Windows Server 2003

How This Book Is Organized

The book is divided into six major parts, each of which consists of two to seven chapters. Each chapter covers a major topic and is divided into sections, which discuss some particular issue or concern related to that topic. That's how things in this book are organized, but how you read it is up to you. Choose atopic, a section, a chapter, or a part — whatever strikes your fancy or suits your needs — and start reading.

Part I: Laying the Network Foundation

Part I covers networking concepts and terminology, including the basics of networked communications and what makes networks work— usually, some magical combination of hardware and software. Look here for discussions about networking terms and concepts, such as client, server, protocol, and topology. If you're not familiar with networks, this part should come in handy. If you're already a seasoned networker, you can skip this part (and Part II).

Part II: Hooking Up the Hardware

Part II covers everything you need to know to build or extend a network or simply to understand what's really happening on an existing network. It starts with coverage of network design and layout principles, and continues with a discussion of how to install and configure NICs in a PC. After that, it examines the wiring that links network devices and talks about how multiple networks can interconnect. Part II concludes with a review of all the software components you're likely to encounter on a Windows 2003-based network and why you need them.

Part III: Servers, Start Your Engines!

Part III tackles Windows Server 2003 head on, starting with its installation and configuration. It covers the issues involved in installing and configuring network hardware specifically for Windows Server 2003. It also covers how to install and manage print servers and services on a Windows 2003-based network, how to handle Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) addresses, and how to set up and manage directory services, domains, and trust relationships in a Windows 2003-based environment. Part III is where you figure out how to put the basic pieces of a network together using Windows Server 2003.

Part IV: Running Your Network

Part IV picks up where Part III leaves off — that is, it talks about living with and managing a Windows 2003-based network after the initial installation and configuration phase is complete. It begins with a discussion of how to manage users and groups on a Windows 2003-based network, including details on profiles, policies, and local and global groups. Next, it covers how Windows 2003 controls access to NTFS files and directories, and how to manage network-accessible file system resources called shares.

After a network's users, groups, and data assets are in place, rebuilding such a setup from scratch can be a real pain. That's where a backup comes in handy, so Part IV covers the ins and outs of backing up and restoring a Windows Server 2003 machine, plus other aspects of fault tolerance. After that, a review of network security principles and practices should help to prepare you to protect your data from accidental loss and from would-be hackers and crackers.
Part V: Troubleshooting

PartV takes a long, hard look at the common causes of trouble on Windows 2003-based networks and explores those areas that are most likely to fall prey to trouble. It begins with a look at some key Windows 2003 tools for troubleshooting systems, and then continues on to explore tips, tricks, and techniques for troubleshooting a Windows 2003-based network. PartV concludes by exploring the handling of problems with Active Directory.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Part VI follows the grand tradition of For Dummies books, all of which include "The Part of Tens." Here, you'll find lists of information, tips, tricks, and suggestions, all organized into short and convenient chapters. This supplemental information is designed to be both helpful and informative and is supplied at no extra charge.
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Wiley Publishing - CCNA

Why Use This Book?

In what began as a way to ensure that its resellers could also properly support its products, Cisco Systems, Inc. developed what has become the most sought after and prestigious networking certification series available. To hold any Cisco certification indicates that you know your stuff regarding networking at a certain level. The exams developed to screen certification candidates are rigorous and downright hard. The result is that even the most knowledgeable and experienced Cisco networking professional needs at least a little help getting ready for the CCNA exam. The sole purpose of this book is to help you to shorten your preparation time for the CCNA exam.

As with all other For Dummies books, this book is a no-nonsense reference and study guide. It focuses on the areas that are likely to be on the exam, plus it provides a little background information here and there to help you understand some of the more complex concepts and technologies. This book presents the facts, concepts, processes, and applications included on the exams in step-by-step lists, tables, and figures without long explanations. The book focuses on preparing you for the CCNA exams, not on showing off our obviously extensive and impressive knowledge of networking and its related technologies (nor our modesty, I might add).

In developing this book, we made two groups of assumptions:

· You have an entry-level knowledge of networking, routers, bridges, switches, and other networking components, as well as a fundamental knowledge of electronics, computers, software, protocols, and troubleshooting procedures, and you only need a review and study guide for the exam.

· You have some experience with Cisco hardware and its integration into networking environments, but you need a refresher on the basics along with a review and study guide for the exam.

Using This Book

This book is organized so that you can study a specific area without wading through stuff you may already know. I recommend that you skim the whole book at least once, noting the points raised at the icons. For your last-minute cram before the exam, each part and chapter of the book is independent and can be studied in any order without confusing yourself.

Each chapter also includes a pre-test (Quick Assessment quiz) and post-test (Prep Test questions) to help you determine where your knowledge is weak and where you need to continue studying. The following sections tell you what we ve included between the covers of this book:

Part I: The Basics

Part I provides some general information about taking the exam, an overview of the topic areas you should study, and a primer of the terms and concepts you must know for the CCNA exam. This includes an overview of the CCNA exam, its objectives and benefits, how to arrange to take the test, and some general tips on what to study and how to get ready for the test.

Part II: The OSI Reference Model

Part II provides you with a review of the OSI Reference model and the related fundamentals and background information you should know for the exam. This includes a look at the four layers of this model that are emphasized on the test.

Part III: Routers

Part III deals with the heart of the CCNA exam routers. The exam concentrates on routers, their configuration, commands, and protocols. This may be the most important section of the book, not that the others are unimportant, but in the sense that the CCNA is actually the routing and switching exam, this part of the book represents at least half of what you should know.

Part IV: Network Protocols

Part IV has everything you need to know about the internetworking, including the infamous subnetting. Also included in this part are reviews on network (IP) addressing; the frames, protocols, and functions of TCP/IP; and security issues of the internetworked environment.

Part V: LANs and WANs

As its name implies, this part of the book covers the concepts and technologies used to organize networked resources into networks in local areas as well as wide areas. Although not obvious from the name, the use of switching systems is the focus in this part of the book. The CCNA exam focuses on routing and switching. This part covers the use of switches in a network and how they can be used to segment a LAN. The link types that can be used to create a WAN are also covered.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

This section provides additional motivation and study guides to help get you ready for the test, with advice about how to be sure that you re ready to take the test on Test Day and ten great Web sites where you can find study aids.
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The Internet Gigabook

What’s in This Book, Anyway?

This book is really six different books wrapped up in one convenient volume. It’s jam-packed with tips, advice, shortcuts, and how-to’s to help you squeeze the last drop of fun and profit from your computer. It’s a reference book. It isn’t meant to be read from start to finish. Dip into it when you need to solve a problem, investigate a new use for your computer, or find a better way to do a task. Here’s a bare outline of the six parts of this book:

♦ Book I: The Basics:

Looks into how to choose an Internet service provider, connect your computer to the Internet, handle e-mail, visit newsgroups, chat, and surf the Internet.

♦ Book II: Google:

Explains how to research by using Google, arguably the best search engine on the Internet. You discover things that you can do with Google that you likely didn’t know about, including how to cus­tomize Google and use Google as a means of finding shopping bargains.

♦ Book III: Yahoo!:

Explores how to take advantage of the numerous serv­ices that Yahoo! offers, including searching the Internet, using Yahoo! mail, shopping, chatting, playing games, doing financial research, and customizing Yahoo!.

♦ Book IV: eBay:

Describes how to buy and sell on eBay, the online auc­tion house. You can find many tips in this book for acquiring bargains and selling your own items.

♦ Book V: iTunes:

Examines iTunes, Apple’s online music store. You dis­cover how to buy music from iTunes and use the iTunes software to play music, burn CDs, and organize your music collection.

♦ Book VI: Creating Web Pages:

Helps you create a Web site with Front­Page 2003 and Dreamweaver. You also find advice here for coding with HTML and designing a Web site that will keep people coming back.

What Makes This Book Special

You’re holding in your hands a computer book that’s designed to make using the Internet as easy and comfortable as possible. Besides the fact that this book is easy to read, it’s different from other books about computers. The following sections tell you why.

Information that’s easy to look up

This book is a reference, and that means that I want you to be able to find instructions quickly. To that end, the people who have contributed to this book have taken great pains to make sure that the material in this book is well organized and easy to find. The descriptive headings help you find infor­mation quickly. The bulleted and numbered lists make following instructions simpler. The tables make options easier to understand.

A task-oriented approach

Most computer books describe what the software is, but this book explains how to complete tasks with the software. I assume that you came to this book because you want to know how to do something — build a Web site, send e-mail, conduct research on the Internet. You came to the right place. This book describes how to get tasks done.
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Visual Basic 2005

How This Book Is Organized

This book is meant to be read as a series of articles, but it can easily be used as a reference or read straight through. I recommend reading it at your com­puter, with Visual Studio running.
Each part is designed to teach you something that you need to know. The only part that I strongly suggest you read, however, is Part I, “Getting to Know .NET Using VB.” After that, you can read whatever you need to get the job done, or read the whole book all the way through — it is up to you.

