[vox] [fwd] Newsletter from O'Reilly UG Program, August 24
Bill Kendrick
nbs at sonic.net
Tue Aug 28 00:40:27 PDT 2007
(Trimmed to make it more LUGOD-specific...)
----- Forwarded message from Marsee Henon -----
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:01:34 -0700
From: "Marsee Henon"
Subject: Newsletter from O'Reilly UG Program, August 24
Hi there
O'Reilly's created a brand new website (http://beautifulcode.oreillynet.com)
devoted to the topics in our new book "Beautiful Code."
We're looking for sites that fit the spirit of Beautiful Code.
Send us a link so we can blog about it:
http://beautifulcode.oreillynet.com/suggest_site.php
Be on the lookout for two new Web 2.0 related titles: "Programming
Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications"
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321/) and "Web
2.0: A Manager's Guide" (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529963/).
As always, I'm looking for Amazon and Slashdot reviewers for these
titles or any of our new releases. Are you or someone you know
interested?
Just send me an email with your choices and we'll ship them out.
--Marsee
================================================================
O'Reilly News for User Group Members
August 24, 2007
================================================================
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New Releases--Books, Short Cuts, and Rough Cuts
----------------------------------------------------------------
Get 35% off from O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, PC Publishing,
Pragmatic Bookshelf, Rocky Nook, SitePoint, or YoungJin books
you purchase directly from O'Reilly.
Just use code DSUG when ordering online or by phone 800-998-9938.
<http://www.oreilly.com/store/>
Free ground shipping on orders of $29.95 or more.
For more details, go to:
<http://www.oreilly.com/news/freeshipping_0703.html>
Did you know you can request a free book or PDF 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>
***The Artist's Guide to GIMP Effects (No Starch)
ISBN 10: 1593271212
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1593271212/>
***The Book of Qt 4 (No Starch)
ISBN 10: 1593271476
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1593271476/>
***Designing Web Navigation
ISBN 10: 0596528108
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528102/>
***Forbidden LEGO (No Starch)
ISBN 10: 1593271379
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1593271379/>
***Google in Education
ISBN 10: 0596515189
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515188/>
***Head First SQL
ISBN 10: 0596526849
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596526849/>
***JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook, Second Edition
ISBN 10: 0596514085
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514082/>
***Learning PHP & MySQL, Second Edition
ISBN 10: 0596514018
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514013/>
***MAKE: Technology on Your Time Volume 11
ISBN 10: 0596513879
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596513870/>
***The Nikon D200 Dbook (Rocky Nook)
ISBN 10: 0596514018
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514013/>
***The Nikon D80 Dbook (Rocky Nook)
ISBN 10: 1933952156
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9781933952154/>
***Programming Collective Intelligence
ISBN 10: 0596529325
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321/>
***Security Power Tools
ISBN 10: 0596009631
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596009632/>
***SOA in Practice
ISBN 10: 0596529554
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529550/>
***Visualizing Data: Rough Cuts Version
ISBN 10: 0596515936
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515935/>
***MAKE Magazine Subscriptions
MAKE Magazine Subscriptions
The annual subscription price for four issues is $34.95. When you
subscribe with this link, you'll get a free issue--one plus four
more for $34.95. So subscribe for yourself or friends with this
great offer for UG Members: five volumes for the cost of four.
Subscribe at:
<http://www.makezine.com/go/ugsub>
***Craft Magazine Subscriptions
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 UG Members: five volumes for the cost of four.
Subscribe at:
<http://www.craftzine.com/go/craftug>
================================================
Upcoming Events
================================================
For more events, please see:
<http://events.oreilly.com/>
***Steve Souders at The 2007 Rich Web Experience, Sep 6-8--
San Jose, CA
Author Steve Souders (High Performance Web Sites) will be presenting a
workshop titled "High Performance Web Sites with Tenni Theurer."
