About the Authors
Tom Marrs, a 20-year veteran in the software industry, is the Principal and Senior Software Architect at Vertical Slice, a consulting firm that designs and implements mission-critical business applications using the latest J2EE and open source technologies, along with providing architecture evaluation and developer training and mentoring services. Tom teaches Java/J2EE/JBoss training classes, speaks regularly at software conferences such as No Fluff Just Stuff (http://www.nofluffjuststuff.com), and is a blogger on java.net and ONJava. An active participant in the local technical community, Tom is the President of the Denver JBoss User Group and has served as President of the Denver Java Users Group (http://www.denverjug.org).
Scott Davis is a senior software engineer in the Colorado front range. He is passionate about open source solutions and agile development. He has worked on a variety of Java platforms, from J2EE to J2SE to J2ME (sometimes all on the same project).
Scott is a frequent presenter at national conferences and local user groups. He was the president of the Denver Java Users Group in 2003 when it was voted one of the Top 10 JUGs in North America. After a quick move north, he is currently active in the leadership of the Boulder Java Users Group. Keep up with him at http://www.davisworld.org.
Colophon
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 JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide is a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), named for the golden feathers on the back of its neck. This large bird of prey is one of the two eagle breeds found in the United States, inhabiting parts of the West as well as Canada, Alaska, Eurasia, and northern Africa. The golden eagle makes its home in desert grasslands and above the timberline. There it can stretch its wings (7 feet across) and go for a nice swoop at 200 mph, or catch a rising mass of warm air called a thermal and spiral upward into the sky.Golden eagles build large stick nests in trees or cliff walls. They may build multiple nests within a nesting range and alternate among them, depending on the year. Since golden eagles continually elaborate on their nests, the nests can grow quite large, reaching 8 to 10 feet across and 3 to 4 feet in depth. Both the male and female participate in the rearing of the eaglets, with the male doing most of the hunting and the female doing most of the incubating. If food is scarce, the larger of the eaglets may commit siblicide.
The young fledge when 72 to 84 days old and depend upon their parents for another 3 months. After this period they either migrate or move out of their parents' territory, but they generally winter in their natal area. At four years of age, golden eagles mate. They often stay paired with the same mate for life-about 30 years. Golden eagles are excellent hunters and for this reason are rarely forced to migrate far from their nesting territory. They feast on over 50 species of mammals, 48 birds, 5 reptiles, and 2 fish. Among these are included prairie dogs, rabbits, ground squirrels, grouse, ducks, chukars, marmots, foxes, skunks, cats, meadowlarks, and snakes. Golden eagles are protected in the U.S. through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Possessing a feather or any other body part belonging to this bird will incur a $10,000 fine or a jail term of up to 10 years. (There are some exceptions for Native American traditions.)
Colleen Gorman was the production editor and proofreader, and Ann Schirmer was the copyeditor for JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide. Jamie Peppard and Genevieve d'Entremont provided quality control. Loranah Dimant provided production assistance. Johnna VanHoose Dinse wrote the index.
Karen Montgomery designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from Johnson's Natural History. Karen Montgomery produced the cover layout with Adobe InDesign CS using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.
David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Joe Wizda 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, Jessamyn Read, and Lesley Borash using Macromedia FreeHand MX and Adobe Photoshop CS. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Lydia Onofrei.
