Marrying Hypertext and Hypermedia -- The first presidential debate was widely republished on the web in both text and video formats. But, as usual, the two formats were mostly used separately, not in concert. Jon Udell examines how to segment and annotate online video in this month's installment of Prime-Time Hypermedia on the O'Reilly Network.

Turning the Tables Using CSS -- Have you noticed web pages loading a bit faster than usual? You might thank Eric Meyer, an expert and author on the subject of cascading style sheets (CSS), a standards-based method of coding web sites. apple.com's Nancy Eaton talks to Eric about the distinct advantages of CSS and the dark days of the browser wars. Eric wrote Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.

Web 2.0 Conference Coverage -- Web 2.0, presented by MediaLive and O'Reilly, took place October 5-7, 2004 in San Francisco. The event was a huge success, pulling together people such as Dan Gillmor, Jeff Veen, Mark Cuban, John Doerr, and Jeff Bezos who shared lessons learned and then looked ahead to what the future of the web might be. Press coverage, weblogs, photos, and feature stories from the event are available in O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Conference Coverage.

Hacking PayPal, Part 2 -- Make yourself and your customers happy. Here's a PayPal hack that shows you how to use IPN to effortlessly deliver digital goods to your customers, and another that shows how to set up phony Sandbox accounts to test your code. Get the most out of your online business and transactions with the recently released PayPal Hacks.

O'Reilly Learning Lab: $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 Unix environment. This month, receive a $200 instant rebate (and a Certificate from the University of Illinois upon course completion) when you enroll in any Certificate Series.

Hacking Books with Safari Web Services -- Safari Bookshelf has opened up an API for web services, giving developers programmatic access to its wealth of data. Paul Bausch, a self-proclaimed information junkie, takes a look at the new API and shows how to code a working RSS application so you never have to worry about missing critical information again. If you haven't yet tried Safari, get a free trial subscription.

Hacking PayPal -- Here are two hacks designed to make PayPal more customer-friendly, profitable, and accountable, plus an additional hack to catch Instant Payment Notification (IPN) system errors. Get all the tools and details you need to make PayPal more profitable, more flexible, and more convenient, from PayPal Hacks.

Using Extensions in Firefox -- The Firefox browser has a lot going for it, and one of its best traits is its extensibility: you can download plugins, called extensions, to enhance its features. Wei-Meng Lee, author of Windows XP Unwired, shows you how to find and install them, and tells you about his favorites. For additional favorites from our Windows DevCenter editor, see Preston Gralla's weblog.

SafariU: Ripping Up the Textbook Business -- Here at O'Reilly we go beyond traditional publishing models, we talk to alpha geeks about what's happening at the leading-edge, and we try to create more value than we capture. These practices have led to the creation of SafariU, a print-on-demand custom publishing system that allows professors to create online syllabi and course materials from Safari's repository of thousands of top computer books. Professors save a tremendous amount of time, and students save a bundle. Read about O'Reilly's modus operandi and the new SafariU publishing platform in this Business 2.0 article (PDF).

Hacking IRC, Part 2 -- If you're an IRC addict, you'll be interested in these tips from Paul Mutton. He shows you how to create bots for basic calculations and for viewing up-to-the-minute newsgroup postings, and a way to keep track of IRC while away from your computer. Become a true IRC master with O'Reilly's IRC Hacks.

Manipulating Space with CSS -- One of the main strengths of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is how the technology handles web typography. In this article, Christopher Schmitt shows how to use CSS's letter- and word-spacing properties to make adjustments to text with little fuss. Chris is the author of O'Reilly's recently released CSS Cookbook.

Boosting Your Income with Options -- Going naked with stock options is risky business. If stock prices don't go your way, you could lose your shirt. As it turns out, a mellower version of the option--the covered call--is less risky and, with a little knowledge and effort on your part, can also help you earn more current income than the most generous savings account. Learn how to put the covered-call strategy to work for you in this article by Bonnie Biafore, author of Online Investing Hacks.

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.

The Page Turn Effect in Flash MX -- Sham Bhangal shows how to create a page turn effect in Flash MX by looking for symmetry in the effect, an exercise that contains three of the most common tricks in Flash motion graphics effects: property-based animation, embedded movie clips, and masking. Sham is the author of O'Reilly's Flash Hacks.

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PayPal Hacks Marriage Proposal -- Do you read the acknowledgments in books? O'Reilly editor Rael Dornfest has discovered that they can be interesting, funny, geeky, and rather warm and heartfelt. They can even be downright romantic, as evidenced in the recently released PayPal Hacks.

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.