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 Programming the Be Operating System is a pitta. This small, colorful bird lives in humid, dense, tropical areas, and is found mostly in western Africa, southeast Asia, and Australia. There are over 20 species of pittas. Although they occasionally perch in trees, pittas spend much of their time on the ground, foraging through the forest floor for their diet of beetles, snails, spiders, and ants. They also prefer to nest at a low level, such as in tree stumps, between tree roots, or amongst ground vegetation. They run more often than fly and are built to do so, with long legs and short, round bodies and wings. Pittas are known for their shrill, powerful voices that resemble a whistle more than a song. Perhaps their most recognizable trait is the bright, brilliant colors on their head and wings. Ellie Fountain Maden was the production editor and copyeditor forProgramming the Be Operating System; Maureen Dempsey proofread the book; Mary Anne Mayo and Jane Ellin provided quality control. Mike Sierra provided FrameMaker technical support. Seth Maislin wrote the index. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced by Kathleen Wilson with QuarXPress 3.32 using the ITC Garamond font. 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. The inside layout was designed by Alicia Cech, based on a series design by Nancy Priest. The inside layout was implemented in FrameMaker 5.5.6 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.