Become a Unity Shaders Guru. Create advanced game visuals using code and graphs in Unity 2022

Mina Pecheux

Do you really know all the ins-and-outs of Unity shaders? It’s time to step up your Unity game and dive into the new URP render pipeline, the Shader Graph tool, and advanced shading techniques to bring out the beauty of your 2D/3D game projects!Become a Unity Shaders Guru is here to help you transition from the built-in render pipeline to the SRP pipelines and learn the latest shading tools. With it, you’ll dive deeper into Unity shaders by understanding the essential concepts through practical examples. First, you’ll discover how to create a simple shading model in the Unity built-in render pipeline, and then in the Unity URP render pipeline and Shader Graph while learning about the practical applications of both. You’ll explore common game shader techniques, ranging from interior mapping to adding neon outlines on a sprite or simulating the wobble of a fish. You’ll also learn about alternative rendering techniques, like Ray Marching.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned to create a wide variety of 2D and 3D shaders with Unity’s URP pipeline (both in HLSL code and with the Shader Graph tool), and be well-versed with some optimization tricks to make your games friendly for low-tier devices as well.

SQL for Data Analytics. Perform fast and efficient data analysis with the power of SQL

Upom Malik, Matt Goldwasser, Benjamin Johnston

Understanding and finding patterns in data has become one of the most important ways to improve business decisions. If you know the basics of SQL, but don't know how to use it to gain the most effective business insights from data, this book is for you.SQL for Data Analytics helps you build the skills to move beyond basic SQL and instead learn to spot patterns and explain the logic hidden in data. You'll discover how to explore and understand data by identifying trends and unlocking deeper insights. You'll also gain experience working with different types of data in SQL, including time-series, geospatial, and text data. Finally, you'll learn how to increase your productivity with the help of profiling and automation.By the end of this book, you'll be able to use SQL in everyday business scenarios efficiently and look at data with the critical eye of an analytics professional.Please note: if you are having difficulty loading the sample datasets, there are new instructions uploaded to the GitHub repository. The link to the GitHub repository can be found in the book's preface.

Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator Exam Guide. Implement IAM solutions with Azure AD, build an identity governance strategy, and pass the SC-300 exam

Dwayne Natwick, Shannon Kuehn

Cloud technologies have made identity and access the new control plane for securing data. Without proper planning and discipline in deploying, monitoring, and managing identity and access for users, administrators, and guests, you may be compromising your infrastructure and data. This book is a preparation guide that covers all the objectives of the SC-300 exam, while teaching you about the identity and access services that are available from Microsoft and preparing you for real-world challenges.The book starts with an overview of the SC-300 exam and helps you understand identity and access management. As you progress to the implementation of IAM solutions, you’ll learn to deploy secure identity and access within Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory. The book will take you from legacy on-premises identity solutions to modern and password-less authentication solutions that provide high-level security for identity and access. You’ll focus on implementing access and authentication for cloud-only and hybrid infrastructures as well as understand how to protect them using the principles of zero trust. The book also features mock tests toward the end to help you prepare effectively for the exam.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to plan, deploy, and manage identity and access solutions for Microsoft and hybrid infrastructures.

EJB 3 Developer Guide. Enterprise JavaBean 3 - a Practical Book and eBook Guide for developers and architects using the EJB Standard

Michael Sikora

Mastering Linux Administration. Take your sysadmin skills to the next level by configuring and maintaining Linux systems - Second Edition

Alexandru Calcatinge, Julian Balog

Harness the power of Linux in modern data center management, leveraging its unparalleled versatility for efficiently managing your workloads in on-premises and cloud environments. In this second edition, you'll find updates on the latest advancements in Linux administration including containerization, shell scripting, and hypervisors. Written by an experienced Linux trainer, this book will start you off with Linux installation on on-premises systems. As you progress, you’ll master the Linux command line, files, packages, and filesystems. You'll explore essential Linux commands and techniques to secure your Linux environment. New to this edition is a chapter on shell scripting, providing structured guidance on using shell programming for basic Linux automation. This book also delves into the world of containers, with two new chapters dedicated to Docker containers and hypervisors, including KVM virtual machines. Once adept with Linux containers, you'll learn about modern cloud technologies, managing and provisioning container workloads using Kubernetes, and automating system tasks using Ansible. Finally, you'll get to grips with deploying Linux to the cloud using AWS and Azure-specific tools. By the end of this Linux book, you'll have mastered everyday administrative tasks, seamlessly navigating workflows spanning from on-premises to the cloud.

