Dancing Barefoot -- Wil Wheaton--blogger, geek, and Star Trek: The Next Generation's Wesley Crusher--gives us five true tales of life, love, and the absurdities of Hollywood in Dancing Barefoot. Far from the usual celebrity tell-all, this book is a vivid, personal account of Wil's search for his true self. If you've ever fallen in love, attended a Star Trek convention, or pondered the meaning of life, you'll find a kindred soul in the pages of Dancing Barefoot.

OSCON: Open Source in Mars Mission -- At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention this July, Jeff Norris and his team from NASA will give an insider's view of the development on the Science Activity Planner, the software that NASA scientists are using to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers. Don't miss this and other exciting events at OSCON. Register today.

FreeBSD Networking Basics -- Networking is an integral part of a modern FreeBSD system. It works wonderfully, but beginners to Unix-like operating systems are often stymied by their network settings. In this article, Dru Lavigne explains how to verify, configure, and optimize FreeBSD networking. You'll find 100 tips for BSD users and administrators in Dru's upcoming BSD Hacks.

O'Reilly Distributes Pragmatic Bookshelf -- Books by developers, for developers: that's the pragmatic way, and it's nicely aligned with the O'Reilly approach to publishing. We're happy to help Pragmatic Programmers reach a wider audience by providing sales, distribution, and marketing support for Pragmatic Bookshelf, an imprint of Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. For a list of titles available on the Pragmatic Bookshelf, visit pragmatic.oreilly.com.

Survival Guide to LAMP -- In an effort to make open source LAMP technologies accessible to anyone with interest, techie or not, Shelley Powers is posting a series of LAMP survival guide tutorials on her weblog. In the first few, you'll learn the drill on installing software, creating directories, and manipulating files. And you'll get the essential list of Linux command basics. Shelley is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition.

Version Control with Subversion: Introduction -- Subversion is an open source version control system that can access its file repository across networks. Various users are able to modify and manage the same set of data from their respective locations. Collaboration is fostered, and changes can occur more rapidly. Learn the history, features, architecture, and components of Subversion in this preview of Chapter 1 from Version Control with Subversion.

Miguel de Icaza: Defining the Game -- Mono project manager Miguel de Icaza discusses the danger Longhorn poses to Linux on the desktop. Take a look at Miguel's Mono 1.0 Roadmap, and join us for his OSCON session on Mono 1.0.

Free the Orphans: The Case of Kahle v. Ashcroft -- Richard Koman talks with the lead attorney for the case brought by two digital archivists intending to free from oblivion in-copyright, out-of-print media, known as "orphan works." You'll find O'Reilly's orphan works on the Open Books Project site.

Learning Assembly Language Is Still a Good Idea -- Randall Hyde makes a case for the relevance of learning assembly language even today. The key, he says, is to learn how to efficiently implement an application, and the best implementations are written by those who've mastered assembly language. Randall is the author of Write Great Code (No Starch).

Open Source in Africa -- Open source software is good for the developing world: the price is often right, and the openness offers nascent developers the chance to learn from their peers. Kwindla Hultman Kramer recently attended the Africa Source conference and offers his thoughts here.

O'Reilly Gets a New Name -- O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. is now O'Reilly Media, Inc. We've changed our name to O'Reilly Media to reflect our expanding array of products and services, from books, conferences, and the suite of O'Reilly Network web sites, to Safari Bookshelf and SafariU. Read more about it in our press release.

Apocalypse 12 -- Larry Wall writes, "Some people will be surprised to hear it, but Perl is a minimalist language at heart." Here he explains how objects and classes are supposed to work in Perl 6. Join Larry and Damian Conway this July in Portland for their OSCON session on Perl 6.

NetBeans IDE 3.6 -- The NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 3.6 is now available. The award-winning NetBeans IDE provides a pure Java development environment for Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X. The developer community has been driving tremendous innovation on the NetBeans platform and building considerable partner and community momentum. Read more and get the General Availability release at www.netbeans.org.

Your O'Reilly Account: New, Single Sign On -- O'Reilly customers and guests now have a single address and one password to access all things O'Reilly, from oreilly.com and Safari Bookshelf to all of the O'Reilly Network sites and DevCenters. When possible, we've consolidated your prior, separate accounts into one new account. Logging into the new system is quick and easy; details on how to do it have been emailed to you, and you can read more about O'Reilly's single sign on in Tony Stubblebine's weblog.

Registration Is Open for OSCON 2004 -- Come to the 2004 O'Reilly Open Source Convention and meet open source leaders, learn useful skills, and engage in conversations with developers, business leaders, and technology strategists. This year's OSCON explores everything from the latest innovations in Perl, PHP, and Python to the great Linux debate and much more. Join us in Portland, Oregon July 26 - 30. Register today.

Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference -- CFP2004 will explore the most important issues facing the Internet and freedom, including the security focus of the post-9/11 environment, the ongoing battles between copyright and technology, and the growing use of the Internet and computing technology in campaigns and elections. Early registration discounts end April 7.

JOSH: Going Global with Globus V3 and Grid Engine -- JOSH (JOb Scheduling Hierarchically) is a multi-site job-management tool built on top of the Globus Toolkit and Grid Engine. A JOSH user interface (or client) allows the submission, monitoring, and termination of jobs running on Grid Engines at remote computer sites (the servers). JOSH also handles the transfer of data files and executables to and from jobs. Read more about it.

Growing with Gentoo -- Daniel Robbins, Gentoo's chief architect, recently spoke to students and professors at Stanford University's Computer Systems Lab. Learn how Gentoo evolved, what problems and opportunities it's encountering, and Daniel's opinions on its future. To see a complete list of all our Linux books, visit linux.oreilly.com.

An Interview with OpenBSD's Marc Espie -- Federico Biancuzzi interviews Marc Espie about OpenBSD's secure coding, the ports infrastructure, licensing, and future plans for the project. BSD users will find a wealth of valuable info in Dru Lavigne's upcoming BSD Hacks.

Imagine My Surprise: Open Books -- Over the years, O'Reilly has published a number of "Open Books"--books with various forms of open copyright. We recently adopted the Creative Commons Founders' Copyright, which we'll apply to hundreds of other titles over time. In this "Letters" column, an O'Reilly reader describes how his copy of Free as in Freedom got lost in a move, but his research work was saved when he discovered O'Reilly's Open Books Project.

Enter to Win a Free Conference Pass -- Join our mailing list to receive the latest information on all of the O'Reilly Conferences. You'll be automatically entered to win one free conference pass (good for one year). Make your plans now for this year's O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 23-26 in Portland, Oregon.