Home Networking Annoyances -- Need a cure for the headaches associated with running a home network? This book tackles all the common annoyances your network dishes up, whether it's wired or wireless, Mac or PC. With a friendly, off-the-cuff approach, this book guides you safely through common home networking glitches, including file sharing, printing, security, and more. Take a stand against annoyances now: this book is your ticket to serenity. Sample Chapter 4, File-Sharing Annoyances, is available free online.

Linux Server Security, 2nd Edition expertly conveys to administrators and developers the tricks of the trade that can help them avoid serious security breaches. The book covers both background theory and practical, step-by-step instructions for protecting a server that runs Linux. Geared toward Linux users with little security expertise, the author explains security concepts and techniques in clear language, beginning with the fundamentals. Stay one step ahead of potential adversaries. Sample Chapter 12, System Log Management and Monitoring, is available free online.

Buffer Overflow Attacks (Syngress) -- The SANS Institute maintains a list of the "Top 10 Software Vulnerabilities." Currently, over half of these vulnerabilities are exploitable by Buffer Overflow attacks, which allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on a victim's machine. This is the first book specifically aimed at detecting, exploiting, and preventing the most common and dangerous attacks. It provides specific, real code examples on exploiting buffer overflow attacks from a hacker's perspective, and on defending against these attacks for the software developer.

QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook -- Java developers who need to add audio, video, or interactive media creation and playback to their applications find that QuickTime Java is a powerful toolkit, but one that's not easy to get into. This book offers the first real look at this important software with an informal, code-intensive style that lets impatient early adopters focus on learning by doing. You get just the functionality you need. Sample Chapter 5, Working with QuickDraw, is available free online.

Excel: The Missing Manual -- Whether you're an Excel neophyte, a sophisticate who knows the program inside out, or an intermediate-level plodder, this Missing Manual will become your go-to resource for all things Excel. Covering all the features of Excel 2002 and 2003, this easy-to-read, thorough, and downright enjoyable book is an indispensable guide to one of the most popular and complicated computer programs. It has all you need to excel at Excel. Sample Chapter 4, Formatting Worksheets, is available free online.

Learning Windows Server 2003 -- Windows Server 2003 is the right server for a world dominated by enterprise networks and web-based server applications, but getting this server up and running is a formidable task. This no-fluff guide gives you exactly what you need for installing, configuring, securing, and managing Server 2003, and offers hands-on advice for planning, implementing, and growing Windows networks without trying to teach you how to be a system administrator. Sample Chapter 10, Windows Terminal Services, is available free online.

Excel Annoyances -- At last, Excel users have some relief. This book addresses all of the quirks, bugs, inconsistencies, and hidden features found in the various versions of Excel. Broken into easy-to-follow categories, such as Entering Data, Formatting, Charting, and Printing, Excel Annoyances reveals a goldmine of helpful nuggets you can use to maximize Excel's seemingly limitless potential. If you've found anything about Excel confusing, you'll learn how to address it here. Sample Chapter 3, Formula Annoyances, is available free online.

Google Hacks, 2nd Edition -- Featuring dozens of refreshed hacks, plus 25 completely new ones, this updated edition of Google Hacks is a collection of real-world solutions to practical Google research problems. Thanks to these industrial-strength tips, now you can easily save hours of research time mining Google. Best of all, each of the book's 100 hacks is easy to read and digest; there's no confusing terminology or extraneous information to hamper your understanding. Sample Hacks are available free online.

AspectJ Cookbook -- This hands-on book shows readers why and how common Java development problems can be solved by using new Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) techniques. With a wide variety of code recipes for solving day-to-day design and coding problems using AOP's unique approach, AspectJ Cookbook demonstrates that AOP is more than just a concept: it's a development process that will benefit users in an immediate and visible manner. Sample Excerpts are available free online.

Home Hacking Projects for Geeks presents a wide range of projects, from automating light switches, to building home theaters using Windows or Linux-based PCs, to building home security systems that rival those offered by professional security consultants. The thirteen projects in the book are divided into three categories: Home Automation, Home Entertainment Systems, and Security. Designed for hackers of all skill levels, this fun, new guide combines creativity with electricity and power tools to achieve cool, and sometimes even practical, home automation projects. Sample Excerpts are available free online.

Remote Method Invocation is a powerful technology for developing networked applications without having to worry about the low-level networking details. This chapter from Java Examples in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition presents examples of the RMI capabilities of the java.rmi and java.rmi.server packages. If you like this chapter, read the whole book (and up to nine others) on Safari with a free trial subscription.

