Publisher: Packt Publishing
Founded in 2004 in Birmingham, UK, Packt's mission is to help the world put software to work in new ways, through the delivery of effective learning and information services to IT professionals. Working towards that vision, we have published over 6,500 books and videos so far, providing IT professionals with the actionable knowledge they need to get the job done - whether that's specific learning on an emerging technology or optimizing key skills in more established tools. As part of our mission, we have also awarded over $1,000,000 through our Open Source Project Royalty scheme, helping numerous projects become household names along the way.
5737
Ebook

Game Programming using Qt 5 Beginner's Guide. Create amazing games with Qt 5, C++, and Qt Quick - Second Edition

Pavel Vladimirovich Strakhov

Qt is the leading cross-platform toolkit for all significant desktop, mobile, and embedded platforms and is becoming popular by the day, especially on mobile and embedded devices. It's a powerful tool that perfectly fits the needs of game developers. This book will help you learn the basics of Qt and will equip you with the necessary toolsets to build apps and games.The book begins by how to create an application and prepare a working environment for both desktop and mobile platforms. You will learn how to use built-in Qt widgets and Form Editor to create a GUI application and then learn the basics of creating graphical interfaces and Qt's core concepts.Further, you'll learn to enrich your games by implementing network connectivity and employing scripting. You will learn about Qt's capabilities for handling strings and files, data storage, and serialization.Moving on, you will learn about the new Qt Gamepad module and how to add it in your game and then delve into OpenGL and Vulcan, and how it can be used in Qt applications to implement hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics. You will then explore various facets of Qt Quick: how it can be used in games to add game logic, add game physics, and build astonishing UIs for your games. By the end of this book, you will have developed the skillset to develop interesting games with Qt.

5738
Ebook

Hands-On Dashboard Development with Shiny. A practical guide to building effective web applications and dashboards

Chris Beeley

Although vanilla Shiny applications look attractive with some layout flexibility, you may still want to have more control over how the interface is laid out to produce a dashboard. Hands-On Dashboard Development with Shiny helps you incorporate this in your applications.The book starts by guiding you in producing an application based on the diamonds dataset included in the ggplot2 package. You’ll create a single application, but the interface will be reskinned and rebuilt throughout using different methods to illustrate their uses and functions using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You will also learn to develop an application that creates documents and reports using R Markdown. Furthermore, the book demonstrates the use of HTML templates and the Bootstrap framework. Moving along, you will learn how to produce dashboards using the Shiny command and dashboard package. Finally, you will learn how to lay out applications using a wide range of built-in functions.By the end of the book, you will have an understanding of the principles that underpin layout in Shiny applications, including sections of HTML added to a vanilla Shiny application, HTML interfaces written from scratch, dashboards, navigation bars, and interfaces.

5739
Ebook

Deep Reinforcement Learning Hands-On. Apply modern RL methods, with deep Q-networks, value iteration, policy gradients, TRPO, AlphaGo Zero and more

Maxim Lapan

Deep Reinforcement Learning Hands-On is a comprehensive guide to the very latest DL tools and their limitations. You will evaluate methods including Cross-entropy and policy gradients, before applying them to real-world environments. Take on both the Atari set of virtual games and family favorites such as Connect4.The book provides an introduction to the basics of RL, giving you the know-how to code intelligent learning agents to take on a formidable array of practical tasks. Discover how to implement Q-learning on 'grid world' environments, teach your agent to buy and trade stocks, and find out how natural language models are driving the boom in chatbots.

5740
Ebook

Python for Finance. Apply powerful finance models and quantitative analysis with Python - Second Edition

Yuxing Yan

This book uses Python as its computational tool. Since Python is free, any school ororganization can download and use it. This book is organized according to various finance subjects. In other words, the first edition focuses more on Python, while the second edition is truly trying to apply Python to finance.The book starts by explaining topics exclusively related to Python. Then we deal with critical parts of Python, explaining concepts such as time value of money stock and bond evaluations, capital asset pricing model, multi-factor models, time series analysis, portfolio theory,options and futures.This book will help us to learn or review the basics of quantitative finance and apply Python to solve various problems, such as estimating IBM’s market risk,running a Fama-French 3-factor, 5-factor, or Fama-French-Carhart 4 factor model, estimating the VaR of a 5-stock portfolio, estimating the optimal portfolio, and constructing the efficient frontier for a 20-stock portfolio with real-world stock, and with Monte Carlo Simulation. Later, we will also learn how to replicate the famous Black-Scholes-Merton option model and how to price exotic options such as the average price call option.