Part I: Getting to Know .NET Using VB

After a quick jumpstart, I discuss the tools and concepts in this part. Chapter 1 is a Hello World introduction to the language, which experienced VB program­mers will find useful and new programmers will find vital. Chapter 2 is a tour of the development tool you will be using, Visual Studio 2005.

Chapter 3 is arguably the most important chapter in the book. It is about designing good software with Visual Basic. You may want to read that one twice. I wanted to print it twice, but the publisher wouldn’t let me.

Part II: Building Applications with VB 2005

This part gets you started programming; you’ll find one chapter here for each of the four most used project types (Windows and Web Forms, DLL files, and XML Web services), and then a chapter discussing how to debug all of them.

Part III: Making Your Programs Work

This part is actually about Visual Basic, the language. You see, the projects discussed in Part II are actually available to lots of languages. You can write a Windows Forms project in Java (Microsoft calls it J#) if you want to. The actual VB language doesn’t kick in until you write a program that needs more than the visual design.

Part IV: Digging into the Framework

Finally, in Part IV, you look at the last part of the puzzle — what the .NET Framework can do for you. Tons of tools that are built right in to the frame­work are available to all languages, but have a special twist when used with Visual Basic.

I begin with the important stuff, specifically security. Then I cover data, files, networks, and drawing. Throughout all these chapters, I provide code exam­ples that will help you through the tougher problems that you may encounter in your VB career.

Part V: The Part of Tens

Some things fit nowhere. That’s what the Part of Tens is for — in this part, I collected the most useful tips that didn’t fit elsewhere and made them into top ten lists.
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The Everyday Internet All-in-One Desk Reference

What’s in This Book, Anyway?

You are invited to dip into this book wherever you please or consult the Table of Contents or Index to find a topic that interests you. Either way, you will discover things about the Internet that you didn’t know. This book was written in the spirit of the Internet itself. It is meant to be an adventure for the people who read it. Here is a bare outline of what you’ll find in this book.

Book I: Getting Started

Book I is meant to help you get going on the Internet.

In case you’re curious about the technical aspects of the Internet, Chapter 1 explains in layman’s terms how the Internet works, what an IP address is, how to read a Web-page address, and what goes on behind the scenes when you open a Web page. In Chapter 2, you find out how to select an Internet service provider and what the different modems are, and in Chapter 3, you get instructions for connecting your computer to the Internet.

Chapter 4 looks at a subject that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days: how to protect your privacy and security while you’re on the Internet. It explains how to protect your computer from viruses and spyware, what a firewall is, how to update Windows XP, and how to keep yourself from being a victim of identity theft. Chapter 5 detours into America Online and explains to AOL subscribers how to use that program on the Internet. Chapter 6 explains how to use plug-ins — companion programs such as Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, and Windows Media Player — that you need to make the most out of the Internet experience. In Chapter 7, I tell you how to make exploring the Internet a safe and rewarding experience for children. This chapter describes many Web sites for children, as well as Web sites for moms and dads looking for advice about parenting.

Book II: Exploring the Internet

Book II shows you how to use a Web browser and how to be an Internet researcher, or better yet, an Internet detective. It explains how you can reach into all corners of the Internet to find the information you need.

Chapter 1 describes the basics of browsing, how to bookmark Web sites so that you can revisit them, and how to engage in “social bookmarking” (shar­ing bookmarks with others). Chapter 2 explains how to customize the Internet Explorer browser as well as another browser, Mozilla, which I strongly suggest you check out.

Chapter 3 is the first of three chapters that explain how to conduct research over the Internet. It explains how search engines work and compares differ­ent search engines, their strengths, and their weaknesses. It also advises you on choosing a search engine and explains how to craft a thorough but pene­trating search of the Internet. Chapter 4 looks at some specialty search engines designed for searching different areas of the Internet. It also explains how to search for images, audio, and video and tells you how to get help on the Internet from other researchers — you know, the human kind. In Chapter 5, I point you to online encyclopedias and other references and show you how to look up people, addresses, and telephone numbers on the Internet.

Chapter 6 examines how to get the latest news, where the online newspapers are, and how to get the news from abroad. It introduces an exciting new technology for staying on the top of the news — aggregators, which are soft­ware programs that gather news from different sources, including blogs, in one place so that you have all your favorite news sources at your fingertips.

Book III: E-Mailing

Book III explains more than a mere mortal needs to know about e-mailing, as well as how to protect yourself against spam, the junk e-mail that infests so many mailboxes.

Chapter 1 compares the merits of software and Web-based e-mail programs. It looks behind the scenes at how e-mailing works and tells you how to compress files to make sending them easier. Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respec­tively, describe how to handle e-mail with Outlook 2003, Outlook Express, and Yahoo! Mail. Not only do you find out how to send and receive e-mail and files, but you also discover how to organize e-mail so that you can always find the message you are looking for. To keep your inbox from getting too crowded, I show you how to send e-mail straight to different folders as soon as it arrives.

Chapter 5 explains strategies for stopping spam once and for all. It looks at how spammers get e-mail addresses, the preventative measures you can take against spam, and antispam software.

Book IV: Quick Communicating

Book IV examines all the different ways that you can communicate quickly with friends and strangers on the Internet.

Chapter 1 delves into AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and ICQ. It explains how to use these programs and maintain your privacy at the same time. Chapter 2 explains what blogs are, what makes for a good blog, and how to create a blog of your own. In Chapter 3, I look at two ways to exercise your ideas and obsessions on the Internet — mailing lists and message boards.

Chapter 4 looks at a much-neglected tool for researchers. It explains how to conduct research in newsgroups and subscribe to newsgroups with Outlook Express. Chapter 5 delves into the easiest way to connect and manage a group of likeminded people on the Internet — create a Yahoo! group. In Chapter 6, I explain how to chat on the IRC with people all around the world and how to create your own chat room.

Chapter 7 explains how you, too, can be a Web-site developer, and how you can do it on the cheap with online Web-site-creation tools. You also find out how to submit your Web site to search engines and make it more likely to appear in Internet searches. Chapter 8 explores the new online phenomenon of social networking. It describes Meetup.com, Upcoming.org, and other Web sites and services where you can make new friends and reunite with old ones.
Chapter 9 looks at what I think is the best deal on the Internet — free tele­phone calling anywhere in the world with Skype.

Book V: Your Personal Finances

Book V is all about improving your personal finances and making the bank­ing chores go more smoothly. Chapter 1 explains how to research different types of investments, get the latest financial news, and choose a broker. In Chapter 2, I describe how to maintain an online investment portfolio and be able to tell minute by minute how well or poorly your investments are doing. Chapter 3 looks at online banking — getting checking account balances online, paying bills online, and shopping for credit cards online.

Book VI: Bargain Shopping

Book VI is devoted to the idea that if you want it, you can find it on the Internet at a good price. For that matter, if you want it but can’t afford it, you can at least find it on the Internet and dream about purchasing it one of these days.

Chapter 1 points you to some shopping search engines and Web sites that specialize in comparison shopping, as well as online catalogs, stores for bar­gain hunters, and consumer-report Web sites. In Chapter 2, I briefly take you to some online auction houses, and then you go to the granddaddy of auc­tion houses, eBay, where you discover how to search for, bid on, and buy items. Chapter 3 looks into using PayPal, an excellent service for paying for items you purchased over the Internet. Finally, Chapter 4 presents a huge shopping bazaar of Web sites that sell items online. The Web sites are cate­gorized so that you can find stores that interest you.

Book VII: Selling on the Internet

Book VII looks at how you can be the first on your block to be an online seller.

Chapter 1 explains everything you need to know to sell items successfully on eBay. It shows how to price items, make them attractive to buyers, manage an online auction, and close out a sale. Chapter 2 offers guidance for people who are thinking of selling items or services on the Internet. It explores how to find a market and set up an online store. Chapter 3 is a hands-on chapter with advice for packing the items you sold and buying postal services over the Internet.

Book VIII: Hobbies and Pastimes

Book VIII explains how to pursue different hobbies and exercise different pastimes on the Internet. I’m warning you: Some of the Web sites listed in Book VIII are addicting.

Chapter 1 is for people who like to play games — online video games, card games, and arcade-style games. You discover fantasy sports Web sites, as well as some unusual games begat by the Internet, such as the Geocaching. Chapter 2 is for travelers, armchair travelers, and adventurers of all stripes and varieties. It looks at how to plan a vacation and book airline tickets, hotels, and rental cars. You also find out where to go on the Internet to get travel advice.
Chapter 4 describes how to turn your lowly computer into an entertainment console. You find out how to view Internet movies, rent a DVD online, get your local television listings, play Internet radio, and find a book online. In Chapter 5, the focus is on music. You discover some Web sites for music lovers, look at online music stores, and survey services for sharing music files with others over the Internet. Chapter 6 takes you on a tour of iTunes, as you find out how to buy music from this online store, play and organize your music with iTunes software, and burn CDs. Chapter 6 shows amateur genealogists some of the many different Web sites and services they can use to search for their ancestors online.

