books, polymorphism

First about polymorphism.
Contrary to what you said Mohn, I think when a function is virtual in a base class, it need not be virtual in all derived classes. If it is defined differently in those derived classes (the base function would get overridden), it would be just a regular non-virtual function of that derived class, right? So I suppose this would also be the answer to your query... to make a function non-virtual in a derived class, just define it there - it would become non-virtual.

BTW, how the &#%^ do I 'reply' to the posts?! As in, what do I do if I want to insert a few lines you guys have written? I still have a few queries about the polymorphism postings and I am finding myself incredibly handicapped and frustrated without the 'reply' thing! :-(
If some html tags have to be put to change colour etc., what are they? I have zot fundaes about html.

Haven't read any language book cover to cover. I picked up C++ from the book by Lafore. It's pretty basic but I thought it illustrates the concepts pretty well. Good to get your started. After that I just started reading shit off google searches. Nothing in particular. google.com is the best way to solve a query, in my opinion! :-)

Has anyone gone through any 'unleashed' books? I haven't read any in detail but they appear to be pretty comprehensive.

One book I really like is 'Unix programming environment' by Kernighan and Pike. Whether you're new to the world of the shell or not, you'd definitely find utility in the book. That's the book you turn to for unix / shell scripting info.

I happened to 'glance' through a couple of books by Donald Knuth on Algorithms. Don't quite remember what the actual title of the book. It comes in volumes. Man, that's HEAVYWEIGHT!