Ubuntu Hacks is one of a series of books published by O'Reilly under their Hacks Series which may be found at hacks.oreilly.com.
The book is organized into 10 chapters with hacks numbered from 1 to 100. This allowed the authors to refer to different hacks by number. Each hack can stand alone making it convenient to skip around to different parts of the book that your interested in.

1. Getting Started Hacks 01-14
2. The Linux Desktop Hacks 15-27
3. Multimedia Hacks 28-37
4. Mobile Ubuntu Hacks 38-46
5. X11 Hacks 47-53
6. Package Management Hacks 54-66
7. Security Hacks 67-73
8. Administration Hacks 74-86
9. Virtualization and Emulation Hacks 87-92
10. Small Office/Home Office Server Hacks 93-100

The publishers employed some icon conventions to aid the reader. In addition to applying different typographical font styles, a thermometer icon reflects the complexity of a hack; the higher the temperature the more difficult the hack - beginner, moderate, expert - although I'm not sure how they actually determine this complexity threshold. Like most computer technical reference books the text is peppered with helpful links throughout which I always find to be helpful.

I attempted Hack #3 - Make a Live CD Data Persistent (a so-called beginner hack) - on page 7 and discovered that several errors. On pages 7-10 every time the reference to CASPER-COW was supposed to be CASPER-RW. And on page 9 where it says press F4 which is selecting a VGA monitor format - it should be press F6 boot options. I had to go online to lookup the correct information. I would suggest that the authors/publishers are requiring the reader to do too much reading-in-between-the-lines. Frankly Im a little angry because what I see OReilly doing is repackaging and selling information that already exists for free online. What makes it funny is that its not even good information. I did successfully complete parts of the process but never got it to work properly because I was following the instructions in the book.

This book was touted as 100 Ubuntu Hacks that had been tested and theres no way that is true based on my experience. I wanted to be able to promote this book, but this experience has quelled my confidence in OReillys editors. Youre better off using Ubuntus online support site http://help.ubuntu.com. Just another book created to add to these guys resumes. Well I guess they have one thing right Oxer, Rankin, and Childers are hacks. Where have all the good technical writers gone?