/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 ***O'Reilly at LinuxWorld, San Francisco, CA--August 8-11 Stop by our booth (#818) to check out our latest Linux and open source titles. We'll also have info on some of our groovy new projects like Make, Safari, and SafariU. http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12SFO05A ***Don't Miss David Pogue, "NY Times" columnist, Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS News, and the always hilarious, always informative author of the Missing Manual series at the following locations: *MacWorld Boston, MA--July 13-14 David will speak at the conference July 13 at the following times: 11:15am-12:15pm The Mac OS X Tiger Supersession 1:15pm - 2:15 pm David's Favorite OS X Secret Or stop by the our booth (#423) to pick up the latest Missing Manual titles. David will be around on Wednesday and Thursday. For more information, go to: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20BOS05A/SN287250#david *SOHO Apple Store, New York, NY--July 18 6:30 pm 103 Prince Street For more information, including driving directions, go to: http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/week/20050501.html *Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Palo Alto, CA--July 20 7:00 pm Panofsky Auditorium at SLAC 2575 Sand Hill Road Palo Alto, California Hosted by A32, DVMUG, MilMUG, NCMUG, PlanetMUG, SMUG, SVMUG For Driving Directions and public transportation: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/welcome/location.html Space is limited. If you would like to attend, please RSVP by emailing: mugevent@oreilly.com. Please be prepared to show photo ID at the gate. ================================================ Conference News ================================================ ***Register 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 Use code "os05grpusr" when you register, and receive 15% off the registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2005/create/ord_os05 ================================================ News From O'Reilly & Beyond ================================================ --------------------- General News --------------------- ***Top Ten Questions People Ask About Switching to Internet Telephones "Talk Is Cheap" author James Gaskin blames internet telephone vendors and the press for dropping the consumer information ball when it comes to the basic questions they have about switching to internet or broadband telephones. If you're contemplating a switch, James has answers to ten most frequently asked questions about dropping your traditional telephone provider for broadband. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/06/27/talkischeap.html ***Anti-spam Techniques No Starch's Jonathan Zdziarski ("Ending Spam") speaks about his DSPAM application and Bayesian filtering techniques. http://www.networkworld.com/research/2005/0704radio.html ***Hacking Maps You've got the address, but where is that in GPS terms? In these two excerpts from "Mapping Hacks," learn how to geocode (adding geographic coordinates, such as latitude and longitude, to other information) a US street address, as well as a whole database of addresses using the geocoder.us web services. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/excerpt/MapHacks_chap7/index.html ***Making Your RSS Feed Look Pretty in a Browser As more and more non-techie websites offer syndication feeds, a growing number of non-technical readers are clicking on the links and filling their screens with confusing XML. But syndication content doesn't have to look like geeky markup or malformed text in your readers' browsers. You can make it look quite pretty and give clues about what the feed is actually for. Ben Hammersley, author of "Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom," shows you how. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/07/01/rss.html ***Google Launches Payment System to Compete With PayPal Learn about Google's plan to launch a competitor to PayPal and what it will mean to you. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=274986 --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***ESR: "We Don't Need the GPL Anymore" During a recent Brazilian conference on free and open source software, hacker, writer, and speaker Eric Raymond stated that open source would see more rapid success if the GPL didn't make people nervous. Federico Biancuzzi recently interviewed ESR to gain more context for the statement and to explore these views more fully. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/esr_interview.html ***Problems in OpenSSH, Sudo, and Java Noel Davis looks at problems in OpenSSH, Sudo, Sun Java, Blackdown Java, tcpdump, cpio, JBOSS, Adobe Reader and Acrobat, gedit, Gaim, and Trac. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2005/06/24/security_alerts.html ***Secure Your MySQL Databases With Security being on the forefront of many users' minds, it's very important to ensure that your own sites databases are properly tied down from intruders. Learn about the first steps to take here. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=275986 ***What Developers Want Regardless of the language and platform you choose for development, you likely share some goals with your fellow developers: to be productive, to use good tools, and to keep your tools and processes out of your way while you create good software. Murugan Pal, CTO of SpikeSource, explains ten attributes he thinks developers want. