Short Cuts

PDF documents on cutting edge topics

Short Cuts are PDF documents that spotlight one specific topic, usually in fewer than 100 pages. Whether it's a first look at a brand new technology, a quick reference, or a thorough explanation of a narrow but crucial subject, Short Cuts bring you focused information in an easy-to-use, portable package.

XML Publishing with Adobe InDesign
By Dorothy Hoskins
September 2010
Ebook: $9.99

From Adobe InDesign CS2 to InDesign CS5, the ability to work with XML content has been built into every version of InDesign. Some of the useful applications are importing database… Read more.

Log4J
By J. Steven Perry
October 2009
Ebook: $4.99

Log4j has been around for a while now, and it seems like so many applications use it. I've used it in my applications for years now, and I'll bet you… Read more.

Up and Running with Joomla, Second Edition
By R. Allen Wyke, Skip Matheny
July 2009
Ebook: $9.99

Need to launch a feature-rich website quickly where you have one or more people authoring the content? Want to use a powerful, robust, and scalable Content Management System (CMS) you… Read more.

Dynamic Apache with Ajax and JSON
By Tracy Brown
June 2009
Ebook: $9.99

Want to make your Ajax apps more dynamic? This Short Cut shows you how. It covers: Using the Apache 2.2.x framework to build MVC applications incorporating design patterns Building custom Apache modules… Read more.

Rails on Windows
By Curt Hibbs, Brian P. Hogan
June 2009
Ebook: $9.99

It's no secret that the entire Ruby on Rails core team uses OS X as their preferred development environment. Because of this, it is very easy to find authoritative information on the web about using… Read more.

Data Mashups in R
By Jeremy Leipzig, Xiao-Yi Li
June 2009
Ebook: $4.99

This article demonstrates how the realworld data is imported, managed, visualized, and analyzed within the R statistical framework. Presented as a spatial mashup, this tutorial introduces the user to R… Read more.

Scripting InDesign CS3/4 with JavaScript
By Peter Kahrel
April 2009
Ebook: $9.99

Updated: August 2010. Author Peter Kahrel updated this Short Cut to cover InDesign CS5. InDesign provides a powerful set of tools for producing beautiful documents. While you can certainly do all your work by… Read more.

SMS Messaging Applications
By Nicola Pero
January 2009
Ebook: $9.99

Cell phones are the most common communication device on the planet, and Short Message Service (SMS) is the chief channel for companies to offer services, accept requests, report news, and… Read more.

GREP in InDesign CS3/CS4
By Peter Kahrel
October 2008
Ebook: $9.99

Updated: August 2010. Author Peter Kahrel updated this Short Cut to cover InDesign CS5. Updated: November 2009. Author Peter Kahrel updated this Short Cut to address typos and reader comments. GREP (short… Read more.

Web 2.0 Mash-ups and the New Aggregators
By Martin Kelley
April 2008
Ebook: $9.99

Web aggregators select and present content culled from multiple sources, playing an important taste-making and promotional role. Larger aggregators are starting to compete with mainstream news sources but a new… Read more.

Dojo Fundamentals: Creating Object-Oriented Widgets
By Matthew Russell
October 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut was formally titled "Get Up and Running with Dojo." This updated version has been updated and re-titled. In this exciting era of Web 2.0 development, Dojo pushes the boundaries… Read more.

Getting Started with Pyparsing
By Paul McGuire
October 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Need to extract data from a text file or a web page? Or do you want to make your application more flexible with user-defined commands or search strings? Do regular expressions and lex/yacc make your… Read more.

Introducing Silverlight 1.1
By Todd Anglin
October 2007
Ebook: $9.99

In this Short Cut, we'll take a close look at Silverlight 1.1 and bring clarity to this bleeding-edge technology. First we'll take a broad look at the new concept of Rich Internet Applications and… Read more.

AutoIt v3: Your Quick Guide
By Andy Flesner
September 2007
Ebook: $7.99

AutoIt is becoming increasingly popular in the system administration field as a tool for automating administrative tasks. Although this is one of its more popular uses, you can use AutoIt to automate anything in a… Read more.

Google Ajax Search API
By Michael Fitzgerald, Ali Pasha
September 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Use the Google Ajax Search API to integrate web search, image search, local search, and other types of search into your web site by embedding a simple, dynamic search box to display search results in… Read more.

Google Analytics
By Justin Cutroni
August 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Web analytics is the process of measuring your web site, analyzing the data, and making changes based on the analysis. Many businesses are just starting to learn how they can… Read more.