Appendixes

Just when you thought you’d had enough torture, I tacked on three appen­dices and a glossary to the end of this book.
Appendix A explains how to register with and sign in to Yahoo! so that you can take advantage of Yahoo!’s many online services. Appendix B describes how to get a .NET passport so that you can play games online at the MSN Game Zone or open a Hotmail account. Appendix C explains how to sign up for a Google account.
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SUSE Linux 9.3

About This Book

SUSE Linux 9.3 For Dummies is a beginner’s guide for the upcoming SUSE Linux distribution. The approach to the subject matter and the writing style is that of the successful For Dummies series. The focus is on introducing you to the SUSE Linux desktop with all the GUI tools, including the office pro­ductivity suite (OpenOffice.org) and multimedia applications (audio player, digital camera, CD burning, image editing, and so on). I include a chapter on connecting to the Internet using cable/DSL modems and setting up a basic home network because these have become necessities for anyone who has more than one PC and, especially, for those who plan to run SUSE Linux on a PC. I also include a part that introduces the basics of routine system adminis­tration, how to add and update software, and how to tighten up the system’s security.


Here are some of the things that this book shows you how to do:

* Install and configure SUSE Linux from the DVD-ROM included with the book.
* Connect the SUSE Linux system to the Internet through a DSL or cable modem.
* Set up dialup networking.
* Add a wireless Ethernet to your existing network.
* Get tips, techniques, and shortcuts for various uses of SUSE Linux, such as
• Using the OpenOffice.org office suite
• Browsing the Linux file system
• Using Linux commands
• Using multimedia applications
* Understand the basics of system and network security. w* Perform system administration tasks.

How This Book Is Organized

SUSE Linux 9.3 For Dummies contains 23 chapters organized into five parts. The book’s organization is that of a typical For Dummies title that covers an operating system such as SUSE Linux where the reader is expected to install the software and then learn to use it. The five parts cover installation and setup, test driving the system to learn the ropes, using the system to do productive work, learning to be a budding system administrator, and the mandatory “Part of Tens.” Here’s a quick overview of the five parts and the appendix:

* Part I: Getting to Know SUSE introduces the reader to SUSE Linux, pro­vides step-by-step installation instructions, and explains what happens when you start the system for the first time.

* Part II: Test Driving SUSE is about getting started with SUSE Linux — how to use the desktop and the file manager, how to connect to the Internet (and set up a home network), and figuring out what else is there to play with.

* Part III: Doing Stuff with SUSE turns to doing day-to-day things with the SUSE Linux system such as browsing the Web, reading e-mail and news­groups, using the OpenOffice.org office suite and some multimedia appli­cations, and, finally, working with the command line shell.
* Part IV: Becoming a SUSE Wizard includes chapters on the basic system administration and security. In particular, Part IV explains how to add new software and keep the SUSE system up to date with the YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) installation/configuration tool and YaST Online Update (YOU).

* Part V: The Part of Tens is the standard Part of Tens with chapters that present ten frequently asked questions about SUSE, ten best things about SUSE, ten great SUSE-related Web sites, and ten most commonly used SUSE Linux commands.

SUSE Linux 9.3

About This Book

SUSE Linux 9.3 For Dummies is a beginner’s guide for the upcoming SUSE Linux distribution. The approach to the subject matter and the writing style is that of the successful For Dummies series. The focus is on introducing you to the SUSE Linux desktop with all the GUI tools, including the office pro­ductivity suite (OpenOffice.org) and multimedia applications (audio player, digital camera, CD burning, image editing, and so on). I include a chapter on connecting to the Internet using cable/DSL modems and setting up a basic home network because these have become necessities for anyone who has more than one PC and, especially, for those who plan to run SUSE Linux on a PC. I also include a part that introduces the basics of routine system adminis­tration, how to add and update software, and how to tighten up the system’s security.

Here are some of the things that this book shows you how to do:

* Install and configure SUSE Linux from the DVD-ROM included with the book.
* Connect the SUSE Linux system to the Internet through a DSL or cable modem.
* Set up dialup networking.
* Add a wireless Ethernet to your existing network.
* Get tips, techniques, and shortcuts for various uses of SUSE Linux, such as
• Using the OpenOffice.org office suite
• Browsing the Linux file system
• Using Linux commands
• Using multimedia applications
* Understand the basics of system and network security. w* Perform system administration tasks.

How This Book Is Organized

SUSE Linux 9.3 For Dummies contains 23 chapters organized into five parts. The book’s organization is that of a typical For Dummies title that covers an operating system such as SUSE Linux where the reader is expected to install the software and then learn to use it. The five parts cover installation and setup, test driving the system to learn the ropes, using the system to do productive work, learning to be a budding system administrator, and the mandatory “Part of Tens.” Here’s a quick overview of the five parts and the appendix:

* Part I: Getting to Know SUSE introduces the reader to SUSE Linux, pro­vides step-by-step installation instructions, and explains what happens when you start the system for the first time.

* Part II: Test Driving SUSE is about getting started with SUSE Linux — how to use the desktop and the file manager, how to connect to the Internet (and set up a home network), and figuring out what else is there to play with.

* Part III: Doing Stuff with SUSE turns to doing day-to-day things with the SUSE Linux system such as browsing the Web, reading e-mail and news­groups, using the OpenOffice.org office suite and some multimedia appli­cations, and, finally, working with the command line shell.
* Part IV: Becoming a SUSE Wizard includes chapters on the basic system administration and security. In particular, Part IV explains how to add new software and keep the SUSE system up to date with the YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) installation/configuration tool and YaST Online Update (YOU).

* Part V: The Part of Tens is the standard Part of Tens with chapters that present ten frequently asked questions about SUSE, ten best things about SUSE, ten great SUSE-related Web sites, and ten most commonly used SUSE Linux commands.

Starting an Online Business

Where This Book Is Coming From

Online business isn’t just for large corporations, or even just for small busi­nesses that already have a storefront in the real world and simply want to supplement their marketability with a Web site.

The Internet is a perfect venue for individuals who want to start their own business, who like using computers, and who believe that cyberspace is the place to do it. You don’t need much money to get started, after all. If you already have a computer and an Internet connection and can create your own Web pages (which this book will help you with), making the move to your own business Web site may cost only $100 or less. After you’re online, the overhead is pretty reasonable, too: You may pay only $10 to $75 per month to a Web hosting service to keep your site online.

With each month that goes by, the number of Internet users increases exponen­tially. To be precise, in early 2004 Neilsen//NetRatings released data indicating that more than 74 percent of the U.S. population had access to the Internet at home. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that 39 percent of adults who surf the Internet do so with a broadband connection. We have now reached that critical mass where most people are using the Internet regularly for everyday shopping and other financial activities. The Internet is already becoming a powerhouse for small businesses.

So why wait to fall behind your competition? The goal of this book is to help you open your fledgling business on the Internet now. Let this book guide you through the following steps:

* Preparing a business plan, defining your target market, and setting goals
* Purchasing the hardware and software you need to run your business
* Making your Web pages content rich and interactive
* Reaching your customers through multiple marketplaces such as eBay, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, and your own Web site Marketing to customers around the world
* Creating a secure environment for shopping and receiving payments online
* Keeping your business records and observing legal requirements

What’s Where in This Book

This book is divided into six parts. Each part contains chapters that discuss stages in the process of starting an online business. There’s also an Internet Directory that you can access through this book’s Web site; it presents an up-to-date list of resources that are essential for any online businessperson.

Part I: Strategies and Tools for Your Online Business

In Part I, I describe what you need to do and how you need to think in order to start your new online business. The first chapter follows the story about how a business started by a graphic artist-turned mapmaker has grown into an Internet success story. Subsequent chapters also present case studies profiling other entrepreneurs and describing how they started their online businesses. Within these pages is where I also describe the software that you need in order to create Web pages and perform essential business tasks, along with any computer upgrades that will help your business run more smoothly. You also discover how to choose a Web host and find exciting new ways to make money online.

Part II: Establishing Your Online Presence

Even if you use an online service that isn’t technically part of the Web, such as America Online, you need to create a Web site — a series of interconnected Web pages that everyone in cyberspace can view with a Web browser. As far as online business is concerned, the Web is where it’s at. This part explains how to create a compelling and irresistible Web site, one that attracts paying customers around the world and keeps them coming back to make more pur­chases. This part also includes options for attracting and keeping customers, making your site secure, and updating and improving your online business.

Part III: Successful Online Business Models

Some of the most exciting new aspects of starting a business online are ways to generate sales revenue that don’t involve setting up your own Web site from scratch. Instead of going it alone, you sign up with one of the many well-established business marketplaces on the Web that enables individuals just like you to create storefronts or sell individual items. You find out about cre­ating storefronts on Amazon.com, Yahoo!, PayPal, and CafePress.com, among other venues. You also discover the ins and outs of starting a business on eBay, a marketplace that has changed lives and is quickly changing the landscape of online business.
Part IV: Running and Promoting Your Online Business

Your work doesn’t end after you put your Web site online or start to make a few sales. In fact, what you do after you open your cyberdoors for business can make the difference between a site that says “Wow!” and one that says “Ho-hum.” In this part, I describe cost-effective marketing and advertising techniques that you can do yourself to increase visibility and improve cus­tomer satisfaction. You discover how to make the shopping experience a smooth one for your customers, how to accept payments, and how to pro­vide good customer service. You also find out about new ways to increase visibility with search services such as Google.

