Unity 4.x Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide. A seat-of-your-pants manual for building fun, groovy little games quickly with Unity 4.x - Third Edition

Ryan Henson Creighton

Unity is one of the biggest game engines in the world, providing the user with a range of important tools that they need to bring their ideas into reality. Beginner game developers are optimistic, passionate, and ambitious, but that ambition can be dangerous! Too often, budding indie developers and hobbyists bite off more than they can chew. Games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Fruit Ninja are fun, simple games that have delighted players and delivered big profits to their creators. This is the perfect climate for new game developers to succeed by creating simple games with Unity, starting today.This book teaches you the ins and outs of the unique Unity game engine interface. Clear and concise code examples written in both Unity Javascript and C# take you through the step-by-step process of building five small, functional games. With this understanding you can start making your own mark on the game industry!With absolutely no programming or game development experience, you will learn how to build five simple games in Unity by following step-by-step instructions, peppered with amusing analogies and anecdotes from an experienced indie developer. Following a primer on simplifying your game ideas to that single “something” that keeps players coming back for more, dive into the Unity game engine by creating a simple bat-and-ball game. From there, you'll build a complete memory game using only the Unity GUI system. After building a 2.5D mouse avoider game, you'll learn how to re-skin the project to completely change the game's theme. Incorporating everything you've learned, you'll return to complete the bat-and-ball game by adding scoring, replay flow, sound effects, and animations. Finally, in the new bonus chapter, you'll program some simple AI (Artificial Intelligence) for a tic tac toe game.Unity 4.x Game Development by Example is a fun and light-hearted exploration of one of the most powerful game engines on the market today. Find out what all the fuss is about by getting up to speed using this book!

Practical Data Analysis. For small businesses, analyzing the information contained in their data using open source technology could be game-changing. All you need is some basic programming and mathematical skills to do just that

Hector Cuesta

Plenty of small businesses face big amounts of data but lack the internal skills to support quantitative analysis. Understanding how to harness the power of data analysis using the latest open source technology can lead them to providing better customer service, the visualization of customer needs, or even the ability to obtain fresh insights about the performance of previous products. Practical Data Analysis is a book ideal for home and small business users who want to slice and dice the data they have on hand with minimum hassle.Practical Data Analysis is a hands-on guide to understanding the nature of your data and turn it into insight. It will introduce you to the use of machine learning techniques, social networks analytics, and econometrics to help your clients get insights about the pool of data they have at hand. Performing data preparation and processing over several kinds of data such as text, images, graphs, documents, and time series will also be covered.Practical Data Analysis presents a detailed exploration of the current work in data analysis through self-contained projects. First you will explore the basics of data preparation and transformation through OpenRefine. Then you will get started with exploratory data analysis using the D3js visualization framework. You will also be introduced to some of the machine learning techniques such as, classification, regression, and clusterization through practical projects such as spam classification, predicting gold prices, and finding clusters in your Facebook friends' network. You will learn how to solve problems in text classification, simulation, time series forecast, social media, and MapReduce through detailed projects. Finally you will work with large amounts of Twitter data using MapReduce to perform a sentiment analysis implemented in Python and MongoDB. Practical Data Analysis contains a combination of carefully selected algorithms and data scrubbing that enables you to turn your data into insight.

Getting Started with Ionic. Get up and running with developing effective Hybrid Mobile Apps with Ionic

Rahat Khanna

Hybrid Apps are a promising choice in mobile app development to achieve cost effectiveness and rapid development. However, they were not preferred over native apps until few years back due to a poor performance and bad user experience, but everything has changed with the release of Ionic. It has evolved as the most popular choice for Hybrid Mobile App development as it tends to match the native experience and provides robust components/tools to build apps.Getting Started with Ionic equips any web developer with the basic knowledge needed to use modern web technologies to build amazing hybrid mobile apps using Ionic. This fast-paced, practical book explains all the important concepts of AngularJS and Cordova Framework required to develop apps, then gives you a brief introduction to hybrid mobile applications. It will guide you through setting up the environment to develop mobile apps, and through the multiple options and features available in Ionic so you can use them in your mobile apps. Features such as the Side Menu, Tabs, Touch Interactions, and native features such as Bar Code, Camera, and Geolocations are all covered.. Finally, we’ll show you how to use Cordova plugins and publish your apps.

