Unity Virtual Reality Projects. Learn Virtual Reality by developing more than 10 engaging projects with Unity 2018 - Second Edition

Jonathan Linowes

Unity has become the leading platform for building virtual reality games, applications, and experiences for this new generation of consumer VR devices. Unity Virtual Reality Projects walks you through a series of hands-on tutorials and in-depth discussions on using the Unity game engine to develop VR applications. With its practical and project-based approach, this book will get you up to speed with the specifics of VR development in Unity. You will learn how to use Unity to develop VR applications that can be experienced with devices such as Oculus, Daydream, and Vive. Among the many topics and projects, you will explore gaze-based versus hand-controller input, world space UI canvases, locomotion and teleportation, software design patterns, 360-degree media, timeline animation, and multiplayer networking. You will learn about the Unity 3D game engine via the interactive Unity Editor, and you will also learn about C# programming. By the end of the book, you will be fully equipped to develop rich, interactive VR experiences using Unity.

Drupal 6 Theming Cookbook. Over 100 clear step-by-step recipes to create powerful, great-looking Drupal themes

Karthik Kumar, Dries Buytaert

Themes are among the most powerful features that can be used to customize a website to fit your needs. The greatest strength of Drupal lies in its design, which, when done right, allows developers to customize every aspect of the site. Although it might sound easy to customize the look of your site, it's not a cakewalk to build custom themes that are easy to administer and maintain.Drupal 6 Theming Cookbook provides a plethora of recipes that enable Drupal template designers to make full use of Drupal's extensibility and style their site just the way they want it. It is a well-rounded guide, which will allow users looking to theme their Drupal sites to do so by taking full advantage of Drupal's theming system. It covers numerous aspects from creating custom themes to using the powerful CCK, Views, and Panels modules to create rich designs that are easy to administer and maintain.Structured as a collection of recipes to perform a wide variety of tasks, this book will guide readers through most important aspects of Drupal theming. It starts off with recipes dealing with the basics of Drupal's theme system: you will find recipes for solving all your problems with regions and blocks. It then moves on to advanced topics such as creating a custom theme and using it to modify the layout and style of the content that is output on a page. A substantial number of recipes are dedicated to Drupal's template system, which will provide you with a solid foundation in order to override the output of Drupal and contributed modules. Furthermore, as the combination of modules such as CCK, Views, and Panels is so widely prevalent, chapters have been dedicated for each of these modules. With this book, you'll learn to get the most out of Drupal's templating system and its modules to create rich designs for your site.

SQL Server 2019 Administrator's Guide. A definitive guide for DBAs to implement, monitor, and maintain enterprise database solutions - Second Edition

Marek Chmel, Vladimir Muzny

SQL Server is one of the most popular relational database management systems developed by Microsoft. This second edition of the SQL Server Administrator's Guide will not only teach you how to administer an enterprise database, but also help you become proficient at managing and keeping the database available, secure, and stable.You’ll start by learning how to set up your SQL Server and configure new and existing environments for optimal use. The book then takes you through designing aspects and delves into performance tuning by showing you how to use indexes effectively. You’ll understand certain choices that need to be made about backups, implement security policy, and discover how to keep your environment healthy. Tools available for monitoring and managing a SQL Server database, including automating health reviews, performance checks, and much more, will also be discussed in detail. As you advance, the book covers essential topics such as migration, upgrading, and consolidation, along with the techniques that will help you when things go wrong. Once you’ve got to grips with integration with Azure and streamlining big data pipelines, you’ll learn best practices from industry experts for maintaining a highly reliable database solution.Whether you are an administrator or are looking to get started with database administration, this SQL Server book will help you develop the skills you need to successfully create, design, and deploy database solutions.

Applied Computational Thinking with Python. Algorithm design for complex real-world problems - Second Edition

Sofía De Jesús, Dayrene Martinez

Computational thinking helps you to develop logical processing and algorithmic thinking while solving real-world problems across a wide range of domains. It's an essential skill that you should possess to keep ahead of the curve in this modern era of information technology. Developers can apply their knowledge of computational thinking to solve problems in multiple areas, including economics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence.This book begins by helping you get to grips with decomposition, pattern recognition, pattern generalization and abstraction, and algorithm design, along with teaching you how to apply these elements practically while designing solutions for challenging problems. You’ll then learn about various techniques involved in problem analysis, logical reasoning, algorithm design, clusters and classification, data analysis, and modeling, and understand how computational thinking elements can be used together with these aspects to design solutions. Toward the end, you will discover how to identify pitfalls in the solution design process and how to choose the right functionalities to create the best possible algorithmic solutions.By the end of this algorithm book, you will have gained the confidence to successfully apply computational thinking techniques to software development.

