A curious aspect of writing a book is that you never actually need to meet the people with whom you are working at a publisher. Everything can be done online with maybe an occasional phone call thrown in. Editors, production staff, publicists… all the interaction happens primarily through email.

It’s nice, though, when you do get a chance to put a face with a name. As shown below, I got a chance to catch up with Mike Loukides, the editor at O’Reilly who first approached me about the “Migrating Applications to IPv6” book project and who worked with me to make it happen:

This was at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference back in the beginning of the year. (Excellent conferences, by the way!) I just stumbled upon the photo and thought I should post it. I still haven’t met the other editors and staff who helped me with the book, but that is indeed the way it works.

Would you like to be notified when updates are made to “Migrating Applications to IPv6“?  If so, there’s a nifty little sign-up box over in the right sidebar that will add you to an email distribution list that I will use ONLY to alert you to news about the book.  Info about updates will also be posted here to the book’s blog, of course, and will also appear on the Google+ page and in my normal Twitter stream. But I realized recently that some readers might want to receive specific messages when updates are available.  If you purchase the ebook directly from O’Reilly, you’ll get notified through their notification system, but if you purchase through another retailer – or would just like to receive an extra update, please feel free to subscribe.  I promise I won’t spam you or do anything else with your email address outside of alert you to the new updates.

Thanks for your interest in the book!

In honor of World IPv6 Launch, taking place today, June 6, 2012, O’Reilly has a deal running for 50% off the price of IPv6 ebooks.

NOTE: The deal expires at 11:59pm US Pacific time tonight!

So you only have about 10.25 hours left to make the purchase!

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a big fan of purchasing directly from O’Reilly because in doing so you get into their update notification program. Anytime an author has updates, you get a notification and can easily download a new version. Given that I expect IPv6 application migration to continue to evolve as we get more IPv6 availability, I’ll undoubtedly be making further updates… and by buying from O’Reilly you’ll get notified!

PLUS… all O’Reilly books are DRM-free, a topic I’ve ranted about on other sites!

If you’ve bought the ebook or printed version of the book within the past few weeks, you should have received the most recent updated version.  As I mentioned previously, I submitted to O’Reilly a range of updates – and have confirmed that an updated version is now shipping.  It includes:

• Added new section on recent events and changes that make it critical for application developers to be thinking about IPv6.
• Added section on connecting to DNS servers over IPv6 and about DNS and DHCPv6
• Added sidebar about RFC 5952, “A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation”
• Expanded text about “Happy Eyeballs” algorithm and included mention of RFC 6556 for testing for happy eyeballs.
• Added brief info about lessons learned from World IPv6 Day
• Added info about World IPv6 Launch in 2012
• Added new section on testing resources
• Added new section about setting up an IPv6 test network
• Updated IPv6 NAT info to point to RFC 6296
• Added warning about SMTP’s way of showing IPv6 addresses
• Added additional resources, including a new section about some informational RFCs that may be of interest to application developers.

If you previously purchased the book directly from O’Reilly, you should have been notified of this update.

I’m very appreciative of the feedback received thus far – and definitely welcome further feedback!  I’ve also received many kind words and comments that the book has been very helpful.  That’s great to hear… and exactly why I wrote it!

Very early this morning, I submitted a range of updates to the book to O’Reilly’s production team. As this is the first formal update I’ve made, I’m not sure of the exact process from here, but at some point soon the updated content will be available as part of the normal book.  I’ll post about it here on the site when it’s ready, and anyone who bought the ebook directly from O’Reilly will be automagically notified about how to download the updates.

Here’s a snapshot of the changes I made to the book:

• Added new section on recent events and changes that make it critical for application developers to be thinking about IPv6.
• Added section on connecting to DNS servers over IPv6 and about DNS and DHCPv6
• Added sidebar about RFC 5952, “A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation”
• Expanded text about “Happy Eyeballs” algorithm and included mention of RFC 6556 for testing for happy eyeballs.
• Added brief info about lessons learned from World IPv6 Day
• Added info about World IPv6 Launch in 2012
• Added new section on testing resources
• Added new section about setting up an IPv6 test network
• Updated IPv6 NAT info to point to RFC 6296
• Added warning about SMTP’s way of showing IPv6 addresses
• Added additional resources, including a new section about some informational RFCs that may be of interest to application developers.

I’m pleased with how it came out… there’s been a great amount of new information added in the last few months that will be helpful for application developers and it was great to incorporate that into the book.

Next up, I’d like to add some images that illustrate some of the points in the book… but that’s the next update…

… and please do let me know if you have suggestions for additions you’d like to see in the book, either as a comment here or via email.