Building Telephony Systems with OpenSER. A step-by-step guide to building a high performance Telephony System

Flavio E. Goncalves, Bogdan Andrei Iancu (EUR), Flavio E Goncalves

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js. A step-by-step guide in the RESTful world of Node.js. - Second Edition

Valentin Bojinov

In this era of cloud computing, every data provisioning solution is built in a scalable and fail-safe way. Thus, when building RESTful services, the right choice for the underlying platform is vital. Node.js, with its asynchronous, event-driven architecture, is exactly the right choice to build RESTful APIs.This book will help you enrich your development skills to create scalable, server-side, RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform.Starting with the fundamentals of REST, you will understand why RESTful web services are better data provisioning solution than other technologies. You will start setting upa development environment by installing Node.js, Express.js, and other modules. Next, you will write a simple HTTP request handler and create and test Node.js modules using automated tests and mock objects. You will then have to choose the most appropriate data storage type, having options between a key/value or document data store, and also you will implement automated tests for it. This module will evolve chapter by chapter until it turns into a full-fledged and secure Restful service.

Android Security Cookbook. Practical recipes to delve into Android's security mechanisms by troubleshooting common vulnerabilities in applications and Android OS versions

Keith Makan, Scott Alexander-Bown, Keith Harald Esrick Makan

Android Security Cookbook discusses many common vulnerabilities and security related shortcomings in Android applications and operating systems. The book breaks down and enumerates the processes used to exploit and remediate these vulnerabilities in the form of detailed recipes and walkthroughs.The book also teaches readers to use an Android Security Assessment Framework called Drozer and how to develop plugins to customize the framework.Other topics covered include how to reverse-engineer Android applications to find common vulnerabilities, and how to find common memory corruption vulnerabilities on ARM devices. In terms of application protection this book will show various hardening techniques to protect application components, the data stored, secure networking. In summary, Android Security Cookbook provides a practical analysis into many areas of Android application and operating system security and gives the reader the required skills to analyze the security of their Android devices.

Django in Production. Expert tips, strategies, and essential frameworks for writing scalable and maintainable code in Django

Arghya Saha

You may have got your first Django developer job after a six-week bootcamp or online course, and that’s great, but what’s next? In small companies, mentorship can be hard to come by and gaining the traits of a senior developer without that can take a long time. This is precisely where Django in Production comes into play.This book will first delve into the true meaning of good practice and help you understand the rationale behind industry professionals building websites in specific ways to develop a solid foundation for your Django projects. Next, you will uncover hidden Django secrets through hands-on exploration, leveraging the power of Docker and version control to your advantage. You will gain insights into mastering Git hooks for efficient code maintenance, establishing a robust CI pipeline, and harnessing the capabilities of AWS Beanstalk. These tools will empower you to develop highly scalable products—an essential skill set for aspiring developers transitioning from junior to senior roles. Later, you will understand the significance of monitoring and be introduced to industry-standard tools utilized by professionals for effective monitoring practices.By the end of this book, you will have set yourself apart from the crowd, equipped with the knowledge and expertise to thrive as a seasoned Django developer.

JIRA 7 Essentials. Click here to enter text. - Fourth Edition

Patrick Li

Atlassian JIRA is an enterprise-issue tracker system. One of its key strengths is its ability to adapt to the needs of the organization, ranging from building Atlassian application interfaces to providing a platform for add-ons to extend JIRA's capabilities.JIRA 7 Essentials, now in its fourth edition, provides a comprehensive explanation covering all major components of JIRA 7, which includes JIRA Software, JIRA Core, and JIRA Service Works.The book starts by explaining how to plan and set up a new JIRA 7 instance from scratch for production use before moving on to the more key features such as e-mails, workflows, business processes, and so on. Then you will understand JIRA's data hierarchy and how to design and work with projects in JIRA. Issues being the corner stone of using JIRA, you will gain a deep understanding of issues and their purpose. Then you will be introduced to fields and how to use custom fields for more effective data collections. You will then learn to create new screens from scratch and customize it to suit your needs. The book then covers workflows and business processes, and you will also be able to set up both incoming and outgoing mail servers to work with e-mails. Towards the end, we explain JIRA's security model and introduce you to one of JIRA’s new add-ons: JIRA Service Desk, which allows you to run JIRA as a computer support portal.