OpenCV 4 Computer Vision Application Programming Cookbook. Build complex computer vision applications with OpenCV and C++ - Fourth Edition

David Millán Escrivá, Robert Laganiere

OpenCV is an image and video processing library used for all types of image and video analysis. Throughout the book, you'll work with recipes to implement a variety of tasks. With 70 self-contained tutorials, this book examines common pain points and best practices for computer vision (CV) developers. Each recipe addresses a specific problem and offers a proven, best-practice solution with insights into how it works, so that you can copy the code and configuration files and modify them to suit your needs.This book begins by guiding you through setting up OpenCV, and explaining how to manipulate pixels. You'll understand how you can process images with classes and count pixels with histograms. You'll also learn detecting, describing, and matching interest points. As you advance through the chapters, you'll get to grips with estimating projective relations in images, reconstructing 3D scenes, processing video sequences, and tracking visual motion. In the final chapters, you'll cover deep learning concepts such as face and object detection.By the end of this book, you'll have the skills you need to confidently implement a range of computer vision algorithms to meet the technical requirements of your complex CV projects.

Learn Microsoft PowerApps. Build customized business applications without writing any code

Matthew Weston

Microsoft PowerApps provides a modern approach to building business applications for mobile, tablet, and browser. Learn Microsoft PowerApps will guide you in creating powerful and productive apps that will add value to your organization by helping you transform old and inefficient processes and workflows.Starting with an introduction to PowerApps, this book will help you set up and configure your first application. You’ll explore a variety of built-in templates and understand the key difference between types of applications such as canvas and model-driven apps, which are used to create apps for specific business scenarios. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to generate and integrate apps directly with SharePoint, and gain an understanding of PowerApps key components such as connectors and formulas. As you advance, you’ll be able to use various controls and data sources, including technologies such as GPS, and combine them to create an iterative app. Finally, the book will help you understand how PowerApps can use several Microsoft Power Automate and Azure functionalities to improve your applications.By the end of this PowerApps book, you’ll be ready to confidently develop lightweight business applications with minimal code.

Generative AI with LangChain. Build large language model (LLM) apps with Python, ChatGPT, and other LLMs

Ben Auffarth

ChatGPT and the GPT models by OpenAI have brought about a revolution not only in how we write and research but also in how we can process information. This book discusses the functioning, capabilities, and limitations of LLMs underlying chat systems, including ChatGPT and Gemini. It demonstrates, in a series of practical examples, how to use the LangChain framework to build production-ready and responsive LLM applications for tasks ranging from customer support to software development assistance and data analysis – illustrating the expansive utility of LLMs in real-world applications.Unlock the full potential of LLMs within your projects as you navigate through guidance on fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and best practices for deployment and monitoring in production environments. Whether you're building creative writing tools, developing sophisticated chatbots, or crafting cutting-edge software development aids, this book will be your roadmap to mastering the transformative power of generative AI with confidence and creativity.

Hands-On Enterprise Automation on Linux. Efficiently perform large-scale Linux infrastructure automation with Ansible

James Freeman

Automation is paramount if you want to run Linux in your enterprise effectively. It helps you minimize costs by reducing manual operations, ensuring compliance across data centers, and accelerating deployments for your cloud infrastructures.Complete with detailed explanations, practical examples, and self-assessment questions, this book will teach you how to manage your Linux estate and leverage Ansible to achieve effective levels of automation. You'll learn important concepts on standard operating environments that lend themselves to automation, and then build on this knowledge by applying Ansible to achieve standardization throughout your Linux environments.By the end of this Linux automation book, you'll be able to build, deploy, and manage an entire estate of Linux servers with higher reliability and lower overheads than ever before.

Spark Cookbook. With over 60 recipes on Spark, covering Spark Core, Spark SQL, Spark Streaming, MLlib, and GraphX libraries this is the perfect Spark book to always have by your side

Rishi Yadav

Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation 4.0 Cookbook for Developing SOA Applications. Over 85 easy recipes for managing communication between applications

Juntao Cheng, Steven Cheng

The Windows Communication Foundation 4.0 (WCF 4.0) is a .NET-based application programming interface for building and running connected systems. It enables secure and reliable communication among systems within an organization or across the Internet. This book deals with the difficult issues faced by a .NET developer while working with WCF.WCF 4.0 is a communications infrastructure that unifies a broad array of distributed systems' capabilities in a composable, extensible architecture that supports multiple transports, messaging patterns, encodings, network topologies, and hosting models. This book is a collection of focused real-world recipes and covers basic recipes on topics such as working with contracts to more advanced topics such as extending WCF runtime. By the end of this book you will have valuable information that helps transform the potentially unproductive habits of .Net developers who work with WCF.This book will take you through many concepts starting with complete support for contract-related design for WCF service development. You will learn to use WCF's built-in feature for building various service endpoints. Service hosting and configuration are important areas for building WCF services, especially at the service deployment stage, and are detailed in this book. You will find it easy to work with WCF client proxy generation and metadata publishing and discovery when you go through recipes such as customizing auto-generated service proxies.The author then discusses the exchange of data in WCF service operation features, related to WCF data serialization. You will discover some useful tips for security in WCF service development and built-in features for developing concurrency control for your services built upon it.One big plus is that you will learn to extend the existing WCF framework to achieve advanced functionality. You will find a dedicated chapter for RESTful and AJAX-enabled service development. Moving on, you will find several useful WCF service interoperability cases, which are important for a distributed service development platform. Towards the end of this book you will find some handy and useful diagnostic methods for troubleshooting.

