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 Active Directory, Second Edition, are a domestic cat (felis silvetris) and her kitten. The domestic cat is a descendant of the African wild cat, which first inhabited the planet almost one million years ago. Other early forerunners of the cat existed as many as 12 million years ago.

The domestic cat is one of the most popular house pets in the world. There are hundreds of breeds of domestic cats, which weigh anywhere from five to thirty pounds, with an average of twelve pounds. The cat is slightly longer than it is tall, with its body typically being longer than its tail. Domestic cats can be any of eighty different colors and patterns. They often live to be fifteen to twenty years old; ten years for a human life is about equal to sixty years for a cat.

The cat's gestation period is approximately two months, and each litter may contain three to seven kittens. Mother cats teach their kittens to eat and to use litter boxes. Kittens ideally should not leave their mother's side until the age of twelve weeks and are considered full-grown at the age of about three years. Darren Kelly was the production editor and Leanne Soylemez was the copyeditor for Active Directory, Second Edition. Mary Brady, Tatiana Apandi Diaz, Mary Anne Weeks Mayo, and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Derek Di Matteo and Jamie Peppard provided production support. Reg Aubry wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer 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.

Bret Kerr designed the interior layout, based on a series design by David Futato. This book was converted by Joe Wizda to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by ErikRay, 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 bookwere 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 Nicole Arigo.