Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development. Harness the power of procedural content generation to design unique games with Unity

Ryan Watkins

Procedural Content Generation is a process by which game content is developed using computer algorithms, rather than through the manual efforts of game developers. This book teaches readers how to develop algorithms for procedural generation that they can use in their own games. These concepts are put into practice using C# and Unity is used as the game development engine.This book provides the fundamentals of learning and continued learning using PCG. You'll discover the theory of PCG and the mighty Pseudo Random Number Generator. Random numbers such as die rolls and card drafting provide the chance factor that makes games fun and supplies spontaneity. This book also takes you through the full development of a 2D game. Starting with level generation, you'll learn how PCG can make the game environment for you. You'll move into item generation and learn the different techniques to procedurally create game items. Thereafter, you'll be guided through the more abstract PCG areas such as scaling difficulty to the player and even generating music! The book helps you set up systems within your games where algorithms create computationally generated levels, art assets, quests, stories, characters, and weapons; these can substantially reduce the burden of manually creating every aspect of the game.Finally, you'll get to try out your new PCG skills on 3D terrain generation.

Scalable Data Streaming with Amazon Kinesis. Design and secure highly available, cost-effective data streaming applications with Amazon Kinesis

Tarik Makota, Brian Maguire, Danny Gagne, Rajeev Chakrabarti

Amazon Kinesis is a collection of secure, serverless, durable, and highly available purpose-built data streaming services. This data streaming service provides APIs and client SDKs that enable you to produce and consume data at scale.Scalable Data Streaming with Amazon Kinesis begins with a quick overview of the core concepts of data streams, along with the essentials of the AWS Kinesis landscape. You'll then explore the requirements of the use case shown through the book to help you get started and cover the key pain points encountered in the data stream life cycle. As you advance, you'll get to grips with the architectural components of Kinesis, understand how they are configured to build data pipelines, and delve into the applications that connect to them for consumption and processing. You'll also build a Kinesis data pipeline from scratch and learn how to implement and apply practical solutions. Moving on, you'll learn how to configure Kinesis on a cloud platform. Finally, you’ll learn how other AWS services can be integrated into Kinesis. These services include Redshift, Dynamo Database, AWS S3, Elastic Search, and third-party applications such as Splunk.By the end of this AWS book, you’ll be able to build and deploy your own Kinesis data pipelines with Kinesis Data Streams (KDS), Kinesis Data Firehose (KFH), Kinesis Video Streams (KVS), and Kinesis Data Analytics (KDA).

Mastering JavaScript. Explore and master modern JavaScript techniques in order to build large-scale web applications

Ved Antani

JavaScript is a high-level, dynamic, untyped, lightweight, and interpreted programming language. Along with HTML and CSS, it is one of the three essential technologies of World Wide Web content production, and is an open source and cross-platform technology. The majority of websites employ JavaScript, and it is well supported by all modern web browsers without plugins. However, the JavaScript landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and you need to adapt to the new world of JavaScript that people now expect. Mastering modern JavaScript techniques and the toolchain are essential to develop web-scale applications. Mastering JavaScript will be your companion as you master JavaScript and build innovative web applications. To begin with, you will get familiarized with the language constructs and how to make code easy to organize. You will gain a concrete understanding of variable scoping, loops, and best practices on using types and data structures, as well as the coding style and recommended code organization patterns in JavaScript. The book will also teach you how to use arrays and objects as data structures. You will graduate from intermediate-level skills to advanced techniques as you come to understand crucial language concepts and design principles. You will learn about modern libraries and tools so you can write better code. By the end of the book, you will understand how reactive JavaScript is going to be the new paradigm.

Working Smarter with Microsoft Outlook. Supercharge your office and personal productivity with expert Outlook tips and techniques

Staci Warne

Millions of users across the globe spend their working hours using Microsoft Outlook to manage tasks, schedules, emails, and more. Post-pandemic, many organizations have started adopting remote working, and the need to stay productive in workspace collaboration has been increasing.Working Smarter with Microsoft Outlook takes you through smart techniques, tips, and productivity hacks that will help you become an expert Outlook user. This book brings together everything you need to know about automating your daily repetitive tasks. You’ll gain the skills necessary for working with calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks, and using them to collaborate with Microsoft SharePoint, OneNote, and many other services. You’ll learn how to use powerful tools such as Quick Steps, customized Rules, and Mail Merge with Power Automate for added functionality. Later, the book covers how to use Outlook for sharing information between Microsoft Exchange and cloud services. Toward the concluding chapters, you’ll get an introduction to Outlook programming by creating macros and seeing how you can integrate it within Outlook.By the end of this Microsoft Outlook book, you’ll be able to use Outlook and its features and capabilities efficiently to enhance your workspace collaboration and time management.