Part V: The Necessary Evils: Law and Accounting

This part delves into some less-than-sexy but essential activities for any online business. Find out about general security methods designed to make commerce more secure on the Internet. I also discuss copyrights, trademarks, and other legal concerns for anyone wanting to start a company in the increasingly competitive atmosphere of the Internet. Finally, you get an overview of basic accounting practices for online businesses and suggestions of accounting tools that you can use to keep track of your e-commerce activities.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Filled with tips, cautions, suggestions, and examples, the Part of Tens pre­sents many tidbits of information that you can use to plan and create your own business presence on the Internet, including ten hot new ways to make money on the Web.
An Online Feature: The Starting an Online Business For Dummies Internet Directory

If you’re running your online business in your off hours or between other activities, you don’t have time to scour the Web for help. Not to fear: You can find everything you need in this directory. It’s a collection of links to Web sites and other Internet resources of special interest to individuals starting an online business — especially if you’re working alone or at home and need to find people to help you. Access it at www.dummies.com/go/onlinebusinessfd. (On the Web site you’ll also find Bonus Chapter 1, which details ten ways of ensuring online success.)
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SQL 5th Edition

Who Should Read This Book?

If you need to store or retrieve data from a DBMS, you can do a much better job with a working knowledge of SQL. You don’t need to be a programmer to use SQL, and you don’t need to know programming languages, such as COBOL, C, or BASIC. SQL’s syntax is like English.

If you are a programmer, you can incorporate SQL into your programs. SQL adds powerful data manipulation and retrieval capability to conventional lan-guages. This book tells you what you need to know to use SQL’s rich assort-ment of tools and features inside your programs.

How This Book Is Organized

This book contains eight major parts. Each part contains several chapters. You may want to read this book from cover to cover once, although you don’t have to. After that, this book becomes a handy reference guide. You can turn to whatever section is appropriate to answer your questions.

Part I: Basic Concepts

Part I introduces the concept of a database and distinguishes relational data-bases from other types. It describes the most popular database architec-tures, as well as the major components of SQL.

Part II: Using SQL to Build Databases

You don’t need SQL to build a database. This part shows how to build a data-base by using Microsoft Access, and then you get to build the same database by using SQL. In addition to defining database tables, this part covers other important database features: domains, character sets, collations, transla-tions, keys, and indexes.

Throughout this part, I emphasize protecting your database from corruption, which is a bad thing that can happen in many ways. SQL gives you the tools to prevent corruption, but you must use them properly to prevent problems caused by bad database design, harmful interactions, operator error, and equipment failure.

Part III: Retrieving Data

After you have some data in your database, you want to do things with it: Add to the data, change it, or delete it. Ultimately, you want to retrieve useful information from the database. SQL tools enable you to do all this. These tools give you low-level, detailed control over your data.

Part IV: Controlling Operations

A big part of database management is protecting the data from harm, which can come in many shapes and forms. People may accidentally or intention-ally put bad data into database tables, for example. You can protect yourself by controlling who can access your database and what they can do. Another threat to data comes from unintended interaction of concurrent users’ opera-tions. SQL provides powerful tools to prevent this too. SQL provides much of the protection automatically, but you need to understand how the protection mechanisms work so you get all the protection you need.

Part V: SQL in the Real World

SQL is different from most other computer languages in that it operates on a whole set of data items at once, rather than dealing with them one at a time. This difference in operational modes makes combining SQL with other lan-guages a challenge, but you can face it by using the information in this book. You can exchange information with nondatabase applications by using XML. I also describe in depth how to use SQL to transfer data across the Internet or an intranet.

Part VI: Advanced Topics

In this part, you discover how to include set-oriented SQL statements in your programs and how to get SQL to deal with data one item at a time. This part also covers error handling. SQL provides you with a lot of informa-tion whenever something goes wrong in the execution of an SQL statement, and you find out how to retrieve and interpret that information.

Part VII: The Part of Tens

This section provides some important tips on what to do, and what not to do, in designing, building, and using a database.

Part VIII: Appendixes

Appendix A lists all of SQL:2003’s reserved words. These are words that have a very specific meaning in SQL and cannot be used for table names, column names, or anything other than their intended meaning. Appendix B gives you a basic glossary on some frequently used terms.
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Sony CLIÉ

What’s in This Book

CLIÉ For Dummies is organized in seven parts, and each part is further divided into chapters that are related to the part’s theme. And of course, the handy section headers (like the one a few lines up from this sentence) quickly lead you to specific topics.

Part I: Getting to Know Your CLIÉ

Part I starts with the absolute basics, the stuff that too many manuals assume you somehow learned by osmosis the first time you picked up your CLIÉ. To get you jazzed up to find out more, I start with a brief overview of all the amazingly cool things that the CLIÉ can do for you. Next, you discover how to interact with your CLIÉ and why it doesn’t automatically understand your handwriting. Part I wraps up with a look at how your CLIÉ and your desktop system work together and how you can install all sorts of slick add-on programs.

Part II: Getting Organized

Part II covers the applications that PDAs are best known for: the personal organizer programs. You find out how to enter and manage your Address Book, create appointments, wrangle your To Do list, and get rid of all the yellow sticky notes cluttering your desk. After that, you’ll have all sorts of extra free time, right? Not after you see the fun that I have in store for you in Part III.

Part III: Multimedia and Entertainment

Part III is where things get fun and creative. I show you how to manage your photos on your CLIÉ — and how to shoot new ones with the built-in camera. The fun doesn’t stop with stills, as you find out after you discover how to convert and watch movies on your CLIÉ. If your CLIÉ’s equipped to play music, Part III is the place to go to find the full scoop on music players and how to transfer tunes to a Memory Stick. The real fun begins with a look at the best CLIÉ games, and I wrap up on a literary note with eBooks and audiobooks.

Part IV: An Office in Your Pocket

Part IV is where you discover how you can often leave the laptop at home but still have full access to your Word documents and Excel spreadsheets — and even plug in an adapter that lets you do PowerPoint presentations right from your CLIÉ. You work step by step through the office suite that was probably bundled with your CLIÉ, and I explore the best third-party office add-ons.

Part V: Reaching Outside the CLIÉ Box

Part V shows you how to enhance your CLIÉ and connect it to the outside world. You find out about the various types of Memory Sticks, why you want one, and how you can use one to manage your files. You see the various ways that you can connect to the Internet with a variety of wireless technologies and then take a look at how to take advantage of your CLIÉ’s online software. After you expand your CLIÉ and teach it how to talk to the outside world, I show you what else you need to make it the only computing device that you need when you hit the road.

Part VI: Securing and Protecting Your CLIÉ

Part VI delves into how to protect your CLIÉ’s data from prying eyes — and from dead batteries and system crashes. After spending a good portion of the book convincing you that you can pretty much organize your life, manage your business, and centralize your entertainment on your CLIÉ, I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t show you how to protect this now-vital tool. You find out about file encryption, data backups, emergency power sources, and how to protect your CLIÉ from physical damage.

Part VII: The Part of Tens

Part VII focuses on some useful Top Ten lists. You find out about the very best add-on programs, the best Web sites, and the must-have hardware accessories. And you find solutions to ten of the most vexing problems a CLIÉ owner can encounter, and maybe an Easter egg or two to wrap things up.
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RFID for Dummies

Who This Book Is For

Whether you are just curious, scared, worried, or simply mad at the prospect of implementing yet another new technology — even if you know nothing about RFID — RFID For Dummies is here to help. And, unlike a similar promise by the IRS, this book really will help. You find out what RFID is, what it does, and how it works. I guide you through the concepts and ideas in plain English, walk you through the basics of RFID from a business perspective, and specu­late on where this technology is headed (although I do, from time to time,

About This Book

This is a book that is on a mission to take the confusion out of RFID. RFID is based on well-known laws of physics. It’s easy to understand how things work after you get your arms around those basics. The better news is that the technology works really well if you know what you’re doing. So without sending you to MIT for a couple of years of RF engineering school, this book explains everything you need to know to start setting up and deploying your own RFID network — what more could you ask for? provide sufficient Geek Speak for the engineers and systems guys who, no doubt reluctantly, bought this book in an attempt to actually understand the mechanics of Radio Frequency Identification).

If you know the basics about running a laptop or PC and know what an IP address is, you are armed with just about all you need to know to initially set up an RFID network. If you have any background in physics and understand some things from an electronics perspective, you’ve got a running start. I assume that you come from a supply chain or warehouse background and might not have a detailed IT background.

How This Book Is Organized

RFID For Dummies is broken into six different parts. If you are new to the technology, it is helpful to read the parts in sequential order. If you have a physics or RF background and you want to get into the nuts and bolts of the technology, skip right to Part II and then move on to Part III. If you are trying to justify the RFID project, you may want to go right to Part V, which addresses some of the business concerns around strategic planning and ROI. You can read all the technical chapters in Parts II and III by themselves and use them for reference, as well as the last part, the Part of Tens. Here’s a quick rundown of what you’ll find in each part.

