Writing

O'Reilly says that my second book, X Power Tools, arrived back from the printer on Dec. 17th. Ingram Distribution is reporting stock, but Amazon and other on-line retailers haven't got a copy yet, and I haven't seen one yet either. So we're getting close...

This book has been an adventure. I started it in 2005 and wrote ten chapters before putting it aside (at the publisher's request) to write Fedora Linux. I'm glad I did take that little detour, because I'm very pleased with that book. By the time I got back to X Power Tools a lot had changed, and it took a lot of work to review and revise the existing chapters. Needless to say, the result is not what I had originally envisioned in 2005, but I like the way it's turned out.

This book is a solid guide to the X Window System -- the portable, network-based windowing system that underlies virtually all of the common Unix and Linux GUIs (including KDE and GNOME). Millions of people use X every day (and the installed base is growing steadily), and yet few understand it well. After a lot of activity in the late 80's and early 90's, X development stagnated for a few years, and all of the X books went out of print. But a renaissance in X development powered by the adoption of Linux and new font and compositing technologies has brought it to the forefront, and it's time for an up-to-date X book.

To compliment the publication of X Power Tools, I am writing a series of X articles this winter. This series includes guides to multiseat, LTSP, and COMPOSITE (Compiz/Compiz-fusion) systems -- stay tuned for more details!

Found in the pamscale(1) man page:

If you don’t know what the mathematical concept of convolution (convolving) is, you are officially lost. You cannot understand this explanation.

Is this pointing out a shortcoming of the author or the reader? I'm sure you could make an argument either way.

Few things make an upcoming book more 'real' than seeing that it's been assigned an ISBN! And a publishing date, price, and page count. Details to follow Real Soon Now.

Pet peeve of the day: The expression "at a high rate of speed", which is often used on the CTV news, really gets under my skin. Speed is the rate of motion, so why would you say "a high rate of rate of motion"? Why not just "at a high speed"? I've even heard police spokespeople say it (on CTV news!).

At long last, Fedora Linux is finally showing up in local Chapters stores (and related stores, such as Indigo and The World's Biggest Bookstore)!

Fedora Linux has been available in print format for a week and a half, and has sold several thousand copies (many of them just to fill the pipeline, I'm sure). It's widely available through online sellers, but is not in stock at many brick-and-mortar stores yet. Safari Online access to the book and a PDF format download are also available.

And, thanks to Google Alerts, I see that the first review has now been posted. I can't tell you how nerve-wracking it has been, waiting to see what people think! (If you have the book ... there are no reviews or ratings on the online booksellers' sites yet ... tell the world what you think!).