Darkstar: The Java Game Server
By Brendan Burns
August 2007
Ebook: $9.99

So, you have a great idea for the next big multiplayer game. Maybe it's a virtual world based on your favorite sci-fi television show. Or maybe it's an online bowling… Read more.

Google in Education
By William Lawrence
August 2007
Ebook: $4.99

Google technologies can pull far-flung places into your classroom and make historical events come alive for your students. Students can express themselves through blogs, collaborative writing, and slideshows. Google provides the… Read more.

Unobtrusive Ajax
By Jesse Skinner
July 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Unobtrusive Ajax is about making web applications that work for everyone all the time, even if you have JavaScript turned off, or you're using a mobile phone or a screen reader, or however you happen… Read more.

The OpenBSD 4.0 Crash Course
By Jem Matzan
July 2007
Ebook: $9.99

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system that is widely regarded for its excellent documentation and its fanatical focus on security. "The OpenBSD Crash Course" Short Cut will help you… Read more.

Implementing BEA Portal 92
By Mark Kolb
July 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Portals have come into their own in the last several years. Over this time, I have seen portal technology become the latest expression of businesses trying to organize the torrent… Read more.

How to Build an SMS Service
By Brian Retford, Jordan Schwartz
June 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The simple text message application that appears on virtually all mobile phones is the ultimate thin client, allowing your users access to the full computing power and informational depth of the Internet from a cheap… Read more.

XML Publishing with InDesign CS2+
By Dorothy Hoskins
June 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Adobe InDesign's user documentation provides some examples of importing and formatting XML. But if you need to wrangle XML that comes from a database or website and make it look… Read more.

PHP and Smarty on Large-Scale Web Development
By Bruno Pedro, Vitor Rodrigues
June 2007
Ebook: $9.99

With web development now being considered a commodity, projects are getting larger every day. If you are dealing with large projects on a daily basis, you know that the most difficult task is to deliver… Read more.

An Introduction to Testing Web Applications with twill and Selenium
By C. Titus Brown, Gheorghe Gheorghiu, Jason Huggins
June 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut is an introduction to building automated web tests using two tools, twill and Selenium. twill is a simple web scripting language that can be used to automate web tests, while Selenium… Read more.

Flex Early Evaluation: Assessing Flex and Your Project Needs
By Anthony Franco, The EffectiveUI Team
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Evaluating any new technology can be a challenge. This Short Cut is designed to help web application developers (and their team managers) understand if Flex is the right technology for their company or client. Although… Read more.

Setting Up Google Apps Standard Edition
By William Lawrence
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

With Google Apps, you can have your own private network without buying server hardware, knowing how to set up servers, or worrying about maintenance. Google provides all of the expensive infrastructure, IT management, mail servers, chat… Read more.

Understanding Oracle Clinical
By Joan M. Johnson
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut is written to assist you, an Oracle Clinical Developer, with many of the tasks and decisions you may encounter on an occasional basis. These tasks involve study… Read more.

Reaching a Global Online Audience
By Matthew McCool
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Internationalizing web sites used to focus on adapting currency formats, time zones, and translation. Although these are important technical considerations, much more is required to adapt a web site for global users. This guide explains several… Read more.

Ajax with PHP 5
By Andrew Curioso
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

"Ajax with PHP 5" is a detailed overview of how to use PHP technologies to create interactive, fault-tolerant, and responsive web applications. This Short Cut first concentrates on the fundamentals of Ajax. Then it covers serving… Read more.

Yahoo! Pipes
By Mark Pruett
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The Internet is transforming itself from a collection of web pages into a huge distributed database. There's a wealth of data out there-not just RSS and Atom feeds, but XML data on where to… Read more.

Making Your Mark in Second Life: Business, Land, and Money
By Taran Rampersad
May 2007
Ebook: $4.99

Calling Second Life a game is a lot like saying that an airport is a nice place to take a trip. To some degree it is true, but most airports are not featured… Read more.

Sony Alpha DSLR A100: A Better Manual
By Ken Milburn
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This unique manual is better than the manual that comes with your camera in several important ways:It's organized according to efficient workflow, so you can get the most out of your Sony… Read more.

The FreeBSD 6.2 Crash Course
By Jem Matzan
May 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This guide is designed to help you get an x86 or AMD64/EM64T server, desktop, or network appliance up and running quickly with the FreeBSD operating system. Read more.

Getting Started with Silverlight
By Shawn Wildermuth
April 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Silverlight is Microsoft's new cross-browser plug-in for delivering richer web experiences to end-users, including video and animations. Silverlight is generating buzz not only inside the traditional Microsoft developer community, but… Read more.

