Modern Computer Vision with PyTorch. A practical roadmap from deep learning fundamentals to advanced applications and Generative AI - Second Edition

V Kishore Ayyadevara, Yeshwanth Reddy

Whether you are a beginner or are looking to progress in your computer vision career, this book guides you through the fundamentals of neural networks (NNs) and PyTorch and how to implement state-of-the-art architectures for real-world tasks.The second edition of Modern Computer Vision with PyTorch is fully updated to explain and provide practical examples of the latest multimodal models, CLIP, and Stable Diffusion.You’ll discover best practices for working with images, tweaking hyperparameters, and moving models into production. As you progress, you'll implement various use cases for facial keypoint recognition, multi-object detection, segmentation, and human pose detection. This book provides a solid foundation in image generation as you explore different GAN architectures. You’ll leverage transformer-based architectures like ViT, TrOCR, BLIP2, and LayoutLM to perform various real-world tasks and build a diffusion model from scratch. Additionally, you’ll utilize foundation models' capabilities to perform zero-shot object detection and image segmentation. Finally, you’ll learn best practices for deploying a model to production.By the end of this deep learning book, you'll confidently leverage modern NN architectures to solve real-world computer vision problems.

Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials. If you have an idea for a game but lack the skills to create it, this book is the perfect introduction. There’s lots of handholding through all the essentials, culminating in the building of a full 3D game

Will Goldstone

Game Engines such as Unity are the power-tools behind the games we know and love. Unity is one of the most widely-used and best loved packages for game development and is used by everyone, from hobbyists to large studios, to create games and interactive experiences for the web, desktop, mobile, and console. With Unity’s intuitive, easy to learn toolset and this book – it’s never been easier to become a game developer. Taking a practical approach, this book will introduce you to the concepts of developing 3D games, before getting to grips with development in Unity itself – prototyping a simple scenario, and then creating a larger game. From creating 3D worlds to scripting and creating game mechanics you will learn everything you’ll need to get started with game development. This book is designed to cover a set of easy-to-follow examples, which culminate in the production of a First Person 3D game, complete with an interactive island environment. All of the concepts taught in this book are applicable to other types of game, however, by introducing common concepts of game and 3D production, you'll explore Unity to make a character interact with the game world, and build puzzles for the player to solve, in order to complete the game. At the end of the book, you will have a fully working 3D game and all the skills required to extend the game further, giving your end-user, the player, the best experience possible. Soon you will be creating your own 3D games with ease!

BackTrack - Testing Wireless Network Security. Secure your wireless networks against attacks, hacks, and intruders with this step-by-step guide

Kevin Cardwell

Wireless networks are everywhere. You have probably set one up yourself, but have you ever wondered just how safe you are while browsing online? In the majority of cases, the default settings for your networks are not enough to protect you. With your data being transferred over the air, it can be easily plucked and used by anyone who knows how. Don't let it happen to you.BackTrack - Testing Wireless Network Security will help you secure your wireless networks and keep your personal data safe. With this book, you will learn how to configure your hardware for optimum security, find network security holes, and fix them.BackTrack - Testing Wireless Network Security looks at what tools hackers use and shows you how to defend yourself against them. Taking you from no prior knowledge all the way to a fully secure environment, this guide provides useful tips every step of the way. Learn how to select a wireless card to work with the Backtrack tools, run spectrum analysis scans using kismet, set up test networks, and perform attacks against wireless networks. Use the tools aircrack-ng and airodump-ng to crack the wireless encryption used on the network.You will learn everything you need to know to set up your wireless network for use within Backtrack and also how to defend yourself against the included attack tools.

Becoming a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect. Prepare for the review board by practicing example-led architectural strategies and best practices

Tameem Bahri

Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA) is the ultimate certification to validate your knowledge and skills when it comes to designing and building high-performance technical solutions on the Salesforce platform. The CTA certificate is granted after successfully passing the CTA review board exam, which tests your platform expertise and soft skills for communicating your solutions and vision.You’ll start with the core concepts that every architect should master, including data lifecycle, integration, and security, and build your aptitude for creating high-level technical solutions. Using real-world examples, you’ll explore essential topics such as selecting systems or components for your solutions, designing scalable and secure Salesforce architecture, and planning the development lifecycle and deployments. Finally, you'll work on two full mock scenarios that simulate the review board exam, helping you learn how to identify requirements, create a draft solution, and combine all the elements together to create an engaging story to present in front of the board or to a client in real life.By the end of this Salesforce book, you’ll have gained the knowledge and skills required to pass the review board exam and implement architectural best practices and strategies in your day-to-day work.

