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 animal on the cover of C# Essentials is a star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata). Like all moles, star-nosed moles live primarily in underground tunnels they dig, but they do surface to find food. A mole’s rodent-like body is covered in short, waterproof gray fur, and it is about six to eight inches long. A notable feature is its long claws, which are perfect for digging its trenches and foraging for food. It has small ears and eyes, and sharp pointed teeth. A mole’s eyesight and hearing are known to be terrible.
The star-nosed mole gets its name from the approximate 25 feelers on its nose that help it find food, primarily insects, worms, and small fish, as well as other small pond life. The star-nosed mole is the best swimmer in the mole family and can even dive to catch a fish. It prefers to live in wetlands but can be found in various areas of the Northeast United States and Southeast Canada.
Moles are mammals who nurse their young, and a female mole has one litter of three to six babies per year.
This particular type of mole is considered to be less of a household pest than its mole cousins because its mostly aquatic diet keeps it from rummaging around in backyards for food.
Mary Anne Weeks Mayo was the copyeditor and production editor for C# Essentials. Jane Ellin proofread the book. Nicole Arigo provided quality control. Matt Hutchinson provided production assistance. Joe Wizda wrote the index.
Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original engraving from The Illustrated Natural History by J. G. Wood, published in 1865. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with Quark™XPress 4.1 using Adobe’s ITC Garamond font.
David Futato and Melanie Wang designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Anne-Marie Vaduva converted the files from MSWord to FrameMaker 5.5 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.
The online edition of this book was created by the Safari production group (John Chodacki, Becki Maisch, and Madeleine Newell) using a set of Frame-to-XML conversion and cleanup tools written and maintained by Erik Ray, Benn Salter, John Chodacki, and Jeff Liggett.