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 Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide is a cuttlefish. Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) are commonly found in the eastern Atlantic from England to North Africa and throughout the Mediterranean Sea. This softbodied marine creature belongs to the Cephalopoda class and, like all cephalopods, has a large head ringed by arms. Cuttlefish have eight arms, plus two long tentacles with suckers on their ends. Cuttlefish are usually about a foot long, and they move through the water by rippling a skirt of fins. They are sometimes called the chameleons of the sea because they can easily change their striped skin color to hide from predators or communicate with other cuttlefish.

In addition to the camouflage offered by their ability to change color, threatened cuttlefish use ink to defend themselves. Their ink glands produce a foul-smelling dark brown ink that distracts enemies such as sharks, larger fish, and even other cuttlefish. They can then fill the ink funnel with water, expel it, and propel themselves to safety. Cuttlefish ink (also called sepia) was once used to color photographs; however, they are no longer fished for this purpose, and cuttlefish caught in trawl nets usually wind up on a dinner table.

Cuttlefish are also well-known for the one bone in their body, called the cuttlebone. This bone is made up of porous calcium carbonate that allows the cuttlefish to control its buoyancy by changing the proportions of liquid to air within chambers of the bone. Cuttlebones often wash ashore and are the only remains of a cuttlefish after its death. These bones are often sold as bill-sharpeners for captive birds or are ground up and offered as a source of calcium for other pets. Genevieve d'Entremont was the production editor for Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide. Brian Sawyer proofread the book. Emily Quill and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Mary Agner, Jamie Peppard, and James Quill provided production assistance. Octal Publishing, Inc. wrote the index.

Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from Cuvier's Animals. 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 by Andrew Savikas and Julie Hawks 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. 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 Philip Dangler.