WiX: A Developer's Guide to Windows Installer XML. If you’re a developer needing to create installers for Microsoft Windows, then this book is essential. It’s a step-by-step tutorial that teaches you all you need to know about WiX: the professional way to produce a Windows installer package

Nick Ramirez, Rob Mensching, Nicholas Ramirez

WiX is an open source project and a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. WiX, which is used internally by Microsoft and by many companies around the World, simplifies many of the installation tasks that used to be shrouded in mystery. The tool set provides a command-line environment that you can integrate into your old-style build processes or you can use the newer technology from inside integrated development environments to build your setup packages. You'll find that you understand your installer better, can create it in less time, and save money in the process. No one really wants to devote a lifetime to understanding how to create a hassle-free installer for any software.This hands-on guide takes the mystery out of Windows Installer by showing how simple XML elements can be leveraged to create a sophisticated install package. By relying on Microsoft standards, you'll be able to use features like Property elements to customize your application's entry in Add/Remove Programs, the Shortcut element to create Start menu shortcuts, and other specialized elements for building upgrade and patch support and more.This book will show you the fundamental ingredients needed to build a professional-grade installer using Windows Installer XML. The initial chapters will introduce you to the set of required elements necessary to build a simple installer. We'll then explore those basic elements in more detail and see how best to use them in the real world.In the ensuing chapters, you'll move on to learn about adding conditions that alter what the user can install, then how to add actions to the install sequence and how to author a user interface. We'll move on to advanced topics such as editing data in the Windows Registry, installing a Windows service, and building your project from the command line. Finally, you'll learn to localize your package for different languages and detect older versions during upgrades. Each chapter uses to-the-point examples to illustrate the best way to use the language.

Generative AI for Cloud Solutions. Architect modern AI LLMs in secure, scalable, and ethical cloud environments

Paul Singh, Anurag Karuparti, John Maeda

Generative artificial intelligence technologies and services, including ChatGPT, are transforming our work, life, and communication landscapes. To thrive in this new era, harnessing the full potential of these technologies is crucial. Generative AI for Cloud Solutions is a comprehensive guide to understanding and using Generative AI within cloud platforms.This book covers the basics of cloud computing and Generative AI/ChatGPT, addressing scaling strategies and security concerns. With its help, you’ll be able to apply responsible AI practices and other methods such as fine-tuning, RAG, autonomous agents, LLMOps, and Assistants APIs. As you progress, you’ll learn how to design and implement secure and scalable ChatGPT solutions on the cloud, while also gaining insights into the foundations of building conversational AI, such as chatbots. This process will help you customize your AI applications to suit your specific requirements.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of the capabilities of Generative AI and cloud computing, empowering you to develop efficient and ethical AI solutions for a variety of applications and services.

UX for Enterprise ChatGPT Solutions. A practical guide to designing enterprise-grade LLMs

Richard H. Miller, Jeff Johnson

Many enterprises grapple with new technology, often hopping on the bandwagon only to abandon it when challenges emerge. This book is your guide to seamlessly integrating ChatGPT into enterprise solutions with a UX-centered approach.UX for Enterprise ChatGPT Solutions empowers you to master effective use case design and adapt UX guidelines through an engaging learning experience. Discover how to prepare your content for success by tailoring interactions to match your audience’s voice, style, and tone using prompt-engineering and fine-tuning. For UX professionals, this book is the key to anchoring your expertise in this evolving field. Writers, researchers, product managers, and linguists will learn to make insightful design decisions. You’ll explore use cases like ChatGPT-powered chat and recommendation engines, while uncovering the AI magic behind the scenes. The book introduces a and feeding model, enabling you to leverage feedback and monitoring to iterate and refine any Large Language Model solution. Packed with hundreds of tips and tricks, this guide will help you build a continuous improvement cycle suited for AI solutions.By the end, you’ll know how to craft powerful, accurate, responsive, and brand-consistent generative AI experiences, revolutionizing your organization’s use of ChatGPT.

