O'Reilly User Group Program
NEWSLETTER
July 12, 2002


HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK:
NEWS:
-Marshall McLuhan vs. Marshalling Regular Expressions
-Top Ten Web Performance Tuning Tips
-Getting Loopy with Python and Perl
-W3C XML Schema Design Patterns: Dealing With Change
-O'Reilly Bioinformatics Conference Call for Participation 
-Top Ten iPhoto Tips 
-O'Reilly at Macworld Conference & Expo in New York 
-Wanted: Visual Studio .NET User Groups

CONFERENCE NEWS
-The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is Almost Here!
-Camping out at Kid's World--OSCON
-O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference Registration is Open
-Put up a Conference Banner--Get a Free Book

BOOK NEWS:
-ASP.NET in a Nutshell
-XML Schema
-Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition
-PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM YOUR PEERS
-Chicago.PM--Damian Conway in Chicago, August 19-23
-NWOUG Summer Conference--Portland, Oregon


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NEWS FROM O'REILLY & BEYOND
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Spread the word to your members....
 
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GENERAL NEWS
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MARSHALL MCLUHAN VS. MARSHALLING REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
Andy Oram explains why the success of "Mastering Regular Expressions,
2nd Ed." should help assuage the panic Marshall McLuhan envisioned.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/07/08/platform.html

"Mastering Regular Expressions, 2nd Edition" releases this month.
Order Number: 2890 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/index.html

TOP TEN WEB PERFORMANCE TUNING TIPS
Here are ten tips that will help you get the most bang out of your web
server, by Patrick Killelea, the author of "Web Performance Tuning, 2nd
Edition."
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/27/web_tuning.html

Web Performance Tuning, 2nd Edition
Order Number: 172X
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/webpt2/


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ONLAMP
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GETTING LOOPY WITH PYTHON AND PERL
How do Python's loop constructs stack up to Perl's? Find out in this
article by Aahz, one of the featured speakers at this month's Open
Source Convention.
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/06/27/pythonandperl.html

O'Reilly Open Source Convention
Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina
July 22-26, 2002--San Diego, CA
http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/


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XML
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W3C XML SCHEMA DESIGN PATTERNS: DEALING WITH CHANGE
In this XML.com article, Dare Obasanjo writes about how to design W3C
XML schemas to handle change over time.

For more on schemas, check out O'Reilly's recently released "XML
Schemas." 
Order Number: 2521
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema/index.html


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BIOINFORMATICS
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O'REILLY BIOINFORMATICS CONFERENCE--CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Proposals Due September 9, 2002
The second O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference is slated 
for February 3-6, 2003, at the Westin Horton Plaza in San Diego,
California. Individuals and companies interested in making
presentations, giving tutorials, or participating in panel discussions
are invited to submit proposals.  For more information:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/bio2003/create/e_sess


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Mac
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TOP TEN IPHOTO TIPS
Derrick Story offers tips to help you avoid the iPhoto "gotchas" that
lurk beneath its Aqua surface.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/06/08/iphoto_tips.html


And for the most comprehensive guide to iPhoto, 
don't miss "iPhoto: The Missing Manual."
Order Number: 365x
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/iphototmm/


MACWORLD CONFERENCE & EXPO IN NEW YORK
Come by and Visit O'Reilly at Booth # 365.
Keep an eye out for our new books "iPhoto: The Missing Manual" and
"Office X: The Missing Manual" which will be released at the show.

Office X: The Missing Manual
Order Number: 3323
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/offxtmm/


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.NET
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WANTED: VISUAL STUDIO .NET USER GROUPS
Does your group use Visual Studio .NET or do you belong to another user
group that does?  Please let me know at marsee@oreilly.com or have your
group leader register with our site: http://ug.oreilly.com/


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CONFERENCE NEWS
================================================
THE O'REILLY OPEN SOURCE CONVENTION IS ALMOST HERE!
Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina
July 22-26, 2002--San Diego, CA

You still have time to register:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2002/create/ord_os02


CAMPING OUT AT KID'S WORLD--OSCON
Back again by popular demand, Kid's World is available Monday through
Thursday, providing exceptional daycare for your young ones. Register
now to ensure that your children don't miss out on the fun.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/15/kids_world.html


O'REILLY MAC OS X CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS OPEN
Registration is open for the first-ever O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference.
Designed to foster discovery and community between Mac OS X users and
groups just coming aboard this state-of-the-art operating system, the
conference takes place at the Westin Santa Clara in Santa Clara, CA
from September 30 to October 3, 2002.

"Apple has made a bold move to build the future into the platform,"
notes Tim O'Reilly, founder and president of O'Reilly & Associates.
"Mac OS X offers a rich, powerful environment, and serious users are
looking to wring everything they can out of it." Conference Program
Chair Rael Dornfest concurs, "Old Mac hands have as much to learn as
Unix users. As a result, the demand for information about using and
developing on Mac OS X is intense."

