Director in a Nutshell | O'Reilly Media

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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 bird on the cover of Director in a Nutshell is an ostrich (Struthio camelus). The ostrich is the largest living bird, measuring up to 10 feet tall and weighing up to 340 pounds. In addition to its size, the ostrich's long, featherless neck, long, powerful legs, and small head with its large eyes and short, flat bill, ensure that you'll probably never mistake an ostrich for another bird. Males have black and white plumage, while females have gray-brown plumage. These big birds are unable to fly, but they can run up to 30 miles per hour, with bursts of over 40 mph when pursued. They outrun most of their natural predators. In order to hide from predators, ostriches sit with their neck and head outstretched on the ground. It is this defensive position that led to the incorrect belief that ostriches hide their heads in the sand to avoid detection. Should a predator spy and catch up to an ostrich, the ostrich's strong legs and clawed toes provide an excellent defence. An ostrich kick can be powe Once widespread throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe, ostriches now live only in Africa. They live in arid, open country and feed on succulent plants, grasses, leaves, and fruit, and occasionally insects, lizards, small birds, or small rodents. They can survive without water for long periods of time, but when there is water available they enjoy not only drinking but bathing in it. They usually live in small, loosely organized flocks, often alongside other grazing animals such as zebras and antelopes. At mating time, a male ostrich will mate with three to five females; the eggs will be laid in a communal nest, and they hatch after about 40 days. Despite the 15 eggs in the nest, each female is apparently able to identify her own eggs. A single ostrich egg weighs approximately 3 pounds, and is the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs. They are considered to be quite tasty. Native African tribes create jewelry and containers to carry water out of ostrich eggs. Ostrich feathers have been in demand by humans for ornamentation purposes for thousands of years. By the late 19th century they were on the verge of extinction because of overhunting. The development of ostrich farms has helped to curb the hunting of wild ostriches and to bring them back from the brink of extinction. Still, the four subspecies of ostrich are carefully watched by preservationists. Nancy Kotary was the production editor and copy editor for Director in a Nutshell ; Sheryl Avruch was the production manager; Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary, Jane Ellin, Nicole Gipson Arigo, and Ellie Cutler provided quality control; Betty Hugh, Tricia Manoni, and Sebastian Banker provided production support. Robert Romano created the illustrations using Adobe Photoshop 5 and Macromedia FreeHand 8. 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 with Quark XPress 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 Nancy Priest and implemented in FrameMaker 5.5.6 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.

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