Yahoo!'s Exceptional Performance team has identified 14 best practices
for making web pages faster through a series of research studies on
Yahoo!'s properties. These guidelines focus on the front end, for
example, why it's bad to use "@import" for including stylesheets and why
ETags disable browser caching. These best practices have proven to
reduce response times of Yahoo! properties by 25-50%.
<http://www.therichwebexperience.com/conference/san_jose/2007/09/index.html>
***Derrick Story and Mikkel Aaland at the Sonoma County Book Festival,
Sep 15--Santa Rosa, CA
Authors Mikkel Aaland (Photoshop Lightroom Adventure and Photoshop CS2
RAW) and Derrick Story (Digital Photography Hacks and Digital
Photography Pocket Guide, 3rd Ed.) discuss "Photography Publishing
Opportunities in the Digital Age" at the Eighth Annual Sonoma County
Book Festival.
<http://www.socobookfest.org/index.html>
================================================
Conference News
================================================
***ETel 2008 call for participation is now open
The O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference is happening March 3-4, 2008.
We welcome plenary submissions for our audience of people who, like you,
are pushing through the boundaries of communications into new ways of
thinking and doing. Topics will be centered around the innovations and
projects occurring at the intersection of voice, instant messaging, the
mobile ecosystem, and the Web. Submit a proposal to speak at ETel.
Proposals are due September 17.
<http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/etel2008/create/e_sess>
================================================
News From O'Reilly & Beyond
================================================
---------------------
General News
---------------------
***What is O'Reilly Editor Andy Oram Up to These Days?
Andy continues his research into the free documentation written by users.
Recent articles on the topic include "Why Do People Write Free
Documentation?"
(http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/06/14/why-do-people-write-free-document\ation-results-of-a-survey.html)
which analyzes the results of an O'Reilly survey answered by
over 350 respondents, and "How to Help Mailing Lists Help Readers"
(http://praxagora.com/andyo/professional/mailing_list_follow_up/) which
finds interesting results concerning how many questions get answered on
mailing lists and how long the list members spend on questions. Andy
presented his results at the July 2007 Open Source convention in
Portland, OR. For more information or to read Andy's articles, go to:
<http://praxagora.com/community_documentation/>
***The Watering Hole
A weekly comic poking fun at O'Reilly and the technology industry in
general. Think of it as User Friendly with animals.
<http://www.oreillynet.com/wateringhole/blog/>
***DIY O'Reilly Gear
Create Your Own Calendar, Shirt, Notebook, Poster...In just three easy
steps you can create one of a kind calendars, greeting cards, keychains,
luggage tags, magnets, mousepads, mugs, notebooks, postcards, posters,
shirts, hoodies, and stickers adorned with your favorite O'Reilly
animals. Create yours now!
<http://www.qoop.com/photobooks/photofront/pub_store.php?pub_name=oreilly>
***Top 5 Blog posts on the O'Reilly Network:
M. David Peterson--Dear WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com
<http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/08/dear_whyfirefoxisblockedcom.html>
Carla Schroder--Linux Journal: the Last Idiot's Club
<http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/08/linux_journal_the_last_idiots_1.html>
Jeremy Jones--Is Firefox on Mac Unusable?
<http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/08/is_firefox_on_mac_unusable.html>
Joshua Scott Emmons--Bad Thurrott==Good Design
<http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/08/to_invent_a_fallacious_argumen.html>
Carla Schroder--Dear Linux Journal: News Flash--Women Are People
<http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/08/dear_linux_journal_news_flash_1.html>
***O'Reilly School of Technology Courses: UG Members Receive
a 30% Discount
O'Reilly School of Technology has opened its virtual doors with
educational offerings and certification for IT students looking to
further their careers or to launch one. As an O'Reilly User Group
member, you save on all the courses in the following University of
Illinois Certificate Series:
-Linux/Unix System Administration
-Web Programming
-Open Source Programming
-.NET Programming
-Client-Side Web Programming featuring AJAX
To redeem, use Promotion Code "ORALL1," good for a 30% discount,
in Step #2 of the enrollment process. Each course comes with a free
O'Reilly book and a 7-day money-back guarantee.