Learning Linux Shell Scripting. Unleash the power of shell scripts to solve real-world problems by breaking through the practice of writing tedious code

Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Linux is the one of the most powerful and universally adopted OSes. Shell is a program that gives the user direct interaction with the operating system. Scripts are collections of commands that are stored in a file. The shell can read this file and act on the commands as if they were typed on the keyboard. Shell scripting is used to automate day-to-day administration, and for testing or product development tasks.This book covers Bash, GNU Bourne Again SHell, preparing you to work in the exciting world of Linux shell scripting. We start with an introduction to the Shell environment and explain basic commands used in Shell. Next we move on to check, kill, and control the execution of processes in Linux OS. Further, we teach you about the filter tools available in Linux and explain standard output and standard errors devices.Then we will ensure you understand Shell’s interpretation of commands and get a firmer grasp so you use them in practice. Next, you’ll experience some real-world essentials such as debugging and perform Shell arithmetic fluently. Then you’ll take a step ahead and learn new and advanced topics in Shell scripting, such as starting up a system and customizing a Linux system. Finally, you’ll get to understand the capabilities of scripting and learn about Grep, Stream Editor, and Awk.

Drupal for Education and E-Learning -. You don't need to be a techie to build a community-based website for your school. With this guide to Drupal you'll be able to create an online learning and sharing space for your students and colleagues, quickly and easily. - Second Edition

Bill Fitzgerald, James G. Robertson, Dries Buytaert

As social networks become more popular, their role in the classroom has come under scrutiny. Drupal offers a wide variety of useful tools for educators. Within a single Drupal site, you can set up social bookmarking, podcasting, video hosting, formal and informal groups, rich user profiles, and other features commonly associated with social web communities. Drupal for Education and E-Learning - Second Edition teaches you how to create your own social networking site to advance teaching and learning goals in the classroom, while giving you complete control over features and access. Communicate with students, share learning resources, and track assignments through simple tasks with this hands-on guide.In this book you will learn to install and configure the default Drupal distribution and then extend it to include blogs, bookmarks, a media sharing platform, and discussion forums.The book also covers how to organize your site to easily track student work on the site, and how to control who has access to that information. Additionally, it teaches you how to make the site easy to use, how to maintain the site, and how to ask for and receive help in the Drupal community.

Practical Model-Driven Enterprise Architecture. Design a mature enterprise architecture repository using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and ArchiMate® 3.1

Mudar Bahri, Joe Williams

Most organizations face challenges in defining and achieving evolved enterprise architecture practices, which can be a very lengthy process even if implemented correctly. Developers, for example, can build better solutions only if they receive the necessary design information from architects, and decision-makers can make appropriate changes within the organization only if they know the implications of doing so.The book starts by addressing the problems faced by enterprise architecture practitioners and provides solutions based on an agile approach to enterprise architecture, using ArchiMate® 3.1 as an industry standard and Sparx EA as the modeling tool. You'll learn with the help of a fictional organization that has three business units, each expecting something different from you as the enterprise architect. You'll build the practice, satisfy the different requirements of each business unit, and share the knowledge with others so they can follow your steps. Toward the end, you'll learn how to put the diagrams and the content that you have developed into documents, presentations, and web pages that can be published and shared with any stakeholder.By the end of this book, you'll be able to build a functional enterprise architecture practice that supports every part of your organization. You'll also have developed the necessary skills to populate your enterprise architecture repository with references and artifacts.

