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 HTML: The Definitive Guide is a koala. The koala is an Australian marsupial, the only member of the Phascolarctidae family. This cuddly looking animal was the original model for teddy bears, although it actually is not related to bears. Koalas use their extremely sharp claws for climbing eucalyptus trees. They subsist almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves and bark. They are picky eaters, eating only about 20 of the approximately 350 species of eucalyptus in Australia. Since eucalyptus leaves contain the precursors to hydrocyanic acid, or cyanide, koalas also occasionally eat soil, which helps detoxify their food. Koalas in the wild rarely, if ever, drink water. Eucalyptus leaves contain approximately 67% water, and that is enough for the koala diet.

Koalas are tiny, approximately one half of a gram, when they are born. Twin births are very unusual, but a mother koala will adopt an abandoned baby if she finds one. The young koala stays in its mother's pouch for approximately seven months. Unlike most marsupials, the koala's pouch opens towards the rear, not towards the head. At the end of the seven month period, the mother begins to wean the baby off of a purely milk diet by introducing it to predigested eucalyptus leaves. After leaving the pouch, the young koala is carried on its mother's back until it is a year old. Koalas leave their mother's home range at 18 months. While trying to establish their own home range, koalas have a very high mortality rate. Koalas were once plentiful in Australia, but as a result of epidemics in 1887-1889 and 1900-1903 and unrestrained hunting throughout the 20th century, koalas came close to extinction. They are a protected species and are rebuilding their population, but at present they survive only in eastern Australia. Unix and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks help you tame them.

Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.3 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 Jennifer Niederst and Nancy Priest. Text was prepared in FrameMaker 5.0 and implemented by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 5.0 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.