Next-Generation Web Frameworks in Python
By Liza Daly
April 2007
Ebook: $9.99

With its flexibility, readability, and mature code libraries, Python is a natural choice for developing agile and maintainable web applications. Several frameworks have emerged in the last few years that share ideas with Ruby on… Read more.

Test Driven Ajax (on Rails)
By Phlip Plumlee
April 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The World Wide Web has come a long way from static HTML pages. Today's developers enforce and enjoy standards, and we have built the web's primitive tools into advanced libraries,… Read more.

Securing the Vista Environment
By Peter Gregory
April 2007
Ebook: $9.99

"Securing the Vista Environment" takes you on a quick tour of the most significant security features in Vista, Microsoft's first revision of Windows in almost six years. You'll get background… Read more.

Checking Java Programs
By Ian F. Darwin
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut tells you about tools that will improve the quality of your Java code, using checking above and beyond what the standard tools do, including: Using javac options,… Read more.

SQL Server Integration Services
By Bill Hamilton
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) lets you build high-performance data integration solutions. SSIS solutions wrap sophisticated workflows around tasks that extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from and to… Read more.

Schematron
By Eric van der Vlist
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Schematron is a rule-based XML schema language, offering flexibility and power that W3C XML schema, RELAX NG, and DTDs simply can't match. You need Schematron and can't settle for other languages… Read more.

SQL Injection Defenses
By Martin G. Nystrom
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut introduces you to how SQL injection vulnerabilities work, what makes applications vulnerable, and how to protect them. It helps you find your vulnerabilities with analysis and testing… Read more.

Managing RPM-Based Systems with Kickstart and Yum
By Q Ethan McCallum
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Managing multiple Red Hat-based systems can be easy--with the right tools. The yum package manager and the Kickstart installation utility are full of power and potential for automatic installation, customization,… Read more.

Facelets
By Robert Swarr
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Curious about Facelets, but short on time for trying a new product? This short cut shows you how to start developing web pages quickly with Facelets, the new JavaServer Faces-based… Read more.

Beyond Schemas: Planning Your XML Model
By Jennifer Linton
March 2007
Ebook: $9.99

Have you ever wondered how to get started writing your own schema? As you prepare to create your schema, you must consider a number of factors. This guide explains each… Read more.

HDR: An Introduction to High Dynamic Range Photography
By Jack Howard
March 2007
Ebook: $7.99

A step-by-step introduction to one of the hottest new imaging trends. We'll walk you through making the best HDR images-from image capture to digital darkroom tips and tricks. Read more.

Introduction to Flex 2
By Roger Braunstein
February 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut is all about getting up and running with Adobe Flex 2; a perfect title would be "(Almost) Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about Flex 2 But… Read more.

Microsoft Windows Vista Exam 70-620 Guide
By Christopher A. Crayton
February 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This no-nonsense guide was created with one purpose in mind: to ensure your readiness to pass Microsoft's Windows Vista Configuration Exam 70-620. This Short Cut offers the edge you need… Read more.

CompTIA A+Essentials 220-601 Exam Guide
By Christopher A. Crayton
February 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The big question you should ask yourself before you fork over $158 to take CompTIA's A+ Essentials exam is: am I ready? Are you? This guide was created with one… Read more.

Lead Generation on the Web
By Thomas Myer
February 2007
Ebook: $27.99

Are you a small-business owner, consultant, or marketing manager for a big company selling an intangible service or hard-to-understand product? Does it take a while to gain your customer's trust… Read more.

What's New in Apache Web Server 2.2?
By Rich Bowen
February 2007
Ebook: $9.99

What's New in Apache Web Server 2.2? shows you all the new features you'll know to set up and administer the Apache 2.2 web server. Learn how to take advantage… Read more.

ActionScript 3.0 Programming: Overview, Getting Started, and Examples of New Concepts
By William Sanders
January 2007
Ebook: $9.99

This document employs reusable code examples to demonstrate the basic functionality of ActionScript 3.0 in the following topic areas: Packages and Classes; Display Programming; Movie Clips and Buttons; and Basic… Read more.

Using XForms with Mozilla
By J. David Eisenberg
January 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The XForms technology gives you many advantages over ordinary XHTML forms. The XForms technology separates your form's data and presentation and submits your data as XML. XForms-aware applications can validate… Read more.

Google Web Toolkit for Ajax
By Bruce W. Perry
January 2007
Ebook: $9.99

The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a nifty framework that Java programmers can use to create Ajax applications. The GWT allows you to create an Ajax application in your favorite… Read more.