5741
Ebook

Augmented Reality with Kinect. If you know C/C++ programming, then this book will give you the ability to develop augmented reality applications with Microsoft's Kinect. By the end of the course you will have created a complete game

Rui Wang

Microsoft Kinect changes the notion of user interface design. It differs from most other user input controllers as it enables users to interact with the program without touching the mouse or a trackpad. It utilizes motion sensing technology and all it needs is a real-time cameras, tracked skeletons, and gestures.Augmented Reality with Kinect will help you get into the world of Microsoft Kinect programming with the C/C++ language. The book will cover the installation, image streaming, skeleton and face tracking, multi-touch cursors and gesture emulation. Finally, you will end up with a complete Kinect-based game.Augmented Reality with Kinect will help you get into the world of Kinect programming, with a few interesting recipes and a relatively complete example. The book will introduce the following topics: the installation and initialization of Kinect applications; capturing color and depth images; obtaining skeleton and face tracking data; emulating multi-touch cursors and gestures; and developing a complete game using Kinect features.The book is divided in such a way so as to ensure that each topic is given the right amount of focus. Beginners will start from the first chapter and build up to developing their own applications.

5742
Ebook
5743
Ebook
5744
Ebook

Apache Solr for Indexing Data. Enhance your Solr indexing experience with advanced techniques and the built-in functionalities available in Apache Solr

Anshul Johri, Sachin Handiekar

Apache Solr is a widely used, open source enterprise search server that delivers powerful indexing and searching features. These features help fetch relevant information from various sources and documentation. Solr also combines with other open source tools such as Apache Tika and Apache Nutch to provide more powerful features.This fast-paced guide starts by helping you set up Solr and get acquainted with its basic building blocks, to give you a better understanding of Solr indexing. You’ll quickly move on to indexing text and boosting the indexing time. Next, you’ll focus on basic indexing techniques, various index handlers designed to modify documents, and indexing a structured data source through Data Import Handler.Moving on, you will learn techniques to perform real-time indexing and atomic updates, as well as more advanced indexing techniques such as de-duplication. Later on, we’ll help you set up a cluster of Solr servers that combine fault tolerance and high availability. You will also gain insights into working scenarios of different aspects of Solr and how to use Solr with e-commerce data.By the end of the book, you will be competent and confident working with indexing and will have a good knowledge base to efficiently program elements.

5745
Ebook

Splunk 7 Essentials. Demystify machine data by leveraging datasets, building reports, and sharing powerful insights - Third Edition

J-P Contreras, Steven Koelpin, Erickson Delgado, Betsy Page Sigman

Splunk is a search, reporting, and analytics software platform for machine data, which has an ever-growing market adoption rate. More organizations than ever are adopting Splunk to make informed decisions in areas such as IT operations, information security, and the Internet of Things.The first two chapters of the book will get you started with a simple Splunkinstallation and set up of a sample machine data generator, called Eventgen.After this, you will learn to create various reports, dashboards, and alerts. You willalso explore Splunk's Pivot functionality to model data for business users. Youwill then have the opportunity to test-drive Splunk's powerful HTTP Event Collector. After covering the core Splunk functionality, you'll be provided with some real-world best practices for using Splunk, and information on how to build upon what you've learned in this book.Throughout the book, there will be additional comments and best practicerecommendations from a member of the SplunkTrust Community, calledTips from the Fez.

