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 Windows NT in a Nutshell is a short-toed eagle. Actually, that description is inadequate, because most eagles are short-toed. Eagles fall into the category of bird known as "raptors," a category that also includes falcons and hawks. There are two types of raptor: grasping killers, with beaks shaped for tearing and cutting and short toes with curved claws designed for killing; and grasping holders, with beaks shaped for tearing and biting, and longer toes designed for holding. Eagles are grasping killers. Sea eagles have special adaptations to their toes that enable them to grasp smooth prey such as fish. Their excellent vision enables all eagles to spot prey from the air or a high perch. The eagle then swoops down, grabs its prey, and takes off in flight again, in one graceful movement. Eagles often eat their victims while still flying, breaking them apart and discarding the nonedible parts to lighten their load. Eagles, like most raptors, often dine on sick or wounded animals.

There are more than 50 species of eagle spread throughout the world, with the exception of New Zealand and Antarctica. All species of eagles build nests, or aeries, high above the ground, in trees or on rocky ledges. A pair of eagles will use the same nest year after year, lining it with green leaves and grass, fur, turf, or soft materials. The eagle will add to its nest each year. The largest eagle nest ever found was 20 feet deep and 10 feet across.

Hunting, increased use of pesticides, and the diminishment of their natural environment, with the attendant reduction in food sources, have endangered many species of eagle. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.32 using the ITC Garamond font. The inside layout was designed by Nancy Priest and implemented in troff by Lenny Muellner. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 5.0 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover's limit, perfect binding is used.