Eight Great Ways to Get the Most from Your Zune
By Erica Sadun
December 2006
Ebook: $7.99

The Zune is Microsoft's new media player. It does music. It does video. It does pictures. Are you ready to get the most out of your Zune? Do you know the… Read more.

What's New in Windows Vista?
By Brian Culp
December 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Get ready for a quick blast through this significant change to Windows! This guide will give you a quick look at many of the most significant new features in Vista,… Read more.

Introduction to Neogeography
By Andrew Turner
December 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Neogeography combines the complex techniques of cartography and GIS and places them within reach of users and developers. This Short Cut introduces you to the growing number of tools, frameworks,… Read more.

Capistrano and the Rails Application Lifecycle
By Tom Mornini, Marc Loy
December 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Learn how to make your Rails deployments pain-free with Capistrano! This Short Cut shows you how to use Capistrano to automate the deployment of your Rails applications. It teaches you… Read more.

Prototype Quick Reference
By Scott Raymond
November 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This short cut provides a complete quick reference to the Prototype JavaScript framework. Prototype is an open-source library that is particularly useful to developers of dynamic Ajax applications, and to… Read more.

Saving Money and Time with Virtual Server
By Chris Sanders
November 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 consistently proves to be worth its weight in gold, with new implementations thought up every day. With this product now a free download from Microsoft, scores of… Read more.

Prototype and Scriptaculous: Taking the Pain out of JavaScript
By Chris Angus
November 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut demonstrates how to use Prototype for a wide range of tasks, including event handling, DOM processing, string and form process, and Ajax communications. It explores Scriptaculous' visual… Read more.

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Essentials
By Bill Hamilton
November 2006
Ebook: $7.99

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services allows you to design, create, view, and manage reports. Reports can be distributed and managed over the Web. End users can create, publish, and share… Read more.

Releasing CSS
By Christopher Schmitt
November 2006
Ebook: $9.99

In an industry that communicates with terms such as "Browser Hell" and "browser wars," a web designer can be excused for having some anxiety over Microsoft's recent upgrade of Internet… Read more.

Mongrel
By Angel Dobbs-Sciortino
November 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This shortcut teaches you how to use Mongrel, the new high-performance web application container for Rails. It starts with basic setup and installation, but goes well beyond the basics, showing… Read more.

Automating InDesign with Regular Expressions
By Peter Kahrel
November 2006
Ebook: $9.99

If you need to make automated changes to InDesign documents beyond what basic search and replace can handle, you need regular expressions, and a bit of scripting to make them… Read more.

How to Build an RSS 2.0 Feed
By Mark Woodman
November 2006
Ebook: $7.99

The little orange feed icons are everywhere on the web. From search engines to shopping sites to blogs, Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) has become one of the hottest web… Read more.

LINQ: The Future of Data Access in C# 3.0
By Joe Hummel
October 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is Microsoft's new technology for powerful, general purpose data access. In this Short Cut you'll learn about LINQ and the proposed C# 3.0 extensions that support it.… Read more.

Network Monitoring with Nagios
By Taylor Dondich
October 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Network monitoring can be a complex task to implement and maintain in your IT infrastructure. Nagios, an open-source host, service and network monitoring program can help you streamline your network… Read more.

Getting Acquainted with OPML
By Amy Bellinger
October 2006
Ebook: $7.99

You've put off figuring out what Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML) is all about and what it can do, right? We'll bring you into the picture quickly with 14 wide-ranging uses… Read more.

Windows PowerShell Quick Reference
By Lee Holmes
September 2006
Ebook: $12.99

For years, support for scripting and command-line administration on the Windows platform has paled in comparison to the support offered by the Unix platform. Unix administrators enjoyed the immense power… Read more.

From Darkroom to Lightroom, Second Edition
By Ken Milburn
September 2006
Ebook: $7.99

I couldn't resist the title I gave this Short Cut because it captures Adobe's intention in giving Lightroom its name: Lightroom is a program made expressly for photographers. Although Photoshop… Read more.

Using Microformats
By Brian Suda
September 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Microformats let you share structured information in HTML web pages. Although the information is visible to human readers--as it should be--software can also extract structured information. This Short Cut is… Read more.

Getting Started with Atlas
By Wei-Meng Lee
September 2006
Ebook: $9.99

ASP.NET "Atlas" is a new developer framework from Microsoft that simplifies the task of building more interactive web pages by drawing on the power of the Ajax technologies found in most… Read more.

Getting Started with .NET 3.0
By Jesse Liberty, Alex Horovitz
September 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Learn how to create more dynamic user experiences and build secure web services using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), two of the foundational pillars of .NET… Read more.