Part I: Now That You Can Spell RFID, Here’s the Rest of the Story

This part introduces the basics of RFID. In Chapter 1, you find an overview of the technology, what advantages are driving the mandates, and a blueprint for implementing RFID, which I call the four Ps. In Chapter 2, I explain how RFID fits into the world of Auto-ID technology and explain some of the basics about the protocols that make it work. Chapter 3 helps you start assessing the impact RFID will have on your business and helps you make some basic decisions about how you’ll use RFID.

Part II: Ride the Electromagnetic Wave: The Physics of RFID

In this part, I peel away the layers of RFID to uncover the underlying science of RFID. This part gives you the physics knowledge you need in order to design your network for optimal performance and make wise purchases. In Chapter 4, you can find an overview of how the physics of RFID systems work. Chap­ter 5 digs a little deeper by delving it parts inside each of the key components of a system. Whereas Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the invisible realm of electro­magnetic waves, Chapter 6 is focused squarely in warehouse or marketplace, covering common setups of RFID systems and case studies so that you can learn from early adopters.

Part III: Fitting an RFID Application into Your World

This part is your key to designing an RFID network specifically for your envi­ronment and needs. In Chapter 7, I walk you through the process of testing for electromagnetic noise in your warehouse or building using a spectrum analyzer. Chapter 8 helps you set up a lab (or find one you can use) so that you test for the right tag (Chapter 9) and tag reader (Chapter 10). And last but not least, Chapter 11 helps you wend your way through maze of middle­ware (the software the connects the RFID network) by explaining what fea­tures to look for and how to fit middleware into your network architecture.

Part IV: Raising the Beams for Your Network

This part walks you through the process of actually implementing your care­fully planned-out RFID network. Chapter 12 explains a few project management tools that will keep your trial run and follow-up network designs on schedule. Chapter 13 covers the process of setting up the hardware in the warehouse, or other real-world setting (as opposed to a lab), and how to train your employees to use the new system. And Chapter 14 explains now to set up monitoring systems for both operators and system administrators, so that your system keeps running strong, and thus helps your bottom line.

Part V: How to Speak Bean Counter

Deploying an RFID system is a big project, and the bottom line needs to drive your implementation. This part walks you through the key RFID-related busi­ness decisions you need to make. In Chapter 15, I explain who in your organiza­tion needs to be involved in these decisions and walk you through a nine-step process for building and presenting a business case study. In Chapter 16, I explain strategic benefits you need to include in the business case in more detail, including how to calculate return on investment, or ROI, for all the money you’re about to spend on RFID hardware and software. Chapter 17 is your guide to outsourcing: I explain how you decide whether to outsource, what to look for in an outsourcing partner, and how to seal the deal.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

No For Dummies book is complete without a Part of Tens. The four chapters in this part offer (more or less) ten equipment vendors to assess, ten of the best RFID-related Web sites, ten tips from RFID experts who are part of that rare fraternity that has actually done real-world deployments and lived to tell about it, and ten standards and protocols for RFID that you may want to investigate.

In the back of this book, you can also find a glossary of electrical, magnetic, and scientific terms. So if, in your RFID reading, you come across terminology that leaves you baffled, you can use this glossary as a handy resource.
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Red Hat Fedora Linux 2 All-in-One Desk Reference

About This Book

Red Hat Fedora Linux 2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies gives you nine different quick-reference guides in a single book. Taken together, these nine books provide detailed information on installing, configuring, and using Fedora Core.

What you’ll like most about this book is that you don’t have to read it sequentially chapter by chapter, or, for that matter, even the sections in a chapter. You can pretty much turn to the topic you want and quickly get the answer to your pressing questions about Fedora Core, be it about using the OpenOffice.org word processor or setting up the Apache Web server.

How This Book Is Organized

Red Hat Fedora Linux 2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies has nine books, each of which focuses on a small set of related topics. If you are looking for information on a specific topic, check the book names on the spine or con-sult the Table of Contents.

This desk reference starts with a minibook that explains the basics of Fedora Core and guides you through the installation process (a unique aspect of this book because you typically do not purchase a PC with Fedora Core pre-installed). The second minibook serves as a user’s guide to Fedora Core — it focuses on exploring various aspects of a Fedora Core workstation, including the GNOME and KDE GUIs and many of the applications that come bundled with Fedora Core. The third minibook is a user’s guide to the OpenOffice.org office applications. The fourth minibook covers networking and Book V goes into using the Internet. Book VI introduces system administration. The sev-enth minibook turns to the important subject of securing a Fedora Core system and its associated network. Book VIII shows you how to run a vari-ety of Internet servers from mail to a Web server. The ninth and final mini-book introduces you to programming.

Here’s a quick overview of the nine books and what they contain:

Book I: Fedora Basics:

What is Fedora Core? Understanding what’s new in the Linux 2.6 kernel. Installing, configuring, and troubleshooting Fedora Core. Taking Fedora Core for a test drive.
Book II: Workstations and Applications: Exploring GNOME and KDE. Using the shell (what’s a shell anyway?). Navigating the Fedora Core file system. Exploring the applications such as multimedia software as well as the text editors (vi and ed).

Book III: OpenOffice.org:

Writing with OpenOffice.org Writer. Preparing spreadsheets with OpenOffice.org Calc. Making presentations with OpenOffice.org Impress. Preparing drawings with OpenOffice.org Draw.

Book IV: Networking:

Connecting the Fedora Core PC to the Internet through a dial-up connection or a high-speed always-on connection such as DSL or cable modem. Configuring and managing TCP/IP networks, including wire-less networks.

Book V: Internet:

Using various Internet services such as e-mail, Web surf-ing, and reading newsgroups. Transferring files with FTP.

Book VI: Administration:

Performing basic system administration. Managing user accounts and the file system. Installing applications. Working with devices and printers. Using USB devices. Upgrading and customizing the Linux kernel.

Book VII: Security:

Understanding network and host security. Securing the host and the network. Performing security audits.

Book VIII: Internet Servers:

Managing the Internet services. Configuring the Apache Web server. Setting up the FTP server (including anonymous FTP). Configuring the mail and news servers. Providing DNS. File sharing with NFS. Using Samba to set up a Windows server.


Book IX: Programming:

Finding out the basics of programming. Exploring the software development tools in Fedora Core. Writing shell scripts. Learning C and Perl programming.

Appendix: About the DVD: Summarizes the contents of the book’s compan-ion DVD-ROM.
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Quicken All-In-One Desk Reference

About This Book

The Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is a reference book, not meant to be read in any particular order. Just as you would pick up a gar¬dening book and look to the Table of Contents and the Index for the particu¬lar flowers or shrubs about which you want to know more, I envision you picking up this book and seeking a path to the financial topics you want to study.

You’ll notice that, unlike many other Quicken books on the market, this book does not refer to a specific version of the Quicken program. Although I’ve used the most up-to-date version of the program for my illustrations and examples, I’ve tried to make the book all-encompassing and useful to owners of any version of Quicken. After all, the rules for basic data entry in Quicken programs over the years have changed very little. I’ve tried to encompass that continuity and produce a book that can be read by more than the small group who happened to purchase the current model.

When it comes to finding your way around, I hope you’ll refer to the Table of Contents and the Index extensively, as they have been constructed with logic and significance in mind. They should lead you directly to the parts of the book that provide you with the information you need.
I strived to avoid redundancy in this book, and yet there are certainly times when one topic requires material from another topic to make an explanation understandable. In these cases, I included cross-references to other parts of the book where you can flip to if you want related or, in some cases, more in-depth information.

How This Book Is Organized

The Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is a compendium of eight separate books, each covering a completely different aspect of Quicken and personal finances. The minibooks all get along together and freely talk about each other behind their respective backs, but you might find that some books are more to your liking than others, and nobody’s going to mind if that hap¬pens. Here’s a rundown of what you can expect in each of the books.

Book I: Personal Finance Basics

I take back everything I said about your needing to have Quicken. You don’t even need Quicken for Book I: This is all about finances and nothing about computers. The idea behind Book I is to get you up to speed on a variety of basic areas of personal finance — areas that can then be translated into Quicken in later books. This personal finance minibook provides you with essential information about earning and spending your money, borrowing money, improving your credit score, budgeting, shopping for insurance, and saving for college and retirement.

Book II: Quicken Basics

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never used Quicken before. Book II provides all the basic how-to information necessary for setting up your finances in Quicken and learning the ropes. You discover how to install Quicken, set up your bank accounts, enter transactions, and reconcile your bank account. You also find out about the world of online banking and how to get your own accounts set up for online services, if that interests you.

Book III: Investments

One of the main reasons people purchase Quicken software is to track their investments. In Book III, you see how to do just this. You can enter all of your investment holdings in Quicken, monitor the performance of your invest¬ments, and even use Quicken to keep an eye on investments you’re consider¬ing for future purchases.

Book IV: Household Finances

Discover how you can use Quicken to help keep your debt to a minimum, stay on top of your credit card spending, reconcile your credit card accounts, save money on your mortgage, and keep track of your personal belongings for insurance purposes. Find out about Quicken’s online bill pay¬ment services, and see how you can create a budget that really works.

