Java Threads, 3rd Edition -- The new edition of this classic book shows you how to take full advantage of Java's threading facilities, and it brings you up to date with the significant changes in Java 2 Standard Edition version 5.0 (J2SE 5.0). The book incorporates the concurrency utilities from java.util.concurrent, and new chapters cover thread performance, using threads with Swing, threads and Collection classes, thread pools, and threads and I/O. Get a thorough, step-by-step approach to threads programming. Sample Chapter 5, Minimal Synchronization Techniques, is available free online.

The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency (Syngress) is the first cyber-thriller that allows readers to "hack along" with the heroes and villians of this fictional narrative. It tells the tale of criminal hackers attempting to compromise the results of a U.S. presidential election for their own gain. The book deals with some of the most pressing topics in technology and computer security today--reverse engineering, cryptography, buffer overflows, and steganography--and includes a CD that contains real, working versions of all the applications described and exploited in this thriller. Hack along at www.mezonicagenda.com

iLife '04: The Missing Manual gives you everything you need to unleash your creative genius with iLife '04, Apple's suite of five programs--iTunes 4.6, iPhoto 4, iMovie 4, iDVD 4, and GarageBand--that is revolutionizing the way we work and play. Celebrated author David Pogue makes sure there's nothing standing between you and professional-caliber music, photos, movies, and more. He highlights the newest features and improvements, covers the capabilities and limitations of each program, and delivers countless goodies you won't find anywhere else: undocumented tips, tricks, and secrets for getting the very best performance out of every one of these applications.

sendmail 8.13 Companion -- For a simple dot release, V8.13 sendmail has added more features, options, and fundamental changes than any other single dot release to date. An excellent companion to our popular sendmail, 3rd Edition, this book documents the improvements in V8.13 in parallel with its release. Highlighting important changes in the new version, the book points out not only what is handy or nice to have, but also what's critical in getting the best behavior from sendmail. Sample Chapter 3, Tune sendmail with Compile-Time Macros, is available free online.

PayPal Hacks -- Learn how to make the most of PayPal to get the most out of your online business or transactions. Presented in a clear and logical format, each hack consists of a task to accomplish or a creative solution to a problem. You'll learn everything from how to protect yourself while buying and selling on eBay, to how to handle online subscriptions, affiliations, and donations. This collection of tips and tricks provides the tools and details necessary to make PayPal more profitable, more flexible, and more convenient. Sample hacks are available free online.

Linux iptables Pocket Reference will help you at those critical moments when you have to open or close a port in a hurry to enable important traffic or block an attack. The book helps you keep the subtle syntax straight and remember all the values you have to enter to be as secure as possible. Listings of all iptables options are organized by suitability for firewalling, accounting, and Network Address Translation (NAT). This unique quick reference format is ideal for Linux administrators who have a firewall in place but need to be prepared for frequent changes in their environment.

ASP.NET Cookbook -- ASP.NET brings rapid drag-and-drop productivity to web applications and web services. There are many benefits to using ASP.NET, and one major drawback: the time developers must devote to mastering this new web application technology. ASP.NET Cookbook provides a wealth of solutions to problems commonly encountered when developing in ASP.NET. Appealing to a wide range of developers, each recipe provides an immediate solution to a pressing problem, followed by discussion so developers can learn to adapt techniques to similar situations. Sample Chapter 12, Dynamic Images, is available free online.

Building the Perfect PC -- For many computer users, a ready-made system is about as satisfying as a frozen microwave dinner: sure, it works, but it's not exactly what you need or want. Don't accept the assortment of components bundled for your price point; build your own PC. With straight-forward language, clear end-to-end instructions, and extensive illustrations, this book covers a variety of complete systems and their components. Regardless of your experience, you can take control and create your ideal machine. Sample Chapter 1, Fundamentals, is available free online.

NUnit Pocket Reference is a complete reference to this popular and practical new open source framework. Filling in the blanks left by existing documentation and online discussion, this little book offers developers everything they need to know to install, configure, and use NUnit and the NUnit user interface. It includes a reference to the NUnit framework classes, and offers practical, real-world NUnit examples. With NUnit Pocket Reference, IT managers will know what to expect when they implement unit testing in their projects. A Sample Excerpt, Unit Testing with NUnit, is available free online.

Head First Servlets & JSP will help you truly understand the latest version, J2EE 1.4, of Servlets and JSP. You'll learn how to write servlets and JSPs, what makes the Container tick, how to use the new JSP Expression Language (EL), and even some server-side design patterns. Written by the creators of the Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) 1.4 exam, this book will help you pass the exam, talk about Struts at dinner parties, and put Servlets and JSP to work right away.

Oracle Initialization Parameters Pocket Reference provides the information Oracle DBAs need to keep databases operating at peak performance. The book describes each initialization parameter, including what category it's in--from auditing to multi-threaded server MTS--and whether it can be modified dynamically via the ALTER SESSION or ALTER SYSTEM commands. You'll also find performance tips, such as how the various parameters interact and optimal settings for different configurations. No other reference focuses exclusively on these initialization parameters; this book is an absolute must for anyone working with an Oracle database.

