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 SNMP is a moose. The moose is the largest member of the deer family. A male (bull) moose can stand as high as 7.5 feet to the shoulder and weigh between 900 and 1400 pounds. A female (cow) moose can weigh between 600 and 800 pounds. They are surprisingly fast runners and excellent swimmers.
Moose are found in the northern woodlands and swamps of Asia, Europe, and North America. They eat soft wood, bark, branches, grass, evergreen tips, and aquatic plants such as water lilies. Their large upper lips are well suited to stripping leaves and branches off of trees, but their short necks make feeding from the ground difficult. In order to do so, they have to spread their long legs in a wide, awkward stance.
A moose will never be mistaken for another deer. Their elongated heads and short necks distinguish them from their cousins. Also unique to the moose are the wide, spoon-shaped antlers of the bulls. The antlers, the strongest among all the living deer, grow up to 6 feet across and weight as much as 90 pounds. They are shed every autumn and grown in the spring. Male moose also have a flap of skin hanging below their chins. As they age this flap grows into a beard.
Moose mating season is in the fall. Bull moose become extremely aggressive during this time. Mating battles between bulls are violent and occasionally fatal. Humans who wander too close to a bull moose during mating season are sometimes attacked. Gestation lasts for eight months, after which time it is not unusual for twins to be born. The calves stay with their mothers for nine to 12 months. Moose are fully grown at five years and have a life expectancy of 20 to 25 years.
The moose population has decreased because of the loss of deciduous forest and swamps, but it is making a comeback now. 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 3.3 using the ITC Garamond font.
The inside layout was designed by Nancy Priest and implemented in gtroff 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 7 by Robert Romano. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.