Book V: Taxes

You’re going to love owning Quicken when it comes time to prepare your tax return. Book V shows you how to enter information in Quicken that can be readily transferable to your tax return. No more burning the midnight oil in mid-April. Your tax return can be completed in January if you take advantage of the tax features offered in Quicken. See how to produce reports that pro¬vide the information you need for your tax return, and, if you like, find out how you can transfer your Quicken data right over to TurboTax to produce your tax return right on your own computer. Tax-planning tips round out this book that is all about individual income taxes.

Book VI: Retirement Planning and Other Saving

In Book VI, you see how to monitor your retirement saving in Quicken and receive some basic planning tools to help determine how much money you need for retirement, and how long it’s going to take you to acquire that money. You also get familiar with the rules for withdrawing money from your tax-deferred retirement accounts and find out about receiving Social Security benefits and other joys of retirement. Book VI also presents infor¬mation about saving for college, including 529 plans and other long-term savings opportunities.

Book VII: Quicken Reports

One of the primary reasons for using Quicken is to assemble all of your financial information in such a way that it can be easily accessed. When you produce reports in Quicken, you provide the tools for real financial planning and analysis. Find out about the standard reports that come with Quicken and how those reports can be useful to you. Then discover how you can cus¬tomize Quicken’s reports so that you get the exact information you need to make informed decisions about your finances.

Book VIII: Small Business Finances

Quicken is the first choice of many small businesses when it comes to track¬ing business finances. You can create customer invoices in Quicken, prepare estimates and track individual job performance, record and track accounts receivable and accounts payable, generate a payroll for your employees, record fixed assets, and produce reports that show you how your business is doing.

Appendixes

These tips and tools really relate to all of your Quicken use, so I decided to create a series of appendixes on the Web for this information. The Web site for Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, which is located at www.dummies.com/go/quickenaio, includes the following appendixes:

♦ Backing Up Data: Find out how to back up data on-site and off-site, and about online storage of your backed-up data files.
♦ Aggravating Things About Quicken: I love the program, but that doesn’t mean Quicken is perfect. Here are a few of my pet peeves, and an opportunity for you to submit your own.
♦ Resources for Personal Finance: The Internet is full of outstanding resources for personal financial information. Here are a few noteworthy and useful sites.
♦ Getting Help with Quicken: If you’re looking for answers to sticky questions, and can’t find them here, try the variety of support sources offered by Intuit, the folks who brought you Quicken.
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QuickBooks 2006

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into five mostly coherent parts.

Part I: Quickly into QuickBooks

Part I covers some upfront tasks that you need to take care of before you can start using QuickBooks. I promise I don’t waste your time here. I just want to make sure that you get off on the right foot.

Part II: Daily Entry Tasks

The second part of this book explains how you use QuickBooks for your daily financial record keeping: preparing customer invoices, recording sales, and paying bills — that kind of stuff.
Just so that you know, you’ll be amazed at how much easier QuickBooks will make your life. QuickBooks is a really cool program.

Part III: Stuff You Do from Time to Time

Part III talks about the kinds of things that you should do at the end of the week, the end of the month, or the end of the year. This part explains, for example, how you print checks, explore QuickBooks online resources, do payroll, and create a business budget.

While I’m on the subject, I also want to categorically deny that Part III con¬tains any secret messages that you can decipher by reading backward. Yllaer.

Part IV: Housekeeping Chores

Part IV talks about some of the maintenance that you need (or someone needs) to perform to keep your accounting system shipshape: account reconciliations, financial report generation, job costing mechanics, file management — and oh yes, fixed assets accounting.

Part V: The Part of Tens

Gravity isn’t just a good idea; it’s a law. By tradition, the same is true for this part of a For Dummies book. The Part of Tens provides a collection of lists: ten things you should do if you own a busi¬ness, ten things to do when you next visit Acapulco — oops, sorry about that last one. Wrong book.

Also by tradition, these ten-item lists don’t need to have exactly ten items. You know the concept of a baker’s dozen, right? You order a dozen dough¬nuts but get 13 for the same price. Well, For Dummies ten-item lists have roughly ten items. (If the Dummies Man — the bug-eyed, paleface guy suffer¬ing from triangle-shaped-head syndrome who appears on the cover of this book and on icons throughout these pages — were running the bakery, a 10-doughnut order might mean that you get anywhere from 8-13 doughnuts.) Do you believe that I’m an accountant? So exacting that it’s scary.

Part VI: Appendixes

An unwritten rule says that computer books have appendixes, so I include three. Appendix A tells you how to install QuickBooks in ten easy steps. Appendix B explains small business accounting, provides a short biography of an Italian monk, and explains double-entry bookkeeping. Appendix C describes how to set up QuickBooks for use by multiple users — and for mul¬tiple users on a network. Yikes.
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PHP 5

About This Book

Think of this book as a friendly introduction to programming in PHP. This book is both an introduction to programming and an introduction to PHP. The book starts with the basics of PHP, including how to tell whether you need to install it. (Full installation instructions are included in Appendix A.) The book describes the basic features of PHP with examples of their use. If you have experience with programming, you can probably just skim this sec¬tion, but if you don’t, all the programming basics are here.

The book goes on to describe the most common uses of PHP. It shows how to write scripts for Web sites, file manipulation, databases, and other common tasks. It provides techniques and shortcuts and warns against common errors. Both beginners and experienced programmers can write useful scripts for many common applications in a very short time by using the information in the application section (Part IV) of the book.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into six parts. The content ranges from an introduction to PHP basics to common applications for PHP.

Part I: Say Hello to the PHP Scripting Language

This part provides an overview of PHP, including how it works and its many uses. You discover how to set up your environment for using PHP. Finally, this part shows you how to create your first PHP program.

Part II: Variables and Data

Variables are the fundamental feature of PHP. This section shows you how to create variables and use them. It also describes the kind of data that you can store in a variable as well as how to handle the various types of data. Then, you find out how to create and use complex variables called arrays.

Part III: Basic PHP Programming

This part shows you how to program PHP scripts. You find out about the basic features of PHP and the details of how to use them to create your scripts. This part also introduces you to object-oriented programming.

Part IV: Common PHP Applications

Part IV provides the techniques needed to write scripts for the most common PHP applications. You find out how to write scripts for use in your Web site, such as how to display HTML forms and how to process information that users type into forms. You find out how to use PHP to interact with databases. Using PHP to perform system tasks, such as writing files on your hard disk and exe¬cuting operating system commands, is also described.

Part V: The Part of Tens

This part provides some useful lists of things to do and not do when writing PHP scripts, as well as a listing of PHP resources.

Part VI: Appendixes

This part provides detailed instructions for installing PHP for those who need to install it themselves. Appendix B is a list of functions available in PHP, intended to be a useful reference while you write your scripts.
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PCs All-in-One Desk Reference

How This Book Is Organized

Time for a quick summary of what’s included in those eight mini-books (with cross references where appropriate, included at great expense).

Book I: PC Hardware

It’s not a PC without the hardware. In this mini-book, I discuss both the standard equipment (like your monitor, keyboard, and mouse) and optional things that you can attach (like a scanner or a game controller). I also cover the different ports on your PC and the proper methods of maintaining your PC hardware.

Book II: Windows XP

A mini-book for the XP generation — with everything that you need to know about today’s most popular PC operating system, including the basics, advanced customizing topics, the included applications, maintenance, and (insert ominous chord here) . . . troubleshooting.

Book III: The Internet

The obligatory Internet stuff fills this mini-book. Discover how to navigate the Web, block that infernal spam from your e-mail, fritter away countless hours with instant messaging, and — most important — keep yourself secure while you’re online.

Book IV: Microsoft Works

Most people call Works “the programs I got with my PC.” But as you dis-cover in this mini-book, there’s no shortage of features or functionality within Works (even though it’s usually overshadowed by the behemoth that is Microsoft Office). You’ll find out how to use each of the Works applications and how to use them in tandem to accomplish tasks.

Book V: Office XP

Okay, so I decided to cover the behemoth as well. Microsoft Office com-prises Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook — and the gang’s all here, with each application covered in a separate chapter. If you use Office, you’ll treasure this mini-book — if not, you’ll still enjoy it as a spellbinding work of nonfiction. (Sure, Mark.)

Book VI: Fun with Movies, Music, and Photos

Your PC is now a digital, multimedia production center — and a great combi-nation for watching video and listening to music, to boot. In this mini-book, I show you the latest cutting-edge fun that you can have with your DV cam-corder, your MP3 player, and your digital camera . . . wait until you show your home movies on DVD!

Book VII: Upgrading and Supercharging

The gloves come off in this mini-book: If you’re hankering to turn the corner and become a PC power user, use these chapters to help you upgrade your PC’s hardware, including your system RAM, your CPU and motherboard, your graphics card, and even external connections like USB 2.0 and FireWire. “To the Batcave!”