Information Theory. A Tutorial Introduction to the Principles and Applications of Information Theory

James V Stone

This book offers a comprehensive journey through the fascinating world of information theory, beginning with the fundamental question: what is information? Early chapters introduce key concepts like entropy, binary representation, and data compression, providing a clear and accessible foundation. Readers explore Shannon's source coding theorem and practical tools like Huffman coding to understand how information is quantified and optimized.Building on these basics, the book delves into advanced topics such as the noisy channel coding theorem, mutual information, and error correction techniques. It examines entropy in continuous systems, channel capacity, and rate-distortion theory, making complex ideas accessible through real-world examples. Connections between information and thermodynamics are also explored, including Maxwell’s Demon, the Landauer Limit, and the second law of thermodynamics.The final chapters tie information theory to biology and artificial intelligence, investigating its role in evolution, the human genome, and brain computation. With practical examples throughout, this book balances theoretical depth with hands-on learning, making it an essential resource for mastering information theory. A basic mathematical foundation will be beneficial but is not required to engage with the material.

Windows Application Development Cookbook. Click here to enter text

Marcin Jamro

Need to ensure you can always create the best Windows apps regardless of platform? What you need are solutions to the biggest issues you can face, so you can always ensure you’re making the right choices and creating the best apps you can.The book starts with recipes that will help you set up the integrated development environment before you go ahead and design the user interface. You will learn how to use the MVVM design pattern together with data binding, as well as how to work with data in different file formats.Moving on, you will explore techniques to add animations and graphics to your application, and enable your solution to work with multimedia content.You will also see how to use sensors, such as an accelerometer and a compass, as well as obtain the current GPS location. You will make your application ready to work with Internet-based scenarios, such as composing e-mails or downloading files, before finally testing the project and submitting it to the Windows Store.By the end of the book, you will have a market-ready application compatible across different Windows devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

Demystifying Ansible Automation Platform. A definitive way to manage Ansible Automation Platform and Ansible Tower

Sean Sullivan

While you can use any automation software to simplify task automation, scaling automation to suit your growing business needs becomes difficult using only a command-line tool. Ansible Automation Platform standardizes how automation is deployed, initiated, delegated, and audited, and this comprehensive guide shows you how you can simplify and scale its management.The book starts by taking you through the ways to get Ansible Automation Platform installed, their pros and cons, and the initial configuration. You’ll learn about each object in the platform, how it interacts with other objects, as well as best practices for defining and managing objects to save time. You’ll see how to maintain the created pieces with infrastructure as code. As you advance, you’ll monitor workflows with CI/CD playbooks and understand how Ansible Automation Platform integrates with many other services such as GitLab and GitHub.By the end of this book, you’ll have worked through real-world examples to make the most of the platform while learning how to manipulate, manage, and deploy any playbook to Ansible Automation Platform.

AndEngine for Android Game Development Cookbook. AndEngine is a simple but powerful 2D game engine that's ideal for developers who want to create mobile games. This cookbook will get you up to speed with the latest features and techniques quickly and practically

Nicolas Gramlich, JAYME SCHROEDER, Brian Boyles

AndEngine is a broad 2D game engine which allows game developers, both experienced and inexperienced, to develop games for the Android platform with ease. Don't be fooled by the simplicity, though. As easy as it is to “pick up and go,” AndEngine includes enough functionality to bring any type of 2D game world to life.The AndEngine for Android Game Development Cookbook contains all of the necessary information and examples in order to build the games as you imagine them. The book's recipes will walk you through the various aspects of game design with AndEngine and provides detailed instructions on how to achieve some of the most desirable effects for your games.The AndEngine for Android Game Development Cookbook begins with detailed information on some of the more useful structuring techniques in game design and general aspects of resource management. Continuing on, the book will begin to discuss AndEngine entities, including sprites, text, meshes, and more. Everything from positioning, to modifiers, and even tips on improving entity functionality with raw OpenGL capabilities. From here on, everything from applying physics to your game, working with multi-touch events and gestures, game optimization, and even an overview of the various AndEngine extensions will be covered.The book has a widerange of recipes, from saving and loading game data, applying parallax backgrounds to create a seemingly 3D world, relying on touch events to zoom the game camera, taking screen-shots of the device's screen, and performance optimization using object pools. If physics-based games are more interesting to you, there's also a list of recipes ranging from controlling the world forces and calculating forces applied to bodies, creating destructible objects, and even creating rag-dolls.Pong styled games were fun 35 years ago, but it is time to take your game to the next level with the AndEngine for Android Game Development Cookbook.

