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 Using SANs and NAS are a hyrax (top) and a pika (bottom). The pika is of order Lagomorpha, the rabbit family, while the hyrax, order Hyracoidea, is an ungulate and has whales and elephants in its tree. Their nonrelationship is much like SANs and NAS: they look a lot a like, and many people confuse them, but they?re actually two completely different animals.

The northern pika (Ochotona alpina) is a small short-legged creature with rounded ears, no visible tail, sharp curved claws and a grayish patch on the neck. It lives in Siberia, Mongolia, northeast China, and Japan. Grass and plant stems form its diet, and it gathers extra food in late summer and piles it to use in winter. The pika spends considerable time sunning itself on a favorite lookout rock, against which its salt-and-pepper coat is difficult to distinguish. The pika is alert and has excellent hearing and vision, which helps protect it from predators. They emit a sharp, highpitched whistle to alert other pikas when predators are detected.

The rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) as per its name, lives on rocky hillsides and is an agile climber. It's a small, solidly built animal with a stump tail, short ears and legs, and gray-brown to black in coloring. Found in Africa and the Middle East, the hyrax is a social animal and lives in colonies of 50 or more. It feeds mostly on leaves, grass, and small plants but will climb to feed on fruit. The feet have flattened nails, resembling hooves, and a central moist cup that works as an adhesive pad when it climbs. Vocalization is an important method for transferring information for some hyraxes. Their loud and piercing calls are generally made after dark when hyraxes forage. Mary Anne Weeks Mayo was the production editor and copyeditor for Using SANs and NAS. Leanne Soylemez, Claire Cloutier, Sarah Sherman, and Jane Ellin provided quality control. Edie Shapiro 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 engraving from the 19th century. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

Melanie Wang designed the interior layout, based on a series design by David Futato. Mihaela Maier converted the files from Microsoft Word to FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was compiled by Mary Anne Weeks Mayo.