5746
Ebook
5747
Ebook

Advanced Deep Learning with R. Become an expert at designing, building, and improving advanced neural network models using R

Bharatendra Rai

Deep learning is a branch of machine learning based on a set of algorithms that attempt to model high-level abstractions in data. Advanced Deep Learning with R will help you understand popular deep learning architectures and their variants in R, along with providing real-life examples for them. This deep learning book starts by covering the essential deep learning techniques and concepts for prediction and classification. You will learn about neural networks, deep learning architectures, and the fundamentals for implementing deep learning with R. The book will also take you through using important deep learning libraries such as Keras-R and TensorFlow-R to implement deep learning algorithms within applications. You will get up to speed with artificial neural networks, recurrent neural networks, convolutional neural networks, long short-term memory networks, and more using advanced examples. Later, you'll discover how to apply generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generate new images; autoencoder neural networks for image dimension reduction, image de-noising and image correction and transfer learning to prepare, define, train, and model a deep neural network. By the end of this book, you will be ready to implement your knowledge and newly acquired skills for applying deep learning algorithms in R through real-world examples.

5748
Ebook
5749
Ebook

Generative AI Art. Unleash Your Creativity with Generative AI Art for Beginners

Oliver Theobald

The course introduces the basic concepts of artificial intelligence and its application in art, making it accessible even to those without a technical background. This foundation paves the way for exploring the nuances of effective prompt crafting, a critical skill for generating bespoke AI artwork.The course focuses on hands-on demonstrations with leading AI art software, including Craiyon and Midjourney, offering step-by-step guides to harness these tools effectively. Through practical examples, learners will understand how to navigate image prompts, masking techniques, framing, and lighting to enhance the visual appeal of their creations. The significance of navigating these elements is underscored, highlighting their role in achieving consistency and originality in AI-generated art.The course wraps up by delving into the remixing of popular art styles, the art of creating compelling text prompts, and the critical aspects of image rights, ethics, privacy, and originality in the digital art space. By concluding with recommended resources, learners are equipped to continue their journey in AI art, fueled by inspiration and a solid understanding of the field's possibilities and responsibilities.

5750
Ebook

Democratizing No-Code Application Development with Bubble. A beginner's guide to rapidly building applications with powerful features of Bubble without code

Caio Calderari

In an era marked by a growing demand for tech solutions and a shortage of skilled developers, companies grapple with hiring expenses. No-code tools offer a faster, more affordable software development alternative. Leading this no-code revolution is Bubble, enabling newcomers to construct impressive web applications in a matter of weeks if not days.Written by Caio Calderari, a seasoned no-code expert with 17 years of experience to offers practical advice for mastering no-code application development. You'll learn to plan your app with Bubble's visual builder features and UI components and implement frontend functionalities such as customizing layouts and creating responsive user interfaces. The book covers workflow automation, database management, security best practices, and backend functionality setup and advances to span the Bubble plugin ecosystem and API integration for third-party services to improve the app's functionality. Additionally, you'll explore app testing, debugging, performance monitoring, and maintenance. From launching with a custom domain to gathering user feedback for continuous improvement and optimization of performance and scalability, you’ll learn every aspect of Bubble's app development and deployment.By the end of this book, you'll know how to bring your digital ideas to life without writing code.

5751
Ebook

C# 13 and .NET 9 - Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals. Start building websites and services with ASP.NET Core 9, Blazor, and EF Core 9 - Ninth Edition

Mark J. Price

This Packt bestseller continues to be the definitive guide to modern cross-platform development. The 9th edition of C# 13 and .NET 9 – Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals has been updated to cover the latest features and improvements in .NET 9 and C# 13. You'll start by mastering object-oriented programming, learning how to write, test, and debug functions, and implementing interfaces. You'll then dive into .NET APIs for data management, filesystem operations, and serialization.This latest edition integrates .NET 9 enhancements into its examples: faster exceptions and new LINQ methods. New ASP.NET Core 9 features include optimized static assets, built-in OpenAPI document generation, and the HybridCache.Practical examples, such as building websites and services with ASP.NET Core, have been refreshed to utilize the latest .NET 9 features. The book also introduces Blazor, with its new unified hosting model for unparalleled code reusability. With these updates, you'll learn how to build robust applications and services efficiently and effectively.By the end of this book, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to create professional and high-performance web applications using the latest technologies in C# 13 and .NET 9.

