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 birds on the cover of XPath and XPointer are bee-eaters. Bee-eaters can be found in tropical parts of Africa and Asia. Bee-eaters are brightly colored birds, often with a black stripe running from their eyes to the base of their long, sharp bills. They measure 6 to 14 inches in length.
Bee-eaters feed mostly on bees and wasps, hence their name. They catch the flying insects and bring them back to a perch, where the insects are devenomized. This is accomplished by pounding and rubbing the insect until all the venom is gone. Only one type of bee-eater eats vegetable matter. This type of bee-eater will also only feed on things it's caught in motion: it snatches nutshells dropped by squirrels out of the air and eats them.
Bee-eaters are gregarious birds. They often travel in flocks of hundreds or thousands, and they nest together in large colonies on riverbanks or along roads. Some species migrate between mating seasons. Linley Dolby was the production editor and copyeditor, and Sarah Sherman was the proofreader for XPath and XPointer. Matt Hutchinson and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Johnna VanHoose Dinse wrote the index. Kimo Carter and Judy Hoer provided production assistance.
Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.
David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. Joe Wizda provided additional Tools support. 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 written by Linley Dolby.