Book VIII: Home Networking

The final mini-book is devoted to one of the fastest-growing segments of the PC population — those folks who are adding a home (or small office) network. In these chapters, I demonstrate how to install your own wired net-work as well as how to expand with the latest wireless technology. Then I turn your attention to security so that you can use your network without fear of intrusion.
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Office 2003 Timesaving Techniques for Dummies

What’s in This Book

To save you time, I organized this book into Techniques — groups of related tasks that make you or your computer (or possibly both!) more efficient and more effective. Some Techniques are short ’n sweet, tackle one specific topic, and get you in and out of Office in a nonce. Other Techniques depend on a deeper understanding of how Office works. Take your time when you go through the more complex Techniques, and you’ll be rewarded with big gains down the road. No two people work the same way. Why should computers?

When a Technique requires you to perform a series of steps, I take you through them in a very direct way. But some big timesavers aren’t complicated at all. Keep your eye out for shorter tips, sidebars, and timesavers that are tangentially related to the main topic at hand. Watch for the icons. And don’t be sur¬prised if you bump into a tip or two that urges you to change how you work, as opposed to making changes to your computer.

This book continues the easy-to-read, two-column for¬mat that was pioneered in Windows XP Timesaving Techniques For Dummies. It’s full of figures and other visual cues that make it easier for you to scan and enter a Technique at the point most appropriate for your circumstances. Linear thinking is good. Non¬linear scanning is better: That is, wade in at the topic you need help on . . . no need to read this tome cover to cover.

Lay this book flat so you that can see exactly what you’re doing. Yes, the book was made to stay put.

You can read the book from beginning to end, or you can jump directly into the Technique of your choice. Either way works just fine. Any time a con¬cept is mentioned that isn’t covered in-depth in that Technique, you’ll find a cross-reference to another Technique to find out more. If you’re looking for something specific, check out either the Table of Contents or the index.

The Cheat Sheet at the beginning of this book lists my choices as the most important quick timesaving Techniques. Tear it out, tape it to your monitor, and/or pass it around to other folks at the office. We’re all in this leaky boat together.
Here’s a quick guide to the meat of the book:

Part I: Knocking Office Into Shape

What you need to do to Office (and Windows!) to take off the training wheels. Here you discover how to make Windows a safe place for Office and get at your Office programs faster. Organize Office docu¬ments in ways that make sense for you, and then customize the Open dialog box’s Places Bar so that finding files is a snap. Delve into how to set up a backup regimen and stick to it. And don’t miss downloading and installing the latest patches — and knowing when not to. Go on to disable the really obnoxious IntelliSense setting that converts typed Web address and e-mail addresses into links and use the Office Clipboard with aplomb. Then work with graphics in all the Office applications and streamline your toolbars.

Part II: Saving Time with Word

For most people, timesaving gains in Word have the biggest impact. You gotta read here to discover how to turn off all those stupid IntelliSense settings. Use Word’s features to lay out a page that works with you and not against you. Print impressive labels. Read about ways to edit that really work. Use Find and Replace and unleash the truth behind styles. Stick with me to create top-notch letterhead and tame Word’s graphics.

Part III: Streamlining Outlook

Do you live in Outlook? Here’s what you don’t know. I show you here how to set up meaningful search fold¬ers and organize with quick clicks. Keep Outlook from autocompleting your way into oblivion. Fight spam before it happens. Finally, look at files attached to e-mail messages — without getting infected — and share Calendars and Contacts.

Part IV: Exploiting Excel

For crunching much more than numbers. Here you nav¬igate creating spreadsheets that check themselves and make spreadsheets look better onscreen and when printed. Use Excel as a database — er, list — manager and read the why’s and wherefore’s of pivot tables and charts. Finally, calculate sales tax with the Lookup Wizard.

Part V: Pushing PowerPoint

Making presentations that don’t take forever. Still with me? Don’t miss working with the right file type and making a real presentation template. Eliminate the middleman with presentations that run them¬selves. Plan for predictable questions and see how working backward can save you lots of time.

Part VI: Assimilating Access

A few quick programs go a long way. Discover how to print cover sheets for all your reports as well as the skinny on running totals and subtotals. Also read how to print labels and then set formatting once . . . and forget it.

Part VII: Combining the Applications

Some of the Office apps work together, some of the time. Here you find my most-requested explanation: how to print holiday greeting letters. Read on for how to run an electronic newsletter. And don’t miss converting a Word outline directly into a presenta¬tion or animating Excel charts in a presentation. Cross-app finale: Rotate text in a Word document — with a little help from Excel.

Part VIII: The Scary (Or Fun!) Stuff

Macros can make your life better. You need this stuff. Become a power user by inserting unformatted text in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Then make Word’s Show All show you all that you want to see, with none of that extra junk. Print a folder full of spread¬sheets. Strip personally identifiable information out of Word docs and Excel spreadsheets. Become an honorary member of Monty Python with spam bust¬ing. In conclusion, create smart documents. Read Comments To Download

Office 2003 Application Development All-in-One Desk Reference

How to Use This Book

This book obviously can’t cover every feature in Office 2003, VBA, and espe¬cially VB.NET. Instead, as you try the many step-by-step examples in this book, you’ll become familiar with the most useful features of Office develop-ment and programming and discover many shortcuts and time-saving tricks (some that can take years to discover on your own). Believe me, some of them have taken me years to stumble upon.

Whether you want to turn a Word document into a Web site or create impressive Office 2003 solutions in Windows, this book tells you how to build what you want to build. Here are just a few of the goals that you can achieve with this book:

♦ Explore and program with new Office 2003 features such as Document Workspaces, shared attachments, OneNote, XML, and others. Some tech¬nologies explored in this book are not covered in other Office program¬ming titles, including encryption programming and the new Visual Studio Tools for Office.

♦ Build professional-looking, effective programs.

♦ See how to connect the various Office 2003 applications and data stores into a seamless, distributed, and secure business solution (and how to be smart enough to know when to use wizards to help).

♦ Make the transition from Microsoft’s traditional VBA Office language to the powerful new .NET technologies for database and other kinds of programming.

♦ Understand how to best use the many features built into VB.NET

♦ Kill bugs using powerful debugging tools.

♦ Get the most out of the Office and .NET security features, including how to automate strong programmatic encryption.

Many people think that programming is impossibly difficult and that distrib¬uted (inter-application) programming is even more difficult. It doesn’t have to be.

In fact, many common programming jobs have already been written for you in Office object libraries or the VB.NET framework, so you don’t have to do the programming at all. If you’re smart, you don’t reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, all you need to know is where in VBA to find a particular component, wizard, template, or other prebuilt solution. Then drop it into your application. This book is your guide to building efficient Office 2003 applications, utilities, and large-scale solutions.

This book tells you whether a particular wheel has already been invented. It also shows you how to save time by using or modifying existing components or Help code to fit your needs instead of building new solutions from scratch. But if you’re doing something totally original (congratulations!), this book also gives you step-by-step recipes for tackling many common tasks from the ground up.

How This Book Is Organized

The overall goal of Office 2003 Application Development All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is to provide an enjoyable and understandable guide for the Visual Basic programmer. This book will be accessible to developers and programmers with little or no .NET programming experience.

The book is divided into eight mini-books, with several chapters in each book. Just because the book is organized doesn’t mean that you have to be. You don’t have to read the book in sequential order from Chapter 1 to the end, just as you don’t have to read a cookbook in sequential order.

For example, if you need to add today’s most powerful encryption technology to your office solution programmatically, I suggest you read the last chapter first (Book VIII, Chapter 8).

If you want to brush up on VBA, Book II is for you. You’re not expected to know what’s in Book I to get results in Book II. Similarly, within each chapter, you can often scan the headings and jump right to the section covering the task that you want to accomplish. There is no need to read each chapter from start to finish. I’ve been careful to make all the examples as self-contained as possible. And each of them works, too. They’ve been thor¬oughly tested.

Book I: Office 2003 Essentials

This first mini-book introduces Office 2003 — explaining its purposes, what’s new in this edition, and Office’s fundamental nature. You see how common tasks are accomplished, and you discover the elements of Office program¬ming. You are introduced to the main new features in Office 2003 such as OneNote, XML, task panes, the major overhaul of Outlook, and so on. Topics in this mini-book include managing menus and toolbars, how to find program¬ming help online, understanding macro security, introduction to document workspaces, and joining the XML revolution.

Book II: Understanding Office Programming

Book II covers the primary elements of VBA. It’s a refresher course for pro¬grammers to need to brush up on classic Visual Basic programming, and a full-on programming course for people new to programming VBA, the classic language built into Office applications. All the essentials are covered, from simple concepts such as data types to advanced subjects like various secu¬rity measures that you can take to protect databases. This mini-book covers how to move Office documents and other elements to the Internet. You also see how to exploit the famous Visual Basic debugging tools.

Book III: Maximizing Word

Book III focuses on the world’s greatest word processor. You see how to work with the Word object model to tap into the power of this huge dedi¬cated language. You explore enums, ranges, selections, and the dialog object, among other topics. Then on to power editing — ways to maximize Word’s editing features. Many (perhaps most) Office workers don’t take advantage of Word’s many powerful editing capabilities. You also see how to maneuver efficiently, use Smart Documents, import data, and manage mail merge.

