Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The animal on the cover of Learning UML is a kitten. Caring for kittens, much like caring for babies, requires a great deal of commitment, time, and understanding. It is much easier to care for a newborn kitten if it is still with its mother, as it is best for a kitten to stay with its mother for its first nine weeks. For example, it is very important for a kitten to be warm in the early weeks of its life. This heat is provided by the mother generally, as well as by its siblings, since kittens in a litter tend to huddle together. Kittens are born with their eyes closed, but they open after about seven days. During the first weeks of a kitten's life, however, it will sleep about 90 percent of the time. By two weeks of age, it will start to try to stand, and by four weeks, it is ready to walk and venture away from its mother for short periods of time.

If a kitten is orphaned or abandoned by its mother in the early weeks of its life, it's very important to monitor its care extremely closely. Keeping it warm and well fed is vital for its survival. It is a good idea to consult with a vet to make sure the proper level of attention is paid to the various aspects of a kitten's upbringing.

Mary Brady was the production editor and proofreader for Learning UML. Linley Dolby was the copyeditor. Claire Cloutier and Colleen Gorman provided quality control. Johnna Van Hoose Dinse wrote the index.

Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original illustration created from Old Fashioned Cat Illustrations. Jessamyn Read produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Julie Hawks to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Mary Brady.

The online edition of this book was created by the Safari production group (John Chodacki, Becki Maisch, and Madeleine Newell) using a set of Frame-to-XML conversion and cleanup tools written and maintained by Erik Ray, Benn Salter, John Chodacki, and Jeff Liggett.