Instant Highcharts. Learn to create dynamic and customized charts instantly using Highcharts

Cyril Grandjean

Nowadays, a lot of systems and tools are developed using web technologies. Customers need to analyze their data using charts on their computer or their mobile device. With the Highcharts library, it is possible to create highly customizable and interactive charts on any computer or a mobile device without installing any plugins.Instant Highcharts is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a step-by-step approach, which will help you to take advantage of the powerful features of Highcharts. With Instant Highcharts, you will learn everything you need to know to create your own dynamic charts with your own data inside your web application.Instant Highcharts will present you with different features available with Highcharts, and helps you to create your own chart. You will start with Highcharts installation and then learn to create your own customized column, bar, area, and pie charts with your data. You will learn to add some interactive functionality such as the zoom feature or to export your chart into a printable format. We will also give you tips that will help you to improve your skills with Highcharts.

Learn QGIS. Your step-by-step guide to the fundamental of QGIS 3.4 - Fourth Edition

Andrew Cutts, Anita Graser

QGIS 3.4 is the first LTR (long term release) of QGIS version 3. This is a giant leap forward for the project with tons of new features and impactful changes. Learn QGIS is fully updated for QGIS 3.4, covering its processing engine update, Python 3 de-facto coding environment, and the GeoPackage format.This book will help you get started on your QGIS journey, guiding you to develop your own processing pathway. You will explore the user interface, loading your data, editing, and then creating data. QGIS often surprises new users with its mapping capabilities; you will discover how easily you can style and create your first map. But that’s not all! In the final part of the book, you’ll learn about spatial analysis and the powerful tools in QGIS, and conclude by looking at Python processing options.By the end of the book, you will have become proficient in geospatial analysis using QGIS and Python.

Keap Cookbook. Over 75 effective recipes for CRM optimization, marketing automation, and workflow mastery

Michelle Bell, Lesley Oliver

Say goodbye to feeling overwhelmed by Keap Pro/Max! This guide is your ultimate companion, taking you from the initial setup to daily usage and routine maintenance, showing you how to leverage the system’s features for business success. We start by building a solid foundation for Keap Pro/Max, guiding you through the setup and helping you navigate the features with ease. As you progress, you'll uncover advanced strategies and tricks that will elevate your business.Imagine managing your customer relationships effortlessly, delighting them at every step. Learn how to organize your contacts, track sales, and enhance the customer experience. Say goodbye to manual tasks and hello to efficiency by automating your marketing campaigns. You'll target your audience with precision and create personalized customer journeys.Need to generate leads? This book reveals proven techniques to attract, capture, and nurture leads effectively. You'll master campaign management, ensuring every step is seamlessly executed for maximum conversions.By the end of this book, you’ll be a Keap Pro/Max wiz, ready to dominate your niche and scale your business using the power of automation to supercharge your marketing efforts and achieve workflow mastery.

Debunking C++ Myths. Embark on an insightful journey to uncover the truths behind popular C++ myths and misconceptions

Alexandru Bolboacă, Ferenc-Lajos Deák

Think you know C++? Think again.For decades, C++ has been clouded by myths and misunderstandings—from its early design decisions to misconceptions that still linger today. Claims like C++ is too hard to learn or C++ is obsolete are often rooted in some truth, but they are outdated and fail to capture the language’s ongoing evolution and modern capabilities.Written by industry veterans with over 40 years of combined experience, this book uncovers the myths, exploring their origins and relevance in the context of today’s C++ landscape. It equips you with a deeper understanding of advanced features and best practices to elevate your projects. Each chapter tackles a specific misconception, shedding light on C++'s modern features, such as smart pointers, lambdas, and concurrency. You’ll learn practical strategies to navigate common challenges like code portability and compiler compatibility, as well as how to incorporate modern best practices into your C++ codebase to optimize performance and future-proof your projects. By the end of this book, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of C++'s evolution, equipping you to make informed decisions and harness its powerful features to enhance your skills, coding practices, and projects.