JasperReports 3.5 for Java Developers

David R Heffelfinger, David R. Heffelfinger, Teodor Danciu

Do you want to create easily understood, professional, and powerful reports from disordered, scattered data using a free, open source Java class library? If your answer is yes, this book on JasperReports is what you are looking for. JasperReports is the world's most popular embeddable Java open source reporting library, providing Java developers with the power to easily create rich print and web reports. The book has been fully updated to use JasperReports 3.5, the latest version of JasperReports. Previously accepted techniques that have now been deprecated have been replaced with their modern counterparts. All examples in the book have been updated to use XML schemas for report templates. Coverage of new data sources that JasperReports now supports has been added to the book. Additionally, JasperReports can now export reports to even more formats than before and exporting reports to these new formats is covered in this new edition of the book.This book shows you exactly how to get started, and develop the skills to get the most from JasperReports. It introduces you to the latest version of JasperReports, and gets you creating complex and elegant reports.The book steers you through each point of report setup, to creating, designing, formatting, and exporting reports with data from a wide range of data sources, and integrating JasperReports with other Java frameworks.Starting with the basics of adding reporting capabilities to your application and creating report templates, you will first see how to produce your reports through the use of JRXML files, custom ANT targets, and then preview them in both the web browser and the native browser of JasperReports.Getting data into your reports is the next step, and you will see how to get data from a range of data sources, not only databases, but XML files, and Java Objects, among others.You will create better looking reports with formatting and grouping, as well as adding graphical elements to your reports. You will export your reports to a range of different formats, including PDF and XML.Creating reports will be made even easier with a walkthrough of the iReport Designer visual designing tool. To round things off, you will see how to integrate your reports with other Java frameworks, using Spring or Hibernate to get data for the report, and Java Server Faces or Struts for presenting the report.All examples have been updated to use XML schemas. New export formats, such as OpenDocument Text, and new data sources now supported by JasperReports are now covered in this updated edition.

R for Data Science. Learn and explore the fundamentals of data science with R

Dan Toomey

Mastering Blockchain Programming with Solidity. Write production-ready smart contracts for Ethereum blockchain with Solidity

Jitendra Chittoda

Solidity is among the most popular and contract-oriented programming languages used for writing decentralized applications (DApps) on Ethereum blockchain. If you’re looking to perfect your skills in writing professional-grade smart contracts using Solidity, this book can help.You will get started with a detailed introduction to blockchain, smart contracts, and Ethereum, while also gaining useful insights into the Solidity programming language. A dedicated section will then take you through the different Ethereum Request for Comments (ERC) standards, including ERC-20, ERC-223, and ERC-721, and demonstrate how you can choose among these standards while writing smart contracts. As you approach later chapters, you will cover the different smart contracts available for use in libraries such as OpenZeppelin. You’ll also learn to use different open source tools to test, review and improve the quality of your code and make it production-ready. Toward the end of this book, you’ll get to grips with techniques such as adding security to smart contracts, and gain insights into various security considerations. By the end of this book, you will have the skills you need to write secure, production-ready smart contracts in Solidity from scratch for decentralized applications on Ethereum blockchain.

Linux Mint Essentials. A practical guide to Linux Mint for the novice to the professional

Jay LaCroix

Salt Cookbook. Over 80 hands-on recipes to efficiently configure and manage your infrastructure with Salt

Anirban Saha

Combating Crime on the Dark Web. Learn how to access the dark web safely and not fall victim to cybercrime

Nearchos Nearchou

In today’s world, the crime-prevention landscape is impossible to navigate. The dark web means new frontiers of combat against bad actors that pop up daily. Everyone from narcotics dealers to human traffickers are exploiting the dark web to evade authorities. If you want to find your feet in this tricky terrain and fight crime on the dark web, take this comprehensive, easy-to-follow cyber security guide with you.Combating Crime on the Dark Web contains everything you need to be aware of when tackling the world of the dark web. Step by step, you’ll gain acumen in the tactics that cybercriminals are adopting and be equipped with the arsenal of strategies that are available to you as a cybersecurity specialist.This cyber security book ensures that you are well acquainted with all the latest techniques to combat dark web criminality. After a primer on cybercrime and the history of the dark web, you’ll dive right into the main domains of the dark web ecosystem, reaching a working understanding of how drug markets, child pornography, and human trafficking operate. Once well-versed with the functioning of criminal groups, you’ll be briefed on the most effective tools and methods being employed by law enforcement, tech companies, and others to combat such crimes, developing both a toolkit and a mindset that can help you stay safe from such criminal activities and can be applied in any sector or domain. By the end of this book, you’ll be well prepared to begin your pushback against the criminal elements of the dark web.