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/23/whatdevswant.html --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***Music Gadgets Derrick Story wants to listen to music in a different way everyday. Here are the gadgets he's been testing to "shuffle" his setup for music playback. A few of these are real keepers. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/24/gadgets.html ***Going to the Movies (and More) in iTunes Have you played with the video functionality in iTunes? If not, J.D Biersdorfer presents a few things that Steve Jobs has mentioned--and a few he hasn't. J.D. is the author of "iPod and iTunes: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition." http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/24/itunes.html ***Tweaking Tiger Mail The release of Mail 2.0 was largely overlooked amid all the fuss about Tiger's system-level features, but a number of people have made public complaints about changes made to the user interface. Mail's performance has improved, but the apparent willingness of Apple's designers to create an entirely new kind of toolbar icon just for use in Mail has irritated some. Giles Turnbull shows you how to bring happiness back to Mail. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/21/mail.html --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***Is This Security Alert Really from Microsoft? An excellent way to get information about Windows updates is via email with Microsoft Technical Security Notification Services. But how do you know what's real and what's a spoof? Mitch Tulloch, author of "Windows Server Hacks," shows you. http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/07/05/scripting.html ***Atlas: Microsoft's Answer to Ajax Microsoft is putting together a toolkit for Web Developers who want to use AJAX (Asychronous JavaScript and XML). http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=276224 ***Generics in .NET 2.0 Generics in .NET 2.0 permeates with potential. But what are generics? Are they for you? Should you use them in your apps? Venkat Subramaniam, author of ".NET Gotchas," answers these questions and take a closer look at using generics, and their capabilities and limitations. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/06/20/generics.html ***Getting Your Bluetooth Headset to Work in XP With Bluetooth support built into SP2, getting a Bluetooth headset to work should be a breeze. But it ain't necessarily so. Wei-Meng Lee shows you how to do it. http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/07/05/bluetooth.html --------------------- Java --------------------- ***Java City: The Java Enterprise Ecosystem Should we worry about promoting a healthy Java community? Or iseverything just fine in Java City? Jim Farley asks you to weigh in on these questions, and others, in the Talkbacks. He plans a follow up article summarizing what you have to say. Your comments may help to shape content in Jim's upcoming book, "Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition," due out in the fall. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/06/22/javacity.html ***Getting Started with Maven In this excerpt from "Maven: A Developer's Notebook," authors Vincent Massol and Timothy M. O'Brien show you how to install and start working with Maven, the do-it-all Java project builder/manager. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/excerpt/mavenadn_ch01/index.html --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Seven Steps to Noise-Free Digital Audio Virtually all audio recordings will contain some amount of noise. Learn what causes it, how to avoid it, and how to remove it from your files. Based on "Digital Audio Essentials" by Bruce and Marty Fries. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/22/noise.html ***The Ultimate Portable Studio If you're a musician, producer, engineer, or songwriter who wants to set up a professional, laptop-based recording studio, here's all the information you need. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/29/portable1.html Part Two: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/07/06/portable2.html --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***MAKE: Audio--Interview with John Maushammer John is a talented hardware tinkerer who's leading the way to reusing disposable digital cameras, and now the new CVS disposable digital video camcorder. Tune into hear how he does it. http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast Don't forget to add the MAKE feed to iTunes 4.9. Click this link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330671 (and then click SUBSCRIBE). ***MAKE: Blog--Podcasts on Audible Audible announced that they're supporting the podcast way of delivering some of their content. You can add a URL (RSS feed) to a podcasting application and the stuff you buy on Audible will go to your computer/music player just like all the free podcasts you subscribe to. So here's how it all works, plus the good, the bad, and the how-to for some other things. http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/audible_does_po.html ***For more information on MAKE, go to: http://www.makezine.com ================================================ 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 Until next time-- Marsee Henon