Register online:
<http://www.oreillyschool.com/?CMP=BAC-ostug>
---------------------
Open Source
---------------------
***Cookin' with Ruby on Rails
Bill Walton, well known for his "Rolling with Ruby on Rails Revisited"
tutorials, is back with a new series that takes Rails to the next level.
<http://www.oreillynet.com/topic/ruby.csp>
***Introduction to Flex Using PHP
Flex is Adobe's next-generation platform of deploying browser-based
applications. Jack Herrington provides us with an introduction to Flex,
by showing us how to integrate it with a PHP-based backend.
<http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/07/19/introduction-to-flex-using-php.html>
***Mono: A Progress Report
Mono has always been a bit of an outsider. Open source folks distrust it
because it helps people use Microsoft technologies on non-Microsoft
platforms. Microsoft people don't see the need for it. But this social
outcast has been making steady progress and can offer a lot if you take
the time to check it out. Edd Dumbill gives us an update on the state of
Mono.
<http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/08/09/mono-a-progress-report.html>
---------------------
Digital Media
---------------------
***Thinking Camera, Lens, Lightroom before taking the shot--George Mann's Blog
When I saw this scene in front of me, I realized that it was going to be
very difficult to get what I was seeing. For one it was very dark and I
was standing on a very narrow and slippery ledge between the lichen
encrusted ruins of Banteay Kdei (Angkor, Cambodia) and the jungle. I
didn't have a tripod with me but it was doubtful that I could have
gotten the angle I was after even if I had one anyway (where is that
Gitzo ladder tripod when you really need one).
<http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/08/thinking_camera_lens_lightroom.html>
***Highlight and Shadow Recovery in Harsh Light--Derrick Story's Blog
Nothing like a midday August wedding to strike fear into the heart of
this digital photographer. Harsh sun, sparse shade, black suits, white
gowns, black skin, white skin — often all in the same shot. This is a
situation where you have to shoot Raw and thank goodness for the
Highlight and Shadow recovery sliders in Aperture. I have lots of tricks
for dealing with bad lighting (find shade whenever possible, fill flash,
reflectors, etc.), but as you know, sometimes clients say, "We don't
have time to walk over there; let's just take the shot here." Horror.
"Not here!" I think. "This is the last place on the planet I want to
take this shot."
<http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/08/highlight_and_shadow_recovery.html>
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Head First
---------------------
***Big Head Photo Contest Ends this month
Brain packed full of Head First learning? Show us! Send in a photo of
yourself in the Head First "Big Head" style (like on the covers of our
books). At the end of August, we'll pick our favorite one and send the
winner a free Head First T-Shirt and their pick of $200 in O'Reilly
books. We might put the picture inside our next Head First book. If it's
cool enough, we might even use it on the cover.
<http://www.headfirstlabs.com/bighead.php?CMP=NLC-July07>
***New Forums for Head First SQL
Head First SQL is at the Printers. And now you can chat with the author
and other SQL readers at our new forums.
<http://headfirstlabs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=12>
---------------------
Web
---------------------
***Nifty Navigation Using CSS
Navigation is the key to surfing the Web, and in this collection of
ready-made solutions Rachel steps us through horizontal and vertical
menus, drop-down, fly-out, and tabbed navigation systems.
<http://www.sitepoint.com/article/navigation-using-css>
***Microformats: More Meaning from your Markup
Hidden on many pages of the Web are tiny packets of information --
people, places, events, and more. You and I can read them, but they're
invisible to machines. Imagine the possibilities if that information
became visible to other sites and applications! In this article, Brian
shows how the addition of microformats to your web site markup can open
up a whole new raft of possibilities.
<http://www.sitepoint.com/article/microformats-meaning-markup>
***OSCON 2007 Coverage: High Performance Web Pages
Matthew Eernisse covers O'Reilly author Steve Souders (High Performance Web Sites)
session at OSCON in Portland this year.
<http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/08/07/oscon-2007-high-performance-web-pages>
Until next time--
Marsee Henon
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----- End forwarded message -----
--
-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/
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