Securing Industrial Control Systems and Safety Instrumented Systems. A practical guide for safeguarding mission and safety critical systems

Jalal Bouhdada, Marco Ayala

As modern process facilities become increasingly sophisticated and vulnerable to cyber threats, securing critical infrastructure is more crucial than ever. This book offers an indispensable guide to industrial cybersecurity and Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), vital for maintaining the safety and reliability of critical systems and protecting your operations, personnel, and assets.Starting with SIS design principles, the book delves into the architecture and protocols of safety networks. It provides hands-on experience identifying vulnerabilities and potential attack vectors, exploring how attackers might target SIS components. You’ll thoroughly analyze Key SIS technologies, threat modeling, and attack techniques targeting SIS controllers and engineer workstations. The book shows you how to secure Instrument Asset Management Systems (IAMS), implement physical security measures, and apply integrated risk management methodologies. It also covers compliance with emerging cybersecurity regulations and industry standards worldwide.By the end of the book, you’ll have gained practical insights into various risk assessment methodologies and a comprehensive understanding of how to effectively protect critical infrastructure.

Laravel Application Development Cookbook. Since Laravel is so versatile, one of the best learning routes is a cookbook. We've included lots of recipes and guidance on building web application, both simple and complex. It's a pick & mix approach that works brilliantly

Terry Matula

When creating a web application, there are many PHP frameworks from which to choose. Some are very easy to set up, and some have a much steeper learning curve. Laravel offers both paths. You can do a quick installation and have your app up-and-running in no time, or you can use Laravel's extensibility to create an advanced and fully-featured app.Laravel Application Development Cookbook provides you with working code examples for many of the common problems that web developers face. In the process, it will also allow both new and existing Laravel users to expand their knowledge of the framework.This book will walk you through all aspects of Laravel development. It begins with basic set up and installation procedures, and continues through more advanced use cases. You will also learn about all the helpful features that Laravel provides to make your development quick and easy. For more advanced needs, you will also see how to utilize Laravel's authentication features and how to create a RESTful API.In the Laravel Application Development Cookbook, you will learn everything you need to know about a great PHP framework, with working code that will get you up-and-running in no time.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Financial Management. Boost your accounting and financial skills with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Mohamed Aamer Ala El Din (USD), Mohamed Aamer

Artificial Intelligence in Unreal Engine 5. Unleash the power of AI for next-gen game development with UE5 by using Blueprints and C++

Marco Secchi

Have you ever wondered how to create engaging gameplay experiences that involve formidable AI opponents, capable of challenging and pushing players to their limits? If the answer is yes, then get ready to enter the realm of AI creation with Unreal Engine 5.Within the pages of this book, written by a brilliant author and game development expert, you’ll find the secrets of Unreal Engine's cutting-edge AI framework. With this newfound knowledge, you’ll be able to create immersive and dynamic gaming experiences. This step-by-step guide will teach you the art of crafting intelligent and responsive virtual opponents that challenge and engage players on a whole new level. As you follow along with practical examples, the book will guide you through the creation of fully functional AI systems. You’ll be able to harness the power of behavior trees, NavMesh systems, and sensory perception models, breathing life into your virtual characters.By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge you need to unleash the full potential of AI in Unreal Engine. Get ready to revolutionize your gaming creations and captivate players with AI-driven wonders that push the boundaries of what's possible!

Django Project Blueprints. Develop stunning web application projects with the Django framework

Asad Jibran Ahmed

Django is a high-level web framework that eases the creation of complex, database-driven websites. It emphasizes on the reusability and pluggability of components, rapid development, and the principle of don't repeat yourself. It lets you build high-performing, elegant web applications quickly.There are several Django tutorials available online, which take as many shortcuts as possible, but leave you wondering how you can adapt them to your own needs. This guide takes the opposite approach by demonstrating how to work around common problems and client requests, without skipping the important details. If you have built a few Django projects and are on the lookout for a guide to get you past the basics and to solve modern development tasks, this is your book.Seven unique projects will take you through the development process from scratch, leaving no stone unturned. In the first two projects, you will learn everything from adding ranking and voting capabilities to your App to building a multiuser blog platform with a unique twist. The third project tackles APIs with Django and walks us through building a Nagios-inspired infrastructure monitoring system. And that is just the start!The other projects deal with customizing the Django admin to create a CMS for your clients, translating your web applications to multiple languages, and using the Elasticsearch search server with Django to create a high performing e-commerce web site. The seventh chapter includes a surprise usage of Django, and we dive deep into the internals of Django to create something exciting!When you're done, you'll have consistent patterns and techniques that you can build on for many projects to come.

Extending Puppet. Design, manage, and deploy your Puppet architecture with the help of real-world scenarios

Alessandro Franceschi