Mastering Transformers. Build state-of-the-art models from scratch with advanced natural language processing techniques

Savaş Yildirim, Meysam Asgari- Chenaghlu

Transformer-based language models have dominated natural language processing (NLP) studies and have now become a new paradigm. With this book, you'll learn how to build various transformer-based NLP applications using the Python Transformers library.The book gives you an introduction to Transformers by showing you how to write your first hello-world program. You'll then learn how a tokenizer works and how to train your own tokenizer. As you advance, you'll explore the architecture of autoencoding models, such as BERT, and autoregressive models, such as GPT. You'll see how to train and fine-tune models for a variety of natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language generation (NLG) problems, including text classification, token classification, and text representation. This book also helps you to learn efficient models for challenging problems, such as long-context NLP tasks with limited computational capacity. You'll also work with multilingual and cross-lingual problems, optimize models by monitoring their performance, and discover how to deconstruct these models for interpretability and explainability. Finally, you'll be able to deploy your transformer models in a production environment.By the end of this NLP book, you'll have learned how to use Transformers to solve advanced NLP problems using advanced models.

Linux Administration Best Practices. Practical solutions to approaching the design and management of Linux systems

Scott Alan Miller

Linux is a well-known, open source Unix-family operating system that is the most widely used OS today. Linux looks set for a bright future for decades to come, but system administration is rarely studied beyond learning rote tasks or following vendor guidelines. To truly excel at Linux administration, you need to understand how these systems work and learn to make strategic decisions regarding them.Linux Administration Best Practices helps you to explore best practices for efficiently administering Linux systems and servers. This Linux book covers a wide variety of topics from installation and deployment through to managing permissions, with each topic beginning with an overview of the key concepts followed by practical examples of best practices and solutions. You'll find out how to approach system administration, Linux, and IT in general, put technology into proper business context, and rethink your approach to technical decision making. Finally, the book concludes by helping you to understand best practices for troubleshooting Linux systems and servers that'll enable you to grow in your career as well as in any aspect of IT and business.By the end of this Linux administration book, you'll have gained the knowledge needed to take your Linux administration skills to the next level.

Python Real-World Projects. Craft your Python portfolio with deployable applications

Steven F. Lott

In today's competitive job market, a project portfolio often outshines a traditional resume. Python Real-World Projects empowers you to get to grips with crucial Python concepts while building complete modules and applications. With two dozen meticulously designed projects to explore, this book will help you showcase your Python mastery and refine your skills. Tailored for beginners with a foundational understanding of class definitions, module creation, and Python's inherent data structures, this book is your gateway to programming excellence. You’ll learn how to harness the potential of the standard library and key external projects like JupyterLab, Pydantic, pytest, and requests. You’ll also gain experience with enterprise-oriented methodologies, including unit and acceptance testing, and an agile development approach. Additionally, you’ll dive into the software development lifecycle, starting with a minimum viable product and seamlessly expanding it to add innovative features. By the end of this book, you’ll be armed with a myriad of practical Python projects and all set to accelerate your career as a Python programmer.

Machine Learning in Java. Helpful techniques to design, build, and deploy powerful machine learning applications in Java - Second Edition

AshishSingh Bhatia, Bostjan Kaluza

As the amount of data in the world continues to grow at an almost incomprehensible rate, being able to understand and process data is becoming a key differentiator for competitive organizations. Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, spam detection, document search, and trading strategies, to speech recognition. This makes machine learning well-suited to the present-day era of big data and Data Science. The main challenge is how to transform data into actionable knowledge.Machine Learning in Java will provide you with the techniques and tools you need. You will start by learning how to apply machine learning methods to a variety of common tasks including classification, prediction, forecasting, market basket analysis, and clustering. The code in this book works for JDK 8 and above, the code is tested on JDK 11.Moving on, you will discover how to detect anomalies and fraud, and ways to perform activity recognition, image recognition, and text analysis. By the end of the book, you will have explored related web resources and technologies that will help you take your learning to the next level.By applying the most effective machine learning methods to real-world problems, you will gain hands-on experience that will transform the way you think about data.