Learning Hadoop 2. Design and implement data processing, lifecycle management, and analytic workflows with the cutting-edge toolbox of Hadoop 2

Gerald Turkington, GABRIELE MODENA

Python for Google App Engine. Master the full range of development features provided by Google App Engine to build and run scalable web applications in Python

Massimiliano Pippi

ElasticSearch Cookbook. Over 130 advanced recipes to search, analyze, deploy, manage, and monitor data effectively with ElasticSearch

Alberto Paro

Implementing VxRail HCI Solutions. A complete guide to VxRail Appliance administration and configuration

Victor Wu

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) can help you simplify the provisioning and daily operations of computing and storage. With this book, you'll understand how HCI can offload the day 0 deployment and day-to-day operations of a system administrator. You'll explore the VxRail Appliance, which is an HCI solution that provides lifecycle management, automation, and operational simplicity. Starting with an overview of the VxRail Appliance system architecture and components, you'll understand the benefits of the VxRail system and compare it with the environment of traditional servers and storage. As you advance, the book covers topics such as disaster recovery and active-active and active-passive solutions for VxRail.By the end of this book, you'll have gained the confidence to manage the deployment, administration, planning, and design of a VxRail system.

Becoming a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing Functional Consultant. Learn to deliver enterprise marketing solutions and insights to exponentially grow your business

Malin Martnes

Marketing is one of the most powerful entities in the modern world with the potential to make or break a business. The mighty Microsoft Dynamics 356 Marketing tool offers a wide range of marketing automation tools, understanding which is an essential skill for a successful marketer. This in-depth guide to the ins and outs of Dynamics 365 Marketing will help you grasp all the information you need to implement and use the system the right way. Starting with the setup and configuration of your Dynamics 365 Marketing instance, you'll explore fundamental concepts, such as leads, accounts, and contacts, and the creation and administration of segments and lists. Once you've grasped these basic concepts, you'll advance to the core of the book. From the email editor to outbound and real-time customer journeys and from the event module to Customer Voice, you'll develop a solid understanding of the fundamental topics crucial for anyone who wants to be a Dynamics 365 Marketing functional consultant.By the end of the book, you'll be ready for Dynamics 365 Marketing end-to-end implementations.

Odoo 11 Development Essentials. Develop and customize business applications with Odoo 11 - Third Edition

Daniel Reis

Odoo continues to gain worldwide momentum as the best platform for open source ERP installations. Now, with Odoo 11, you have access to an improved GUI, performance optimization, integrated in-app purchase features, and a fast-growing community to help transform and modernize your business. With this practical guide, you will cover all the new features that Odoo 11 has to offer to build and customize business applications, focusing on the publicly available community edition.We begin with setting up a development environment, and as you make your way through the chapters, you will learn to build feature-rich business applications. With the aim of jump-starting your Odoo proficiency level, from no specific knowledge to application development readiness, you will develop your first Odoo application. We then move on to topics such as models and views, and understand how to use server APIs to add business logic, helping to lay a solid foundation for advanced topics.The book concludes with Odoo interactions and how to use the Odoo API from other programs, all of which will enable you to efficiently integrate applications with other external systems.

OData Programming Cookbook for .NET Developers. 70 fast-track, example-driven recipes with clear instructions and details for OData programming with .NET Framework with this book and

Steven Cheng, Juntao Cheng

Odata (Open Data Protocol) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today. OData enables data access among a variety of applications, services, and stores by adopting existing Web technologies such as HTTP, XML, and JSON. This book deals with common OData programming cases over the Microsoft .NET Framework platform and eases the learning curve for a .NET developer to start incorporating OData in data service development.This book provides a collection of recipes that help .NET developers to get familiar with OData programming in a quick and efficient manner. The recipes cover most OData features from the former ADO.NET Data Service to the current WCF Data Service platform. In addition, all the sample cases here are based on real-world scenarios and issues that .NET developers might come across when programming with OData in application development.This book will be your handy guide with basic to advanced walkthroughs of common OData programming cases for the Microsoft .NET Framework platform. You will learn quick solutions to necessary tasks to integrate the power of OData at both server-side and client-side.This book will help you master the use of OData with .NET Framework by taking you through hands-on and practical recipes. It starts by talking about the common means for building OData services and consuming OData services in client applications. Then, some more specific topics like hosting, configuration and security are discussed. The book also covers many popular and interesting topics such as integrating OData in web applications, and developing data-driven mobile applications with OData. Moreover, you can also find quite a few recipes discussing real-world OData producers and new features in latest and future versions.Within OData Programming Cookbook for .NET Developers, all the recipes are selected based on real-world scenarios that you will commonly come across. Each recipe covers a specific topic, going from the description of the problem, through a conceptual solution, to a solution containing sample code. By following these recipes, you can acquire how to program with OData in a simple, effective, and easy manner.

Salesforce DevOps for Architects. Discover tools and techniques to optimize the delivery of your Salesforce projects

Rob Cowell, Lars Malmqvist

Rob Cowell is a Salesforce DevOps Advocate with extensive experience as a Salesforce Developer and Architect, guiding best practices for Salesforce DevOps. Lars Malmqvist, a 32x certified Salesforce CTA, has 15 years of experience building advanced Salesforce solutions and is the author of two books, Architecting AI Solutions on Salesforce and Salesforce Anti-Patterns. As the Salesforce Platform evolves, architects face increasing demand for advanced solutions. This book serves as your definitive guide to mastering effective DevOps practices crucial for successful Salesforce projects. Beginning with cultivating a DevOps mindset focused on collaboration and communication, it emphasizes governance, visibility, and accountability. You'll delve into tools and techniques, leveraging the robust capabilities of SFDX to craft your strategy efficiently. This book stands out for its practical approach to Salesforce packaging and CI/CD stack creation, guiding you to build a seamless automated change delivery system with freely available software. It addresses critical operational concerns such as ticket management, backups, change monitoring, and data seeding. In the final chapters, you'll discover third-party solutions to expedite your Salesforce DevOps journey, empowering you to deliver sophisticated and efficient projects.