Running Mac OS X on Windows
By Wei-Meng Lee
August 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Despite Apple's move to Intel's CPU architecture, if you want to run the Mac OS X operating system on your Windows PC, the only logical way to do it is… Read more.

Scripting InDesign with JavaScript
By Peter Kahrel
August 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This Short Cut covers only InDesign CS2. For coverage of InDesign CS3 and CS4, see the version at http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596802523/. InDesign provides a powerful set of tools for producing beautiful documents. While… Read more.

Ajax and Web Services
By Mark Pruett
August 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Ajax and web services are a perfect match for developing web applications. Ajax has built-in abilities to access and manipulate XML data, the native format for almost all REST and… Read more.

Getting Started with Hibernate 3
By James Elliott
August 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Hibernate has clearly arrived. Are you ready to benefit from its simple way of working with relational databases as Java objects? This PDF updates the introductory material from the award-winning… Read more.

Windows Media Center Wizardry
By Tony Campbell
July 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Windows Media Center Wizardy is a guide to getting the most out of a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, delving into the hidden features and extended capabilities… Read more.

Windows for Intel Macs
By Todd Ogasawara
July 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Even the most devoted Mac OS X user may need to use Windows XP, or may just be curious about XP and its applications. This Short Cut is a concise… Read more.

FileMaker 8.5: Integrating the Web
By Susan Prosser
July 2006
Ebook: $7.99

FileMaker Pro, famed for power and ease of use, has added a suite of new features that can seriously boost your database productivity. This tutorial helps you take full advantage… Read more.

bash Quick Reference
By Arnold Robbins
June 2006
Ebook: $9.99

In this quick reference, you'll find everything you need to know about the bash shell. Whether you print it out or read it on the screen, this PDF gives you… Read more.

Your Life in Web Apps
By Giles Turnbull
June 2006
Ebook: $5.99

Have you dreamed of a simpler life where web apps and a browser meet all of your computing needs? All you need is a network connection. In this PDF Giles… Read more.

How to Keep Your Boss from Sinking Your Project
By Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene
June 2006
Ebook: $7.99

Like it or not, your project needs management. Yet few good software projects can survive bad management. If you're a programmer on a high-visibility project, this PDF offers five principle… Read more.

RJS Templates for Rails
By Cody Fauser
June 2006
Ebook: $9.99

RJS templates are an exciting and powerful new type of template added to Rails 1.1. Unlike conventional Rails templates that generate HTML or XML, RJS templates generate JavaScript code that… Read more.

Web Services on Rails
By Kevin Marshall
May 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This PDF will show you how your small business or enterprise can publish its APIs (application programming interface) to a developer community just like the behemoths of the Internet--Google, Yahoo!,… Read more.

Building Tag Clouds in Perl and PHP
By Jim Bumgardner
May 2006
Ebook: $9.99

Tag clouds are everywhere on the web these days. First popularized by the web sites Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio.us, these amorphous clumps of words now appear on a slew of… Read more.

Search Engine Optimization
By Harold Davis
May 2006
Ebook: $9.99

SEO--short for Search Engine Optimization--is the art, craft, and science of driving web traffic to web sites. Web traffic is food, drink, and oxygen--in short, life itself--to any web-based business.… Read more.

ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel Control
By Bertrand Le Roy, Matt Gibbs
May 2006
Ebook: $9.99

This newly revised Short Cut teaches you how to build richer and more interactive Ajax-style web pages using ASP.NET AJAX, Microsoft's Ajax framework for ASP.NET 2.0. The ASP.NET AJAX UpdatePanel… Read more.

Running Boot Camp
By Chuck Toporek
April 2006
Ebook: $7.99

When Steve Jobs jumped on stage at Macworld San Francisco 2006 and announced the new Intel-based Macs, the question wasn't if, but when someone would figure out a hack to… Read more.

Use ClickOnce to Deploy Windows Applications
By Wei-Meng Lee
April 2006
Ebook: $7.99

ClickOnce, a new technology in Visual Studio 2005, lets you quickly and easily deploy your Windows apps via web servers, file servers, or even CDs. This step-by-step guide to using… Read more.

What Are Syndication Feeds
By Shelley Powers
January 2006
Ebook: $7.95

Syndication feeds have become a standard tool on the Web. But when you enter the world of syndicated content, you're often faced with the question of what is the "proper"… Read more.

All About Your iPod Photo
By Wei-Meng Lee
January 2005
Ebook: $5.95

Apple has recently released the iPod photo, a fourth generation (4G) iPod capable of displaying color photos. With its new enhanced color screen, you can now do more than ever… Read more.