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 on the cover of Active Directory Cookbook for Windows Server 2003 & Windows 2000 is a bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), also known as a horse mackerel. It inhabits both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in temperate and subtropical waters. The body of a bluefin tuna is a metallic, deep blue on top, while the undersides and belly are silvery white. The first dorsal fin is yellow or blue; the second is redor brown. The rear fin and finlets are yellow, edged with black. The central caudal keel is black.

The bluefin tuna is one of the largest and fastest species of marine fish. An adult can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), and can swim up to speeds of 55 miles per hour (88.5 kilometers per hour). A bluefin tuna can swim across the Atlantic Ocean in 40 days. Recent pop-up satellite tracking has revealed that the bluefin tuna can dive to depths greater than 3,000 feet in a matter of minutes and still maintain a body temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius), even in near-freezing water.

Commercial fishing has reduced the stock of bluefin tuna to the extent that a single fish, once caught, can be worth up to $40,000 (U.S.). However, the situation is reversible, and the numbers of tuna could increase if the guidelines of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), an intergovernmental fishing organization that oversees tuna, are followed. Matt Hutchinson was the production editor for Active Directory Cookbook for Windows Server 2003 & Windows 2000. Genevieve d'Entremont, Marlowe Shaeffer, and Darren Kelly provided quality control. Octal Publishing, Inc. provided production services.

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 designedthe interior layout. This book was converted by 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 Reg Aubry.