Tableau 2019.x Cookbook. Over 115 recipes to build end-to-end analytical solutions using Tableau

Dmitry Anoshin, Teodora Matic, Slaven Bogdanovic, Tania Lincoln, ...

Tableau has been one of the most popular business intelligence solutions in recent times, thanks to its powerful and interactive data visualization capabilities. Tableau 2019.x Cookbook is full of useful recipes from industry experts, who will help you master Tableau skills and learn each aspect of Tableau's ecosystem.This book is enriched with features such as Tableau extracts, Tableau advanced calculations, geospatial analysis, and building dashboards. It will guide you with exciting data manipulation, storytelling, advanced filtering, expert visualization, and forecasting techniques using real-world examples. From basic functionalities of Tableau to complex deployment on Linux, you will cover it all. Moreover, you will learn advanced features of Tableau using R, Python, and various APIs. You will learn how to prepare data for analysis using the latest Tableau Prep. In the concluding chapters, you will learn how Tableau fits the modern world of analytics and works with modern data platforms such as Snowflake and Redshift. In addition, you will learn about the best practices of integrating Tableau with ETL using Matillion ETL.By the end of the book, you will be ready to tackle business intelligence challenges using Tableau's features.

Mastering Metasploit. Discover the next level of network defense with the Metasploit framework - Second Edition

Nipun Jaswal

Metasploit is a popular penetration testing framework that has one of the largest exploit databases around. This book will show you exactly how to prepare yourself against the attacks you will face every day by simulating real-world possibilities.We start by reminding you about the basic functionalities of Metasploit and its use in the most traditional ways. You’ll get to know about the basics of programming Metasploit modules as a refresher, and then dive into carrying out exploitation as well building and porting exploits of various kinds in Metasploit. In the next section, you’ll develop the ability to perform testing on various services such as SCADA, databases, IoT, mobile, tablets, and many more services. After this training, we jump into real-world sophisticated scenarios where performing penetration tests are a challenge. With real-life case studies, we take you on a journey through client-side attacks using Metasploit and various scripts built on the Metasploit framework.By the end of the book, you will be trained specifically on time-saving techniques using Metasploit.

Embedded Linux Development Using Yocto Project Cookbook. Practical recipes to help you leverage the power of Yocto to build exciting Linux-based systems - Second Edition

Alex Gonzalez

The Yocto Project has become the de facto distribution build framework for reliable and robust embedded systems with a reduced time to market.You'll get started by working on a build system where you set up Yocto, create a build directory, and learn how to debug it. Then, you'll explore everything about the BSP layer, from creating a custom layer to debugging device tree issues. In addition to this, you’ll learn how to add a new software layer, packages, data, scripts, and configuration files to your system. You will then cover topics based on application development, such as using the Software Development Kit and how to use the Yocto project in various development environments. Toward the end, you will learn how to debug, trace, and profile a running system. This second edition has been updated to include new content based on the latest Yocto release.

BPEL and Java Cookbook. Written by an SOA guru to help you orchestrate web services, the 100 recipes in this book will make integrating Java and BPEL a smooth process. Using the examples you'll avoid common problems and learn sophisticated techniques

Jurij Laznik

The Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) has become the de-facto standard for orchestrating web services. BPEL and web services are both clamped into Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Development of efficient SOA composites too often requires usage of other technologies or languages, like Java. This Cookbook explains through the use of examples how to efficiently integrate BPEL with custom Java functionality.If you need to use BPEL programming to develop web services in SOA development, this book is for you.BPEL and Java Cookbook will show you how to efficiently integrate custom Java functionality into BPEL processes. Based on practical examples, this book shows you the solutions to a number of issues developers come across when designing SOA composite applications. The integration between the two technologies is shown two-fold; the book focuses on the ways that Java utilizes the BPEL and vice-versa.With this book, you will take a journey through a number of recipes that solve particular problems with developing SOA composite applications. Each chapter works on a different set of recipes in a specific area. The recipes cover the whole lifecycle of developing SOA composites: from specification, through design, testing and deployment.BPEL and Java Cookbook starts off with recipes that cover initiation of BPEL from Java and vice-versa. It then moves on to logging and tracing facilities, validation and transformation of BPEL servers, embedding of third-party Java libraries into BPEL. It also covers manipulation with variables in BPEL different techniques of Java code wrapping for web service usage and utilization of XML fa?ßades.After reading BPEL and Java Cookbook you will be able to circumvent many of the issues that developers experience during SOA composite application development. 