Excel 2003 Programming: A Developer's Notebook -- Light on theory and heavy on practical application, this guide takes intermediate to advanced Excel VBA programmers directly to Excel 2003's new features. With the help of dozens of practical labs, you'll learn to work with lists and XML data, secure Excel applications, use Visual Studio Tools for Office, consume Web Services, and collect data with Infopath. If you'd like to work with Excel 2003 but don't know where to start, this book is the solution. Sample Chapter 2, Share Workspaces and Lists, is available free online.

The GNU Free Documentation Licenses -- The principles that apply to open source licenses also apply to licenses for documentation and works other than software. In this article, Andrew St. Laurent looks at the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), reviewing it section by section and raising some minor problems and ambiguities in definitions. Andrew is the author of Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing.

Developing Your First Enterprise Beans -- One of the most important features of EJB is that enterprise beans have the ability to work with containers from different vendors, but selecting a server and installing your enterprise beans aren't trivial processes. Learn how to define the remote interface, create a deployment descriptor, deploy, and everything else you need to create and use your first entity bean, in this excerpt from Enterprise JavaBeans, 4th Edition.

Book Review: Just a Geek -- In this Applelust book review, Dr. Neale Monks discusses Wil Wheaton's three distinct writing styles: the informal and intimate autobiographical mode that carries through most of his book; his early, often bullish, and entertaining weblogs, which he deconstructs in Just a Geek; and the wistful, subtly detailed recollections of his youth, essays that lead the reviewer to suggest, "Wheaton could easily become the Garrison Keillor of Generation X." Check out the poet of geeks: Just a Geek.

Site Surveys -- We're asking our readers to participate in a couple of online surveys: the Windows DevCenter Survey and the ONDotnet Survey. This is your opportunity to help shape our online editorial direction and influence which book titles we pursue. You'll also have a chance to win some of our most popular Windows or .NET books.

Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certification -- Learn how to administer Linux/Unix systems and gain real experience with a root access account. This four-course series from the O'Reilly Learning Lab covers the Unix file system, networking, Unix services, and scripting. Upon completion of the series, students receive a Certificate for Professional Development from the University of Illinois. And this month, when you enroll in three of the online classes you get the fourth free. Offer expires September 30.

A Conversation Between Dan Gillmor and Jay Rosen -- Jay Rosen talks to Dan Gillmor about the current state of journalism and the impact technology is having on traditional media. For a full exposé on the deep shift in how we make and consume the news, see Dan's recently released We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People.

Study Shows Safari Saves Time -- A recent study by The Ridge Group of Princeton, New Jersey found that Safari Bookshelf delivers savings of about 24 times its cost. The group found that without the use of an Electronic Reference Library (ERL), the typical technology professional spends an average of 31 hours per month looking for answers, researching issues, and helping colleagues do the same. Safari subscribers, however, report an average of 13.5 hours saved per month--nearly half the amount of time lost by people who don't subscribe. Test it out: get a free trial.

Mac OS X for the Traveler, Part 3 -- In the third part of this series on how to travel safely with your Mac OS X laptop, François Joseph de Kermadec covers some software security basics, how to work with untrusted networks, why and how to encrypt network connections, the importance and difficulty of using a firewall when traveling, and how to encrypt your backups. For everything else you'll need, get the book that should have been in the box: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition.

Early-Bird Deadline Extended -- The O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference is October 25-28. This conference brings together what you need to know and what you want to experience. You'll learn how to solve the day in-day out problems of connected computing, leverage the power of scripting, improve the performance of your network, and protect your systems from intrusion. You'll also get up to speed on grid computing, home automation, streaming media, how to build your own TV studio, and much more. Register by September 20 and save up to $250.

The Best Tips from the Great Linux Desktop Migration Contest -- What's the best way to move an organization to a Linux desktop? Here's a collection of the best tips we received from our Great Linux Desktop Migration contest. For O'Reilly books, articles, and resources on Linux, visit linux.oreilly.com.

Interesting Work for Interesting People -- O'Reilly is looking for a consumer/graphics editor, an event planner, an open source software engineer, and a web designer, among others. For a complete list of open positions, visit jobs.oreilly.com.

What's New in SpamAssassin 3.0 -- Based on his testing of beta versions of the upcoming SpamAssassin 3.0 release, Alan Schwartz presents an overview of some of SA 3's newest, coolest features. Find out why he thinks mail administrators should strongly consider upgrading to SA 3 when it releases. Alan is the author of SpamAssassin.

Lightweight XML Editing in Word 2003 -- Strictly speaking, you can edit custom XML in Word, but there are limitations that make the process needlessly complex. Evan Lenz presents a lightweight approach to XML editing in Word that works in all editions of Word 2003. All you need besides Word is an XSLT processor. Evan is a coauthor of Office 2003 XML.

IRC Text to Speech with Java -- Paul Mutton creates a multi-platform IRC bot that uses the FreeTTS Java speech synthesizer library to convert IRC messages into audible speech. Why would you want to use an IRC text-to-speech system? By reading out messages as they arrive, you can keep working, diverting your attention to IRC only when necessary. Paul is the author of IRC Hacks.

Machinima: Filmmaking's Destiny -- Machinima is filmmaking redefined--a merging of three creative mediums: filmmaking, animation, and 3D game technology. Think animated filmmaking within a real-time 3D virtual environment. Here's a guided tour from Paul Marion, author of Paraglyph's recently released 3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima.