Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition By Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak, Jonathan Stern
June 2001
Pages: 384

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Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animals on the cover of Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8 are cicadas. There are about 1,500 species of cicada. In general, cicadas are large insects with long, thin wings that are perched above an inch-long abdomen. Their heads are also large and contain three eyes and a piercing and sucking mechanism with which to extrude sap from trees. Cicadas are known for their characteristic shrill buzz that is actually the male's mating song, one of the loudest known insect noises.

Cicadas emerge from the ground in the spring or summer, molt, and shed their skin in the form of a shell. They stay near trees and plants, where they live for four to six weeks with the sole purpose of mating. The adult insects then die, and their young hatch and burrow into the ground. They attach to tree roots and feed off the sap for 4–17 years, after which time they emerge and continue the mating cycle. Cicadas have one of the longest life spans of any insect; the most common species is the periodical cicada, which lives underground for 13–17 years. Rachel Wheeler was the production editor and proofreader for Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and Oracle8. Sarah Jane Shangraw provided quality control and Sada Preisch provided production assistance. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original 19th-century engraving from Cuvier's Animals. The cover layout was produced by Emma Colby with QuarkXPress 4.1 using the ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Anne-Marie Vaduva implemented the design in FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Rhon Porter using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.

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