ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook -- 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. Sample Chapter 1, What's New? (PDF) is available free online.

Knoppix Pocket Reference -- 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.

Firefox Secrets: A Need-to-Know Guide (SitePoint) -- This is a must-read guide for anyone who wants to learn how to browse faster and more conveniently with Firefox. It will teach you to use all the hidden features, extensions, and tricks available to Firefox. It's loaded with tips and advice on everything from reading RSS feeds from within Firefox to essential tools for developers, with plenty of examples throughout.

Mapping Hacks -- 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. Sample Hack 15, Zoom Right in on Your Neighborhood (PDF) is available free online.

Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide -- 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.

Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger -- 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, how to take advantage of both the Mac and Unix interfaces. If you want to master the command line, look no further. Sample Chapter 8, Taking Unix Online (PDF) is available free online.

Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook -- Reflecting the very best of French photography, graphic design, and digital artistry, this book is dazzling in concept and design. Part art book, part how-to guide, this Designer's Notebook sits you down next to renowned digital artists as they work step-by-step to create high-quality panoramas and 360-degree virtual reality scenes. It's a goldmine for any digital artist who wants to learn new Photoshop techniques for maximum effect. Sample Chapter 6, On the Boulevards (PDF), is available free online.

DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design Using JavaScript and DOM (SitePoint) -- This unique book features an easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorial that will show you how to make your websites more slick, dynamic, and usable. Learn how to add interactivity to your websites with DHTML by combining the power of JavaScript, CSS, and DOM to achieve bulletproof, accessible, standards-compliant, and aesthetically pleasing results that work on all browsers.

Toad Pocket Reference for Oracle, 2nd Edition -- This new edition, revised to reflect Toad for Oracle V8.0 and V8.5, is packed with quick-reference material. It covers new features (e.g., CodeXpert and Script Debugger), shortcut keys, productivity tips, and more. If you're a developer needing to streamline code development or a DBA trying to simplify day-to-day administrative tasks, this pocket-sized guide is the one book to have by your side.

Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks -- This is the book for Mac command-line fans. Completely revised and updated to cover Mac OS X Tiger, this invaluable resource helps you quickly and painlessly get acclimated with Tiger's familiar-yet-foreign Unix environment. If you're a Unix geek with an interest in Mac OS X, you'll find that this concise book is the ideal survival guide for taming the Unix side of Tiger. Sample Chapter 2, Searching and Metadata (PDF) is available free online.

Ship It! (Pragmatic) -- Aimed at beginning to intermediate programmers, this book provides a wealth of practical advice on how to ensure successful software projects. It begins by introducing the common technical infrastructure that every project needs, letting readers choose from a variety of recommended technologies according to their skills and budgets. The next sections outline the necessary steps to get software out the door reliably, using easy-to-adopt, best-of-breed practices that actually work.

How to Talk About Jini, J2EE, and Web Services at a Cocktail Party -- Heard about distributed technologies for Java, but not quite sure what they are or why they're important? Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates show you how to hold your own in conversation with Java geeks with this cocktail-party overview. Kathy and Bert are the authors of Head First Java, 2nd Edition.

Generics in .NET 2.0 -- The generics feature in .NET 2.0 permeates with potential. But what are generics? Are they for you? Should you use them in your apps? Venkat Subramaniam answers these questions and takes a closer look at using generics, their capabilities, and limitations. Venkat is the author of .NET Gotchas.

Visual Studio Hacks: Master Projects and Solutions -- The majority of the time you spend working with Visual Studio will be spent inside of a project or a solution. Chapter 1 of Visual Studio Hacks shows you how to create and manage projects and solutions, manage assembly references, and dissect the formats of project and solution files. If you like this chapter, read the whole book (and up to nine others) on Safari with a free trial subscription.

An Introduction to Open Source Geospatial Tools -- Geospatial professionals have been the main users and developers of geospatial applications, but the landscape has changed as the development of open source geospatial software has matured. Tyler Mitchell introduces some of the most useful of these applications in this article. Tyler is the author of Web Mapping Illustrated and will discuss the current state of affairs in the open source geo world at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 Conference, June 29-30 in San Francisco.

Cooking with Python, Part 1 -- With these sample recipes, learn how to use Unicode to handle international text strings that include non-ASCII characters, and how to select the nth smallest element of a sequence. Part 2 will feature two more recipes on implementing a ring buffer and computing prime numbers. To really get cooking, check out the whole Python Cookbook, Second Edition.

Hacking the Linux Desktop, Part 2 -- In Part 1 of this two-part excerpt, we offered hacks on controlling desktop access. In this second installment, learn how to view Microsoft Word documents in a terminal and how to create an internet phone. If these excerpts whet your Linux appetite, there are plenty more in Linux Desktop Hacks.

Ten PowerPoint 2004 Tips to Beat Tight Deadlines -- PowerPoint 2004 lets you turn text, graphics, sounds, and movies into dazzling presentations that get your message across in high style. But what if you're on a short deadline? Franklin Tessler shows you ten ways to use PowerPoint to put together slideshows in no time. Frank is the coauthor of Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual.

3000 Titles on Safari -- The Safari bookshelf recently added its 3000th title, and is continuing to add more titles and publishers to the library every month (Microsoft Press and SitePoint being the most recent). Not only is Safari adding more titles, but new titles, the ones that readers find most useful. If you haven't checked out Safari recently, take a look at all of the 2005 published titles for a sampling.

Using the Security Configuration Wizard -- One of the enhancements in Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 is the new Security Configuration Wizard (SCW), a tool designed to help admins secure their servers against attack. Mitch Tulloch, author of Windows Server Hacks, shows you what it does, how it works, and how you can use it.

Special Offer: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate -- Learn system administration skills online and receive certification from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Courses include: The Unix File System, Networking and DNS, Unix Services (including email and web servers), and Scripting for Administrators with Sed, Awk, and Perl. It's all at the O'Reilly Learning Lab. Enroll now and save 40%. Offer ends June 30th.

Developing for the Web with Ant, Part 2 -- In part one of this two-part excerpt, Steve Holzner covered packaging web applications. In this second installment, Steve covers the tasks for deploying web apps with get, serverdeploy, and scp. Steve is the author of Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.

Top Ten Data Crunching Tips and Tricks -- Every day, programmers perform unglamorous but necessary data crunching: recycling legacy data, checking configuration files, yanking data out of web server logs, and more. Knowing how to crunch data with the least amount of effort can make the difference between meeting a deadline and making another pot of coffee. Greg Wilson, author of Pragmatic's Data Crunching, offers ten tips for crunch time.