Essential Guide to LLMOps. Implementing effective strategies for Large Language Models in deployment and continuous improvement

Ryan Doan

The rapid advancements in large language models (LLMs) bring significant challenges in deployment, maintenance, and scalability. This Essential Guide to LLMOps provides practical solutions and strategies to overcome these challenges, ensuring seamless integration and the optimization of LLMs in real-world applications.This book takes you through the historical background, core concepts, and essential tools for data analysis, model development, deployment, maintenance, and governance. You’ll learn how to streamline workflows, enhance efficiency in LLMOps processes, employ LLMOps tools for precise model fine-tuning, and address the critical aspects of model review and governance. You’ll also get to grips with the practices and performance considerations that are necessary for the responsible development and deployment of LLMs. The book equips you with insights into model inference, scalability, and continuous improvement, and shows you how to implement these in real-world applications.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned the nuances of LLMOps, including effective deployment strategies, scalability solutions, and continuous improvement techniques, equipping you to stay ahead in the dynamic world of AI.

Mastering ServiceNow. Unleash the full potential of ServiceNow from foundations to advanced functions, with this hands-on expert guide fully revised for the Helsinki version - Second Edition

Martin Wood

ServiceNow is a SaaS application that provides workflow form-based applications. It is an ideal platform for creating enterprise-level applications giving requesters and fulfillers improved visibility and access to a process. ServiceNow-based applications often replace email by providing a better way to get work done. The book steps through the main aspects of the ServiceNow platform, from the ground up. It starts by exploring the core architecture of ServiceNow, including building the right data structure. To add business logic and control data, and interactivity to user interaction, you will be shown how to code on both server and the client. You will then learn more about the power of tasks, events and notifications. The book will then focus on using web services and other mechanisms to integrate ServiceNow with other systems. Furthermore, you will learn how to secure applications and data, and understand how ServiceNow performs logging and error reporting. You will then be shown how to package your applications and changes, so they can be installed elsewhere and ways to maintain them easily. If you wish to create an alternative simple interface, then explore ways to make ServiceNow beautiful using Service Portal. By the end of the book, you will know the fundamentals of the ServiceNow platform, helping you be a better ServiceNow System Administrator or developer.

An Atypical ASP.NET Core 6 Design Patterns Guide. A SOLID adventure into architectural principles and design patterns using .NET 6 and C# 10 - Second Edition

Carl-Hugo Marcotte, Abdelhamid Zebdi

An Atypical ASP.NET Core 6 Design Patterns Guide, Second Edition approaches programming like playing with LEGO®: snapping small pieces together to create something beautiful. Thoroughly updated for ASP.NET Core 6, with further coverage of microservices patterns, data contracts, and event-driven architecture, this book gives you the tools to build and glue reliable components together to improve your programmatic masterpieces.The chapters are organized based on scale and topic, allowing you to start small and build on a strong base, the same way that you would develop a program. You will begin by exploring basic design patterns, SOLID architectural principles, dependency injection, and other ASP.NET Core 6 mechanisms. You will explore component-scale patterns, and then move to higher level application-scale patterns and techniques to better structure your applications. Finally, you'll advance to the client side to connect the dots with tools like Blazor and make ASP.NET Core a viable full-stack web development framework.You will supplement your learning with practical use cases and best practices, exploring a range of significant Gang of Four (GoF) design patterns along the way. By the end of the book, you will be comfortable combining and implementing patterns in different ways, and crafting software solutions of any scale.

Machine Learning Security Principles. Keep data, networks, users, and applications safe from prying eyes

John Paul Mueller, Rod Stephens

Businesses are leveraging the power of AI to make undertakings that used to be complicated and pricy much easier, faster, and cheaper. The first part of this book will explore these processes in more depth, which will help you in understanding the role security plays in machine learning.As you progress to the second part, you’ll learn more about the environments where ML is commonly used and dive into the security threats that plague them using code, graphics, and real-world references.The next part of the book will guide you through the process of detecting hacker behaviors in the modern computing environment, where fraud takes many forms in ML, from gaining sales through fake reviews to destroying an adversary’s reputation. Once you’ve understood hacker goals and detection techniques, you’ll learn about the ramifications of deep fakes, followed by mitigation strategies.This book also takes you through best practices for embracing ethical data sourcing, which reduces the security risk associated with data. You’ll see how the simple act of removing personally identifiable information (PII) from a dataset lowers the risk of social engineering attacks.By the end of this machine learning book, you'll have an increased awareness of the various attacks and the techniques to secure your ML systems effectively.