The Mini Book of Agile. Everything you really need to know about Agile, Agile Project Management and Agile Delivery

Mauricio Rubio Parra

Think of this book as Agile for Dummies (or Agile for anyone and everyone). This Agile book will allow you to master the most important concepts of Agile development, Agile project delivery, and Agile project management. This mini book has been designed to enable you to manage your projects in an Agile way.This mini book will walk you through the fundamentals, principles, and key concepts of Agile, Agile project management, and Agile Delivery.The book includes valuable resources, graphics, and examples that will allow you to grasp the key essence of Agile, Agile rituals, Agile practices, Agile concepts, and the key differences between Agile and traditional project management.After reading this book, you will have a thorough understanding of Agile and how to put Agile into practice at work and in your personal projects.

ASP.NET Core 2 and Vue.js. Full Stack Web Development with Vue, Vuex, and ASP.NET Core 2.0

Stuart Ratcliffe

This book will walk you through the process of developing an e-commerce application from start to finish, utilizing an ASP.NET Core web API and Vue.js Single-Page Application (SPA) frontend.We will build the application using a featureslice approach, whereby in each chapter we will add the required frontend and backend changes to complete an entire feature. In the early chapters, we’ll keep things fairly simple to get you started, but by the end of the book, you’ll be utilizing some advanced concepts, such as server-side rendering and continuous integration and deployment. You will learn how to set up and configure a modern development environment for building ASP.NET Core web APIs and Vue.js SPA frontends.You will also learn about how ASP.NET Core differs from its predecessors, and how we can utilize those changes to our benefit. Finally, you will learn the fundamentals of building modern frontend applications using Vue.js, as well as some of the more advanced concepts, which can help make you more productive in your own applications in the future.

Introduction to R for Business Intelligence. Profit optimization using data mining, data analysis, and Business Intelligence

Jay Gendron

Explore the world of Business Intelligence through the eyes of an analyst working in a successful and growing company. Learn R through use cases supporting different functions within that company. This book provides data-driven and analytically focused approaches to help you answer questions in operations, marketing, and finance. In Part 1, you will learn about extracting data from different sources, cleaning that data, and exploring its structure. In Part 2, you will explore predictive models and cluster analysis for Business Intelligence and analyze financial times series. Finally, in Part 3, you will learn to communicate results with sharp visualizations and interactive, web-based dashboards.After completing the use cases, you will be able to work with business data in the R programming environment and realize how data science helps make informed decisions and develops business strategy. Along the way, you will find helpful tips about R and Business Intelligence.

Odoo 12 Development Cookbook. 190+ unique recipes to build effective enterprise and business applications - Third Edition

Parth Gajjar, Alexandre Fayolle, Holger Brunn, Daniel Reis

Odoo is a powerful framework known for rapid application development. Its latest release, Odoo 12, introduces tons of new features. With this book, you’ll learn how to develop powerful Odoo applications from scratch, using all the latest features.This Odoo cookbook starts by covering Odoo installation and deployment on the server. Next, you’ll explore the Odoo framework with real-world examples. You’ll create a new Odoo module from the ground up and progress to advanced framework concepts. You’ll also learn how to modify existing applications, including Point of Sale (POS). This book is not just limited to backend development; the advanced JavaScript recipes for creating new views and widgets will help you build beautiful UI elements. As you move forward, you’ll gain insights into website development and become a quality Odoo developer by studying performance optimization, debugging, and automated tests. Finally, you’ll learn the latest concepts like multi-website, In-App Purchasing (IAP), Odoo.sh, and IoT Box.By the end of the book, you’ll have all the knowledge you need to build powerful Odoo applications. The development best practices used in this book will undoubtedly come handy when you are working with the Odoo framework.