O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference
Westin Santa Clara
September 30 - October 3, 2002 -- Santa Clara, CA
http://conferences.oreilly.com/macosxcon/

EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT
User Group members who register before August 9, 2002 get a double
discount. Use code DSUG when you register, and you'll get 20% off the
"Early Bird" price.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/macosx2002/create/ord_mac02

Featured speakers in the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference include: James
Gosling, Sun's co-inventor of Java, and a recent Mac convert; David
Pogue, best-selling author of "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual" and the
"New York Times" technology columnist; Darwin developer Wilfredo
Sanchez Vega; Jordan Hubbard, Apple's manager of BSD technologies; Adam
Engst, editor of TidBITS; Tim O'Reilly, CEO and founder, O'Reilly &
Associates; journalist Leander Kahney; brian d foy, publisher of "The
Perl Review"; and Cory Doctorow, co-founder of OpenCola and co-editor
of the weblog Boing Boing.

"Mac OS X is one of the most exciting things happening in the industry
today," concludes Tim O'Reilly. "We're putting together a conference
that features the many traditions and technologies that come together
in this new crossroads. One of the most exciting things about
conferences is the opportunity for people to meet and share ideas and
knowledge face to face. The O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference is designed to
let Unix people and Mac people learn from each other, and to let both
learn from the people who're pushing the envelope."


PUT UP A CONFERENCE BANNER, GET A FREE BOOK
We are looking for user groups to display our conference banners on
their web sites. If you send me the link to your user group site with
our O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference banner, I will send you the O'Reilly
book of your choice.

Mac OS X Conference Banners:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/19/banner_ads.html

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BOOK NEWS
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REVIEW COPIES ARE AVAILABLE, email me for a copy.
If you need your books by a certain date, please allow at least three
weeks for shipping. Please send me copies of your newsletters.

Don't forget, your members get 20% off any O'Reilly book they purchase
directly from O'Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering.

Press releases are available on our press page: 
http://press.oreilly.com/

ASP.NET IN A NUTSHELL
Order Number: 1169
As a quick reference and tutorial in one, "ASP.NET in a Nutshell" goes
beyond the published documentation to highlight little-known details,
stress practical uses for particular features, and provide real-world
examples that show how features can be used in a working application.
This book covers application and web service development, custom
controls, data access, security, deployment, and error handling. Theres
also an overview of web-related class libraries.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/aspdotnetnut/

Chapter 6, "User Controls and Custom Server Controls," is available
online:  http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/aspdotnetnut/chapter/ch06.html


XML SCHEMA
Order Number: 2521
The W3C's XML Schema offers a powerful set of tools for defining
acceptable XML document structures and content. While schemas are
powerful, that power comes with substantial complexity. This book
explains XML Schema foundations, a variety of different styles for
writing schemas, simple and complex types, datatypes and facets, keys,
extensibility, documentation, design choices, best practices, and
limitations. Complete with references, a glossary, and examples
throughout.  
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema/

Chapter 12, "Creating More Building Blocks Using Object-Oriented
Features," and "Chapter 14: Documenting Schemas," are available online
at:  http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema/chapter/index.html


WRITING EXCEL MACROS WITH VBA, 2ND EDITION
Order Number: 3595
Newly updated for Excel 2002, "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd
Edition" provides Excel power-users, as well as programmers who are
unfamiliar with the Excel object model, with a solid introduction to
writing Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros and programs for
Excel. In particular, the book focuses on the Visual Basic Editor and
the Excel VBA programming environment. Excel features a complete,
state-of-the-art integrated development environment for writing,
running, testing, and debugging VBA macros.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/exlmacro2/

Chapter 17, "The Workbook Object," is available online:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/exlmacro2/chapter/index.html


PC HARDWARE IN A NUTSHELL, 2ND EDITION
Order Number: 3536
In addition to coverage of the fundamentals and general tips about
working on PCs, this book includes chapters focusing on motherboards,
processors, memory, floppies, hard drives, optical drives, tape
devices, video devices, input devices, audio components,
communications, power supplies, and maintenance. Special emphasis is
given to upgrading and troubleshooting existing equipment so you can
get the most from your existing investments.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pchardnut2/

Chapter 28, "Building a PC," is available online:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pchardnut2/chapter/index.html


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ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM YOUR PEERS
================================================
Chicago, IL--
CHICAGO.PM--DAMIAN CONWAY IN CHICAGO, AUGUST 19-23
Damian Conway will be teaching several of his popular Perl courses.

The classes will be:
-Data Munging with Perl, August 19-20, 2002 
-Advanced Object-Oriented Perl, August 21-22, 2002 
-Practical Parsing with Perl, August 23, 2002

For more information see:
http://chicago.pm.org/


Portland, OR--
THE NORTHWEST ORACLE USERS GROUP--
Will be holding its summer conference and seminars in Portland, Oregon
on July 22nd and 23rd.

Complete details and online registration are available:
http://www.nwoug.com/conferences/july2002.htm

Until next time,

Marsee