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 on the cover of Oracle Essentials: Oracle8 and Oracle8i is a cicada. There are about 1,500 species of cicadas. 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 where they attach to tree roots an d 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. Maureen Dempsey was the production editor and proofreader for Oracle Essentials: Oracle8 & Oracle8i. Mark Nigara copyedited the book. Nancy Kotary and Jane Ellin provided quality control. Jeff Holcomb and Colleen Gorman provided production support. Mike Sierra provided technical support. Elizabeth Belton wrote the index.

Ellie Volkenhausen designed the cover of this book, using an illustration created by Lorrie LeJeune, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover layout was produced by Kathleen Wilson with QuarkXPress 3.32 using the ITC Garamond font. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover™'s limit, perfect binding is used.

The inside layout was designed by Alicia Cech, based on a series design by Nancy Priest, and was implemented in FrameMaker 5.5 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Rhon Porter and Robert Romano using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.