You explore how XML and Word now work together synergistically to facili¬tate communication between any and all platforms, operating systems, data stores, applications, and whatever else might want to communicate with Word. You see how Word does a serviceable job for smaller Internet jobs, such as displaying your pictures or blogging your feelings for all to see. You find out how to transform DOC files into Web pages. This book concludes with power macro programming: how to contact and manipulate other Office applications from within Word, how to access and modify the behavior of Word’s built-in features such as FileSave, and a set of what I consider the best Word macros available.

Book IV: Making the Most of Excel

This mini-book focuses on many aspects of programming Excel, beginning with an exploration of the Excel object hierarchy including all the expected classes, plus collection objects, ranges, charts, pivot tables, shapes, and so on. Concrete examples illustrate how you can get down deep into Excel and make it really glide across the ice like a champion skater. You also see how to respond programmatically to Excel events, automate data and XML importation, create datasets, and programmatically build pivot tables. You see how to manage goal seeking, scenarios, and summary reports and also explore problems with the Solver. You contact other Office applications from within Excel, employ UserForms, add macros to worksheet controls, automate formatting, add controls programmatically, trap keypresses, send workbooks via e-mail, and tell the differences between the activate and select methods. Whew! If I’ve left out anything you’re interested in, send me an e-mail, and I’ll include it in the next printing.

Book V: Advanced Access

There are dozens of books on Access 2003, but few I’ve found make a con¬scious attempt to integrate Access with the other Office applications. Access, poor darling, has always stood alone. It’s always been the strange stepchild — the one that doesn’t quite get into the act or the one off in the shadows in the family pictures. Access differs in many ways from the other Office 2003 applications, from its lack of direct keyboard modification to the peculiarities of its object model. Throughout this book, I’ve often found myself writing “. . . but of course, Access does this differently. Here’s how to get Access to accomplish this task.”

So I’ve done my best to always include Access in any important discussion all through the entire book. In this mini-book, though, I focus directly on Access. You see how to sort out the various database technologies and ODBC and how to move beyond VBA and DAO to ADO. You wrestle with the concurrency problem and benefit from various RAD efficiencies. Cutting-edge technologies are explored, including loading an Access database into .NET; data views; the XML Designer and XML dataset; loading XML into Access; using the new Access 2003 Developer Extensions; exploring the Package Wizard and Custom Startup Wizard; learning about the Property Scanner add-in; Smart Tags in Access; connecting to Access via automation; automating the Access runtime; using the new sandbox mode; and other topics that might interest you.

Book VI: Exploiting Outlook

No Office 2003 application has been as overhauled as Outlook. In this mini-book, you explore the new pane and other topics such as filters, spam block¬ing, encryption, special folders, and double calendars. As a programmer, you want to read the sections that show you how to exploit the Outlook object model, deal with namespaces, use MAPI objects, trap events, handle Contacts, send data between Outlook and Word or Access, create new folders, modify collections, search tasks, and manage the Outlook Calendar. Also covered are topics such as effective automatic routing (during your vacation), man¬aging multiple accounts, using send/receive Groups, blocking virii, working with profiles, sharing schedules, planning meetings, searching e-mail, and ergonomics for your users.

Book VII: InterOffice: Working as a Team

This mini-book takes a closer look at ways to integrate workers and applica¬tions to improve overall workplace efficiency. I start with OneNote, the cool new utility and notes organizer that some people cannot live without. You also see how to work well with others. It’s not always easy to avoid stepping on people’s toes when several people try to edit the same document or plan the same project. You see how to best use Office 2003 to manage shared Contacts, handle document collaboration, set up a meeting workspace and permissions, use the new Information Rights Management, change work¬space options, protect documents in Word, specify editing and formatting restrictions, create custom views, and deal with the version problem using Word’s new versions feature. You also explore topics such as building Web pages, adjusting properties, viewing code, writing scripts, doing scripting in Excel, debugging script, using forms, and sharing information efficiently. InfoPath offers a variety of useful collaborative tools. You discover designing with InfoPath, viewing data hierarchies, generating InfoPath forms from XML, and building InfoPath forms from databases.

You also see how Smart Tags can be added to your Office 2003 projects to assist users in filling out forms, getting context-sensitive help, and other ben¬efits. You see how to create, program, and test Smart Tags. You move on to the containers of Smart Tags — Smart Documents — and read about feeding data to Web sites, managing security issues, simplifying deployment, work¬ing with the elements of Smart Documents, using XML, attaching schemas, attaching the XML Expansion Pack, coding, and modifying a template.

Project 2003 isn’t ignored. You explore creating and editing projects, dealing with dependencies, understanding Gantt charts, and employing Outlook fea¬tures in your projects. Then you move on to SharePoint, beginning with the reasons why you might choose it over other collaboration technologies. You see how to install, specify permissions, use the Task Pane, manage SharePoint scalability, integrate SharePoint with office 2003 applications, and a bit about the ASP.NET connection.

Book VIII: Power Techniques: Advanced Office Automation, VBA, and .NET

If you’re looking for real heavy-duty programmer info and industrial-strength development, many of those topics are gathered together in this mini-book. But don’t be misled: Some seriously advanced topics are covered in other mini-books as well. It’s just that I chose this last mini-book to focus on some of the more cutting-edge or sophisticated techniques.

This mini-book starts off with a discussion of the drawbacks of OOP pro¬gramming and also a comparison of the qualities of VBA versus VB.NET (when you should choose one over the other). You also see code that introduces a cool .NET feature called streaming. You then create your own add-in — one of several techniques whereby you add the power of .NET to your Office 2003 programming.

Chapter 2 is all about XML and associated technologies such as XSD, XML data types, schemas, and XML programming. You wallow in objects in Chapter 3: discovering techniques for using objects in VBA, understanding .NET data types, making declarations and using events in VBA, and managing collections and arrays of objects. Then you move on in the next chapter to some advanced Internet programming topics, including working with Web Services and how XML and Office work with this interesting Internet technology.

Chapter 5 is a dive into .NET — something every serious programmer must master sooner or later. Sure, it’s a learning curve at first; Visual Basic will never be the same again, after VB.NET But believe me, what you spend in time mastering .NET, you gain in considerable additional programming capa¬bility. You see how to use software services, Internet initiatives, .NET data¬base technologies, and general programming practices. This chapter is for those readers who understand that the migration from VBA to .NET is essen¬tial (unless they’re near retirement and don’t have to worry about the future of their career).

Chapter 6 continues this migration topic by focusing on Visual Studio Tools for Office. It sounds like just the ticket. (Visual Studio is the set of utilities, editors, and languages that collectively contain .NET) It might sound like the ticket, but at this point, it’s maybe a little too unfinished to be of much real use to programmers. It has a little two-page wizard that merely sets up a template that you can use to build an Excel or Word document, using some code-behind features: that is, programming in .NET that can be used when a user opens these documents (thereby also running Excel or Word).

Read Chapter 6 to see the struggles I faced trying to get VSTO to work. Maybe it has been improved by the time you read this book, or maybe the days I spent trying and failing to get it working correctly were a result of temporary confusion on my part. Whatever. I got it mostly working — right up to the final step. So perhaps you’ll succeed where I failed. (Some on the VSTO newsgroup seem to have it working.) One other point, though: Even if it works, there are other ways to do what VSTO does. Thus, unless I’m miss¬ing something, I actually don’t understand VSTO’s raison d’être. I might not have conquered VSTO, but I do know French. Chapters 7 and 8 move you into an area of computing that is of increasing interest to all of us who program or simply use computers — security. Chapter 7 walks you through the various ways you can tighten Office 2003 security. You read about IRM, virus protection, file- and folder-based sys¬tems, macro security, signing, and hashing.

Chapter 8 is my personal favorite because to me, encryption is one of the most compelling aspects of programming. There’s something intriguing about the contest of intellects on either side — those cooking up new attacks versus those thinking up new defenses. And the computer brings an entirely new dimension to this ancient spy-versus-spy game.

For example, computers can try millions of passwords in less than an hour. This speed wasn’t possible before computerization. It’s called a brute force attack. This attack is countered by brute force encryption systems, as you’ll see in Chapter 8. When you finish this chapter, you’ll be able to employ today’s strongest encryption systems in your own programming. It’s quite a bit of power for just a little extra work.

You also discover how to harness the DES system, used today by most banks and other commercial institutions to secure their data and the messages that they send over the Internet. But you also see how to add public key encryption (RSA) to your programming. RSA is today’s most powerful encryption system, used by the military and others to transmit shorter pieces of data, such as passwords and keys. RSA isn’t generally used for actual messages (because they’re too lengthy), and although it’s fantastically secure, it’s really too slow to practically encrypt large amounts of data. But combine the two technologies, and you’ll have today’s most powerful encryption system at your disposal. Use RSA to exchange passwords or keys and then use fast DES to exchange messages.

This chapter also shows you how to avoid storing your messages on a hard drive (where, even if “deleted,” they can be recovered by widely available utilities). Instead, you see how to employ .NET streaming technologies to keep your information floating in the air like smoke — then disappearing without a trace into the encryption. These memorystreams and crypto-streams have lovely, poetic names, but they embody important, potent technology . . . technology that you’ll want to understand.

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