5752
Ebook

Web Services Testing with soapUI. Starting with an overview of SOA and web services testing, this guide take you through a number of hands-on exercises and projects to get you familiar with soapUI. A sure way to raise the quality of your web services

Charitha Kankanamge

Quality is a key to success of service-oriented projects. Utilization of proper tools is important to the outcome of web service testing methodology. Being the leading open source web services testing tool, soapUI helps to build robust and flexible automated tests in a productive manner.Web Services Testing with soapUI guides you on adopting best web service testing mechanisms with the industry leading open source testing tool, soapUI. You will learn to use soapUI effectively in testing service-oriented solutions focusing on testing functional as well as non-functional characteristics of web services. SoapUI is capable of testing JDBC data sources, web applications, RESTful services and web services exposed over transports such as JMS. The book discusses all these features and much more, in detail, through practical and clear examples.This book is focused on learning soapUI in order to test web services in an effective manner. It starts with a general introduction to service-oriented architecture (SOA) followed by testing aspects of service-oriented solutions. This book aims to give readers a comprehensive overview of usage of soapUI in SOA and web services testing projects. Starting with an overview of SOA and web services testing, you will quickly get your hands dirty with a sample project which makes use of open source web service engine, Apache Axis2. All demonstrations and hands-on exercises are based on this sample project. The tests in a soapUI project are organized into TestSuites, TestCases and TestSteps. You will also learn how soapUI can be used for both functional and non-functional testing. The book then teaches how by using groovy scripting and integrating with Junit and maven, soapUI can easily be used in automated web services testing. By the end, you'llhave learned to test functional and non-functional aspects of web services and automate by integrating into continuous build systems using soapUI.

5753
Ebook
5754
Ebook

Mastering JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7. Core details of the Enteprise server supported by clear directions and advanced tips

Francesco Marchioni, Luigi Fugaro

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) has been one of the most popular tools for Java developers to create modular, cloud-ready, and modern applications. It has achieved a reputation for architectural excellence and technical savvy, making it a solid and efficient environment for delivering your applications.The book will first introduce application server configuration and the management instruments that can be used to control the application server. Next, the focus will shift to enterprise solutions such as clustering, load balancing, and data caching; this will be the core of the book. We will also discuss services provided by the application server, such as database connectivity and logging. We focus on real-world example configurations and how to avoid common mistakes. Finally, we will implement the knowledge gained so far in terms of Docker containers and cloud availability using RedHat's OpenShift.

5755
Audiobook

ServiceNow for Architects and Project Leaders. A complete guide to driving innovation, creating value, and making an impact with ServiceNow

Roy Justus, David Zhao

ServiceNow is the leading enterprise service management platform that enables the effective management of services in a modern enterprise.In this audiobook, you’ll learn how to avoid pitfalls that can challenge value realization, where to focus, how to balance tradeoffs, and how to get buy-in for complex decisions. You’ll understand the key drivers of value in ServiceNow implementation and how to structure your program for successful delivery. Moving ahead, you’ll get practical guidance on the methods and considerations in securely using ServiceNow. You’ll also learn how to set up a multi-instance environment including best practices, patterns and alternatives in the use and maintenance of a multi-instance pipeline. Later chapters cover methods and approaches to design processes that deliver optimal ROI. Further, you’ll receive tips for designing technical standards, designing for scale, ensuring maintainability, and building a supportable instance. Finally, you’ll focus on the innovative possibilities that can be unlocked in a ServiceNow journey which will help you to manage uncertainty and claim the value of being an early adopter.By the end of this audiobook, you’ll be prepared to lead or support a ServiceNow implementation with confidence that you’re bringing not only a solution but also making an impact in your organization.

