Active Directory, 4th Edition

Colophon

The animals on the cover of Active Directory, Fourth Edition, are a domestic cat (felis silvetris) and her kitten. The domestic cat is a descendant of the African wild cat, which first inhabited the planet one million years ago. Other early forerunners of the cat existed as many as 12 million years ago.

The domestic cat is one of the most popular house pets in the world. There are hundreds of breeds of domestic cats, which weigh anywhere from 5 to 30 pounds, with an average of 12 pounds. The cat is slightly longer than it is tall, with its body typically being longer than its tail. Domestic cats can be any of 80 different colors and patterns. They often live to be 15–20 years old; 10 years for a human life is about equal to 60 years for a cat.

The cat’s gestation period is approximately two months, and each litter may contain three to seven cats. Mother cats teach their kittens to eat and to use litter boxes. Kittens ideally should not leave their mother’s sides until the age of 12 weeks and are considered full grown at the age of about three years.

The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont’s TheSans Mono Condensed.