scikit-learn: Machine Learning Simplified. Implement scikit-learn into every step of the data science pipeline

Guillermo Moncecchi, Raul G Tompson, Trent Hauck, Gavin Hackeling

Machine learning, the art of creating applications that learn from experience and data, has been around for many years. Python is quickly becoming the go-to language for analysts and data scientists due to its simplicity and flexibility; moreover, within the Python data space, scikit-learn is the unequivocal choice for machine learning. The course combines an introduction to some of the main concepts and methods in machine learning with practical, hands-on examples of real-world problems. The course starts by walking through different methods to prepare your data—be it a dataset with missing values or text columns that require the categories to be turned into indicator variables. After the data is ready, you'll learn different techniques aligned with different objectives—be it a dataset with known outcomes such as sales by state, or more complicated problems such as clustering similar customers. Finally, you'll learn how to polish your algorithm to ensure that it's both accurate and resilient to new datasets. You will learn to incorporate machine learning in your applications. Ranging from handwritten digit recognition to document classification, examples are solved step-by-step using scikit-learn and Python. By the end of this course you will have learned how to build applications that learn from experience, by applying the main concepts and techniques of machine learning.

Clean Code with C#. Refactor your legacy C# code base and improve application performance using best practices - Second Edition

Jason Alls

Traditionally associated with Windows desktop applications and game development, C# has expanded into web, cloud, and mobile development. However, despite its extensive coding features, professionals often encounter issues with efficiency, scalability, and maintainability due to poor code. Clean Code in C# guides you in identifying and resolving these problems using coding best practices.This book starts by comparing good and bad code to emphasize the importance of coding standards, principles, and methodologies. It then covers code reviews, unit testing, and test-driven development, and addresses cross-cutting concerns. As you advance through the chapters, you’ll discover programming best practices for objects, data structures, exception handling, and other aspects of writing C# computer programs. You’ll also explore API design and code quality enhancement tools, while studying examples of poor coding practices to understand what to avoid.By the end of this clean code book, you’ll have the developed the skills needed to apply industry-approved coding practices to write clean, readable, extendable, and maintainable C# code.

UI Testing with Puppeteer. Implement end-to-end testing and browser automation using JavaScript and Node.js

Dario Kondratiuk

Puppeteer is an open source web automation library created by Google to perform tasks such as end-to-end testing, performance monitoring, and task automation with ease. Using real-world use cases, this book will take you on a pragmatic journey, helping you to learn Puppeteer and implement best practices to take your automation code to the next level!Starting with an introduction to headless browsers, this book will take you through the foundations of browser automation, showing you how far you can get using Puppeteer to automate Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. You’ll then learn the basics of end-to-end testing and understand how to create reliable tests. You’ll also get to grips with finding elements using CSS selectors and XPath expressions. As you progress through the chapters, the focus shifts to more advanced browser automation topics such as executing JavaScript code inside the browser. You’ll learn various use cases of Puppeteer, such as mobile devices or network speed testing, gauging your site’s performance, and using Puppeteer as a web scraping tool.By the end of this UI testing book, you’ll have learned how to make the most of Puppeteer’s API and be able to apply it in your real-world projects.

