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 animal featured on the cover of Power Programming with RPC is a kangaroo. The kangaroo is a marsupial, an animal which raises its young in a pouch. When the young are born, they are only partially developed embryos, deaf, blind, and furless, and weighing about a gram. Once born, they make their way into their mother's pouch where they remain for up to six months before they are able to venture out into the world. Kangaroos are native to Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, and parts of the Bismark Archipelagos. They are herbivores who chew their cud like cows, and they are capable of existing on very coarse grasses, unlike cattle or sheep. They need very little water to survive and are capable of going for months without drinking at all. When they do need water, they dig "wells" for themselves, frequently going as deep as three or four feet. These "kangaroo pits" are a common source of water for other animals living in the kangaroo's environment. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks(R) help you tame them.

Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on other Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive.

The text of this book is set in Times Roman; headings are Helvetica; examples are Courier. Text was prepared using SortQuad's sqtroff text formatter. Figures are produced with a Macintosh. Printing is done on a Tegra Varityper 5000.