Godot 4 Game Development Projects. Build five cross-platform 2D and 3D games using one of the most powerful open source game engines - Second Edition

Chris Bradfield

Godot 4.0 is one of the most sought-after open-source game engines, and if you’re enthusiastic about exploring its features, then this book is for you. Written by an author with over twenty-five years of experience, the Godot 4 Game Development Projects introduces the Godot game engine and its feature-rich 4.0 version. With an array of new capabilities, Godot 4.0 is a strong alternative to expensive commercial game engines. If you’re a beginner, this book will help you learn game development techniques, while experienced developers will understand how to use this powerful and customizable tool to bring their creative visions to life.This updated edition consists of five projects with an emphasis on the 3D capabilities of the engine that will help you build on your foundation-level skills through small-scale game projects. Along the way, you’ll gain insights into Godot’s inner workings and discover game development techniques that you can apply to your projects.Using a step-by-step approach and practical examples, this book covers everything from the absolute basics to sophisticated game physics, animations, and much more. By the time you complete the final project, you’ll have a strong foundation for future success with Godot 4.0 and you’ll be well on your way to developing a variety of games.

Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Network Engineer Guide. Design, implement, manage, and secure a network architecture in Google Cloud

Maurizio Ipsale, Mirko Gilioli

Google Cloud, the public cloud platform from Google, has a variety of networking options, which are instrumental in managing a networking architecture. This book will give you hands-on experience of implementing and securing networks in Google Cloud Platform (GCP).You will understand the basics of Google Cloud infrastructure and learn to design, plan, and prototype a network on GCP. After implementing a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), you will configure network services and implement hybrid connectivity. Later, the book focuses on security, which forms an important aspect of a network. You will also get to grips with network security and learn to manage and monitor network operations in GCP. Finally, you will learn to optimize network resources and delve into advanced networking. The book also helps you to reinforce your knowledge with the help of mock tests featuring exam-like questions.By the end of this book, you will have gained a complete understanding of networking in Google Cloud and learned everything you need to pass the certification exam.

Building Resilient Architectures on AWS. A practical guide to architecting cost-efficient, resilient solutions in AWS

Ajit Puthiyavettle, Imaya Kumar Jagannathan, Rodrigue Koffi

Building systems that can withstand failure is key to running a successful business on the cloud. Learn from distinguished AWS experts—Ajit, Imaya, and Rodrigue—who bring over four decades of experience in architecting enterprise-scale solutions, speaking at major AWS conferences, and implementing resilience strategies across diverse industries, as they guide you through building highly available and fault-tolerant applications on AWS.This book explores resiliency, offering steps to design, build, and operate resilient architectures on AWS. You’ll master data security practices, backup strategies, and automation techniques, helping you build strong defenses and reliable recovery plans for resilience against disruptions. You’ll also learn how to apply AWS Well-Architected pillars to design applications with redundancy, loose coupling, graceful degradation, and fault isolation. With architecture examples, you’ll validate your design’s effectiveness through resilient patterns, performance monitoring, and chaos engineering.By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with best practices for creating robust cloud infrastructures to ensure business continuity and success and become proficient at creating fault-tolerant systems, optimizing performance, and ensuring reliability across regions.

Certified Information Security Manager Exam Prep Guide. Aligned with the latest edition of the CISM Review Manual to help you pass the exam with confidence

Hemang Doshi

With cyber threats on the rise, IT professionals are now choosing cybersecurity as the next step to boost their career, and holding the relevant certification can prove to be a game-changer in this competitive market. CISM is one of the top-paying and most sought-after certifications by employers.This CISM Certification Guide comprises comprehensive self-study exam content for those who want to achieve CISM certification on the first attempt. This book is a great resource for information security leaders with a pragmatic approach to challenges related to real-world case scenarios. You'll learn about the practical aspects of information security governance and information security risk management. As you advance through the chapters, you'll get to grips with information security program development and management. The book will also help you to gain a clear understanding of the procedural aspects of information security incident management.By the end of this CISM exam book, you'll have covered everything needed to pass the CISM certification exam and have a handy, on-the-job desktop reference guide.