Hands-On Blockchain for Python Developers. Empowering Python developers in the world of blockchain and smart contracts - Second Edition

Arjuna Sky Kok

We are living in the age of decentralized fi nance and NFTs. People swap tokens on Uniswap, borrow assets from Aave, send payments with stablecoins, trade art NFTs on OpenSea, and more. To build applications of this kind, you need to know how to write smart contracts.This comprehensive guide will help you explore all the features of Vyper, a programming language designed to write smart contracts. You’ll also explore the web3.py library. As you progress, you’ll learn how to connect to smart contracts, read values, and create transactions. To make sure your foundational knowledge is strong enough, the book guides you through Ape Framework, which can help you create decentralized exchanges, NFT marketplaces, voting applications, and more. Each project provides invaluable insights and hands-on experience, equipping you with the skills you need to build real-world blockchain solutions.By the end of this book, you’ll be well versed with writing common Web3 applications such as a decentralized exchange, an NFT marketplace, a voting application, and more.

VMware Horizon View High Availability. Design, develop and deploy a highly available vSphere environment for VMware Horizon View

Andrew Alloway

The Chief AI Officer's Handbook. Master AI leadership with strategies to innovate, overcome challenges, and drive business growth

Jarrod Anderson, Jeff Winter

Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers (CAIOs) are now imperative for businesses, enabling organizations to achieve strategic goals and unlock transformative opportunities through the power of AI. By building intelligent systems, training models to drive impactful decisions, and creating innovative applications, they empower organizations to thrive in an AI-driven world. Written by Jarrod Anderson, Chief AI Officer at SYRV.AI, this book bridges the gap between visionary leadership and practical execution.This handbook reimagines AI leadership for today’s fast-paced environment, leveraging predictive, deterministic, generative, and agentic AI to address complex challenges and foster innovation. It provides CAIOs with the strategies to develop transformative AI initiatives, build and lead elite teams, and adopt AI responsibly while maintaining compliance. From shaping impactful solutions to achieving measurable business outcomes, this guide offers a roadmap for making AI your organization’s competitive edge.By the end of this book, you’ll have the knowledge and tools to excel as a Chief AI Officer, driving innovation, strategic growth, and lasting success for your organization.

IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino Administration. Ensure effective and efficient team collaboration by building a solid social infrastructure with IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5

Keith Brooks, Olusola Omosaiye, Mark Harper, David Byrd, ...

When the IT strategy calls for maximizing the value of social software for building effective teams, neither social networking nor team collaboration is sufficient on its own. Lotus Quickr Team Collaboration software delivers the promise of social software; but ensuring that a business's social networking site is compliant can be daunting. This book will help you ensure effective and efficient team collaboration by building a solid social infrastructure with IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5.The book will familiarize system administrators with all the information they need to install, upgrade, and manage IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5. You will also learn to leverage social software principles to foster diverse teams in an interconnected world. This book will help you break virtual boundaries and remove the impediments to the development of high-performance teams through the use of IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5.This practical book starts off by providing you with a clear, detailed walkthrough of key concepts including collaboration beyond document management, and adopting social collaboration in an enterprise.We then examine the product architecture of Lotus Quickr services and provide a walkthrough of deployment aspects of Lotus Quickr to provide a scalable environment through clustering. We cover some of the basic tools used to set up and manage the IBM Lotus Quickr server along with unique methods for upgrading to the latest 8.5 version. We provide you with an in-depth look at the concepts of Lotus Quickr Connectors deployment, management, and a new capability around Windows-based single sign-on to solve a variety of problems.By the end of this book, you will be able to build a well-executed social collaboration platform that delivers the productivity edge needed to succeed in the digitally interconnected business world of today.

The PHP Workshop. Learn to build interactive applications and kickstart your career as a web developer

Alexandru Busuioc, David Carr, Markus Gray, Vijay Joshi, ...

Do you want to build your own websites, but have never really been confident enough to turn your ideas into real projects? If your web development skills are a bit rusty, or if you've simply never programmed before, The PHP Workshop will show you how to build dynamic websites using PHP with the help of engaging examples and challenging activities.This PHP tutorial starts with an introduction to PHP, getting you set up with a productive development environment. You will write, execute, and troubleshoot your first PHP script using a built-in templating engine and server. Next, you'll learn about variables and data types, and see how conditions and loops help control the flow of a PHP program. Progressing through the chapters, you'll use HTTP methods to turn your PHP scripts into web apps, persist data by connecting to an external database, handle application errors, and improve functionality by using third-party packages.By the end of this Workshop, you'll be well-versed in web application development, and have the knowledge and skills to creatively tackle your own ambitious projects with PHP.