5756
Ebook

Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Techniques. Master practical aspects of the Linux command line and then use it as a part of the shell scripting process

Vedran Dakic, Jasmin Redzepagic

Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Techniques begins by taking you through the basics of the shell and command-line utilities. You’ll start by exploring shell commands for file, directory, service, package, and process management. Next, you’ll learn about networking - network, firewall and DNS client configuration, ssh, scp, rsync, and vsftpd, as well as some network troubleshooting tools. You’ll also focus on using the command line to find and manipulate text content, via commands such as cut, egrep, and sed. As you progress, you'll learn how to use shell scripting. You’ll understand the basics - input and output, along with various programming concepts such as loops, variables, arguments, functions, and arrays. Later, you’ll learn about shell script interaction and troubleshooting, before covering a wide range of examples of complete shell scripts, varying from network and firewall configuration, through to backup and concepts for creating live environments. This includes examples of performing scripted virtual machine installation and administration, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack provisioning and bulk user creation for testing environments.By the end of this Linux book, you’ll have gained the knowledge and confidence you need to use shell and command-line scripts.

5757
Ebook

Drupal 7 Multilingual Sites. A hands-on, practical guide for configuring your Drupal 7 website to handle all languages for your site users with this book and

Kristen Pol

Drupal is one of the most powerful and popular PHP Content Management Systems at the moment. By making your site multilingual, you are opening the door to a whole new user base, in as many countries as you like. Use the localization and internationalization features of Drupal 7 to automatically detect where your site users are visiting from and select the content appropriate to them. The world is your oyster!Drupal 7 Multilingual Sites guides you through the wild world of localization and internationalization with practical and real-world exercises that you can apply to your own website. You will go from theory to practice and acquire the skills you need to make a user-friendly Drupal 7 site that supports multiple languages.You will follow focused chapter exercises to add multiple-language support for your user interface, content, and various parts of your site's configuration such as system variables, menus, and blocks.The latter half of the book fills in the details with step-by-step exercises for localizing the interface, the content, and the configuration. Drupal 7 Multilingual Sites will give you the knowledge and the skills necessary to configure your site to support your language needs.

5758
Ebook

Windows Server 2025 Administration Fundamentals. A beginner's guide to managing and administering Windows Server environments - Fourth Edition

Bekim Dauti, Dr. Erdal Ozkaya

Windows Server 2025 introduces significant advancements and interesting security features. In this fourth edition, Bekim Dauti, the esteemed author of the previous three editions, brings his extensive experience to provide up-to-date information on these latest enhancements.You’ll be introduced to network fundamentals and installation procedures, and go through post-installation tasks, directory services, and adding roles. The chapters highlight configuration topics, including group policy, virtualization, and data storage. This updated edition covers the new and enhanced features of Windows Server 2025 extensively, including Active Directory Domain Services enhancements, SMB over QUIC, advanced security features, and hotpatching with Azure Arc. Additionally, the book provides insights into tuning, maintaining, updating, and troubleshooting the server, and concludes with a dedicated section on studying and preparing for the AZ-800 certification exam with the help of practical preparation tips. Numerous questions and answers at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge of the concepts covered.By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped with the knowledge needed to update, maintain, and troubleshoot servers to ensure business continuity by relying on best practices and using step-by-step graphic-driven examples.

5759
Ebook

Data Wrangling with SQL. A hands-on guide to manipulating, wrangling, and engineering data using SQL

Raghav Kandarpa, Shivangi Saxena

The amount of data generated continues to grow rapidly, making it increasingly important for businesses to be able to wrangle this data and understand it quickly and efficiently. Although data wrangling can be challenging, with the right tools and techniques you can efficiently handle enormous amounts of unstructured data.The book starts by introducing you to the basics of SQL, focusing on the core principles and techniques of data wrangling. You’ll then explore advanced SQL concepts like aggregate functions, window functions, CTEs, and subqueries that are very popular in the business world. The next set of chapters will walk you through different functions within SQL query that cause delays in data transformation and help you figure out the difference between a good query and bad one. You’ll also learn how data wrangling and data science go hand in hand. The book is filled with datasets and practical examples to help you understand the concepts thoroughly, along with best practices to guide you at every stage of data wrangling.By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped with essential techniques and best practices for data wrangling, and will predominantly learn how to use clean and standardized data models to make informed decisions, helping businesses avoid costly mistakes.

5760
Ebook