Open Source and MySQL Will Rise, Legal Foes Will Fall -- "2004 was a portent of things to come for Linux in 2005, both because of what didn't happen (SCO Group's victory) and what did (the rise of open source software), according to Marten Mickos, CEO of Sweden-based MySQL AB. In this interview, he predicts how those events, which included the success of MySQL's database, will play out in 2005." Mickos will be speaking at O'Reilly's upcoming MySQL Users Conference.

Get Your Hands Dirty! Hackers of all stripes refuse to just take what they’re given. They’re driven to remake it, and getting there is more than half the fun. Here at O'Reilly, we've got the information you need to hack, remix, and master technology at home and at work. In this letter for our Winter 2005 Catalog, Tim O'Reilly talks about how we're celebrating the hacker impulse. You'll find all of Tim's collected writings and speeches at tim.oreilly.com.

Disk Cleanup Hacks -- No matter how much space you have on your hard disk, it's never enough. In this WindowsDevCenter.com article, Mitch Tulloch shows you how to use, automate, and hack the Disk Cleanup tool to de-junk the hard drive on your Windows XP machine. Mitch is the author of Windows Server Hacks.

Special Offer: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate -- Learn system administration skills online and receive certification from the University of Illinois. Courses include: The Unix File System, Networking and DNS, Unix Services (including email and web servers), and Scripting for Administrators with Sed, Awk, and Perl. It's all at the O'Reilly Learning Lab. Enroll by January 31 and save $200.

Something That Reeks of Honesty -- Andrew Leonard writes in this Salon.com book review, "Reading Revolution in the Valley, you may feel as though you're sitting in a bar listening to engineers swap stories. You may not understand every word, but you know you're getting the real thing, and that has value." Learn how the Mac was made: Revolution in The Valley.

DTG's Best Books of 2004 -- DT&G;: Design, Type & Graphics Magazine has announced its selection of the best products in 2004 for the visual communications fields. O'Reilly titles won in several categories: Best in Digital Photography went to Digital Photography Hacks; We the Media took the Best for All Computer Users category; and The Cult of Mac (by O'Reilly publishing partner No Starch Press) was named the Best for Macintosh Computer Users.

SafariU Beta Testing Is Underway -- Customize your course textbook and offer students exactly the material you choose to teach, while saving them money. SafariU allows you to produce custom-printed books and build online syllabi with content from over 2,000 of the most up-to-date technical books, and your own material. Check out this new web-based, print-on-demand publishing platform from O'Reilly: become a SafariU beta tester.

Race for the Ultimate Car Hacks -- "People have been tinkering with their cars since the first horseless buggy hit the road. Now, thanks to onboard computerized systems that control everything from engine management systems to radios, hackers can customize their rides in ways that are likely to have Henry Ford doing back flips in his grave." TechnologyReview.com writer Michelle Delio speaks with Damien Stolarz, CEO of Carbot, and Raffi Krikorian, director of Synthesis Studios. Join Damien and Raffi at O'Reilly's upcoming ETech for their tutorial, Hack Sci-Fi Features into Your Car.

Streaming QuickTime with Java -- Years ago, realtime multicast streaming came to QuickTime in version 5, but people still don't realize that it can be called from QuickTime for Java. Learn how it works from this ONJava.com article by Chris Adamson, author of QuickTime for Java: A Developer's Notebook.

Range-Keyed Queries -- Dan Tow ran into an interesting dilemma on an Oracle mail group regarding a recurring class of SQL tuning problems. In this article, he presents the original single-row query problem and shows the route to the most viable solution. Dan is the author of SQL Tuning.

Network Installation of Windows Printers from Samba -- The combination of Samba and CUPS makes network printing on a mixed Linux/Windows LAN easier than ever. You can share Linux printers with Windows clients, and Windows printers with Linux clients. Carla Schroder shows how to set up and maintain this reliable printer server. Carla is the author of Linux Cookbook.

Top Ten Excel Annoyances -- Curt Frye writes, "The river of Excel annoyances runs deep and treacherous, populated by numerous species of sharp-toothed predators ready to chew up your data." In this article, Curt offers fixes for ten of the most common annoyances, giving you the paddle you need to stay afloat in the currents of your favorite spreadsheet. Curt is the author of Excel Annoyances.