Creating Dynamic UIs with Android Fragments. Creating Dynamic UIs with Android Fragments Second Edition - Second Edition

Jim Wilson

Today’s users expect mobile apps to be dynamic and highly interactive, with rich navigation features. These same apps must look fantastic whether running on a medium-resolution smartphone or high-resolution tablet. Fragments provide the toolset we need to meet these user expectations by enabling us to build our applications out of adaptable components that take advantage of the rich capabilities of each individual device and automatically adapt to their differences.This book looks at the impact fragments have on Android UI design and their role in both simplifying many common UI challenges and in providing best practices for incorporating rich UI behaviors. We look closely at the roll of fragment transactions and how to work with the Android back stack. Leveraging this understanding, we explore several specialized fragment-related classes such as ListFragment and DialogFragment. We then go on to discuss how to implement rich navigation features such as swipe-based screen browsing, and the role of fragments when developing applications that take advantage of the latest aspects of Material Design. You will learn everything you need to provide dynamic, multi-screen UIs within a single activity, and the rich UI features demanded by today’s mobile users.

BackTrack 4: Assuring Security by Penetration Testing. Master the art of penetration testing with BackTrack

Shakeel Ali, Tedi Heriyanto

BackTrack is a penetration testing and security auditing platform with advanced tools to identify, detect, and exploit any vulnerabilities uncovered in the target network environment. Applying appropriate testing methodology with defined business objectives and a scheduled test plan will result in robust penetration testing of your network.BackTrack 4: Assuring Security by Penetration Testing is a fully focused, structured book providing guidance on developing practical penetration testing skills by demonstrating the cutting-edge hacker tools and techniques in a coherent step-by-step strategy. It offers all the essential lab preparation and testing procedures to reflect real-world attack scenarios from your business perspective in today's digital age.The authors' experience and expertise enables them to reveal the industry's best approach for logical and systematic penetration testing.The first and so far only book on BackTrack OS starts with lab preparation and testing procedures, explaining the basic installation and configuration set up, discussing types of penetration testing (black-box and white-box), uncovering open security testing methodologies, and proposing the BackTrack specific testing process. The authors discuss a number of security assessment tools necessary to conduct penetration testing in their respective categories (target scoping, information gathering, discovery, enumeration, vulnerability mapping, social engineering, exploitation, privilege escalation, maintaining access, and reporting), following the formal testing methodology. Each of these tools is illustrated with real-world examples to highlight their practical usage and proven configuration techniques. The authors also provide extra weaponry treasures and cite key resources that may be crucial to any professional penetration tester.This book serves as a single professional, practical, and expert guide to developing hardcore penetration testing skills from scratch. You will be trained to make the best use of BackTrack OS either in a commercial environment or an experimental test bed.

Modern DevOps Practices. Implement and secure DevOps in the public cloud with cutting-edge tools, tips, tricks, and techniques

Gaurav Agarwal

Containers have entirely changed how developers and end-users see applications as a whole. With this book, you'll learn all about containers, their architecture and benefits, and how to implement them within your development lifecycle.You'll discover how you can transition from the traditional world of virtual machines and adopt modern ways of using DevOps to ship a package of software continuously. Starting with a quick refresher on the core concepts of containers, you'll move on to study the architectural concepts to implement modern ways of application development. You'll cover topics around Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, Terraform, Packer, and other similar tools that will help you to build a base. As you advance, the book covers the core elements of cloud integration (AWS ECS, GKE, and other CaaS services), continuous integration, and continuous delivery (GitHub actions, Jenkins, and Spinnaker) to help you understand the essence of container management and delivery. The later sections of the book will take you through container pipeline security and GitOps (Flux CD and Terraform).By the end of this DevOps book, you'll have learned best practices for automating your development lifecycle and making the most of containers, infrastructure automation, and CaaS, and be ready to develop applications using modern tools and techniques.