Mastering BeagleBone Robotics. Master the power of the BeagleBone Black to maximize your robot-building skills and create awesome projects

Richard Grimmett

The Reinforcement Learning Workshop. Learn how to apply cutting-edge reinforcement learning algorithms to a wide range of control problems

Alessandro Palmas, Emanuele Ghelfi, Dr. Alexandra Galina Petre, Mayur Kulkarni, ...

Various intelligent applications such as video games, inventory management software, warehouse robots, and translation tools use reinforcement learning (RL) to make decisions and perform actions that maximize the probability of the desired outcome. This book will help you to get to grips with the techniques and the algorithms for implementing RL in your machine learning models.Starting with an introduction to RL, youÔÇÖll be guided through different RL environments and frameworks. YouÔÇÖll learn how to implement your own custom environments and use OpenAI baselines to run RL algorithms. Once youÔÇÖve explored classic RL techniques such as Dynamic Programming, Monte Carlo, and TD Learning, youÔÇÖll understand when to apply the different deep learning methods in RL and advance to deep Q-learning. The book will even help you understand the different stages of machine-based problem-solving by using DARQN on a popular video game Breakout. Finally, youÔÇÖll find out when to use a policy-based method to tackle an RL problem.By the end of The Reinforcement Learning Workshop, youÔÇÖll be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to solve challenging problems using reinforcement learning.

Learning OpenCV 3 Application Development

Samyak Datta

Computer vision and machine learning concepts are frequently used in practical computer vision based projects. If you’re a novice, this book provides the steps to build and deploy an end-to-end application in the domain of computer vision using OpenCV/C++. At the outset, we explain how to install OpenCV and demonstrate how to run some simple programs. You will start with images (the building blocks of image processing applications), and see how they are stored and processed by OpenCV. You’ll get comfortable with OpenCV-specific jargon (Mat Point, Scalar, and more), and get to know how to traverse images and perform basic pixel-wise operations. Building upon this, we introduce slightly more advanced image processing concepts such as filtering, thresholding, and edge detection. In the latter parts, the book touches upon more complex and ubiquitous concepts such as face detection (using Haar cascade classifiers), interest point detection algorithms, and feature descriptors. You will now begin to appreciate the true power of the library in how it reduces mathematically non-trivial algorithms to a single line of code!The concluding sections touch upon OpenCV’s Machine Learning module. You will witness not only how OpenCV helps you pre-process and extract features from images that are relevant to the problems you are trying to solve, but also how to use Machine Learning algorithms that work on these features to make intelligent predictions from visual data!

Delphi GUI Programming with FireMonkey. Unleash the full potential of the FMX framework to build exciting cross-platform apps with Embarcadero Delphi

Andrea Magni, Marco Cantu

FireMonkey (FMX) is a cross-platform application framework that allows developers to create exciting user interfaces and deliver applications on multiple operating systems (OS). This book will help you learn visual programming with Delphi and FMX.Starting with an overview of the FMX framework, including a general discussion of the underlying philosophy and approach, you’ll then move on to the fundamentals and architectural details of FMX. You’ll also cover a significant comparison between Delphi and the Visual Component Library (VCL). Next, you’ll focus on the main FMX components, data access/data binding, and style concepts, in addition to understanding how to deliver visually responsive UIs. To address modern application development, the book takes you through topics such as animations and effects, and provides you with a general introduction to parallel programming, specifically targeting UI-related aspects, including application responsiveness. Later, you’ll explore the most important cross-platform services in the FMX framework, which are essential for delivering your application on multiple platforms while retaining the single codebase approach. Finally, you’ll learn about FMX’s built-in 3D functionalities.By the end of this book, you’ll be familiar with the FMX framework and be able to build effective cross-platform apps.

Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders. Design and implement sustainable IT practices and unlock sustainable business opportunities

Niklas Sundberg, Hélene Barnekow

We are at a critical point in human history. Humanity is under threat, but all is not lost. We can take action! But how?Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders will show you how. It will walk you through the construction and implementation of a sustainable IT strategy and enable you to do your bit for the future of mankind.The book is split into three parts. Part I details the “why” and the clear and present danger that humanity faces today: the climate crisis. How did we get here, what are the immediate threats, what are the planetary boundaries that we need to peel back to safe levels, and what impact does IT have on society at large? Part II will focus on the what.” It examines the nitty-gritty details of what we can do to unlock significant returns on sustainable investments toward a more sustainable future. Part III, the final part of the book, focuses on the “how.” How do you turn your ideas into action? What do you need to do to establish your baseline and your direction of travel towards your objective? This part provides tangible case studies and explains how you can start your journey today to begin delivering global and impactful objectives.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to plan, implement, and communicate a sustainable IT strategy and set yourself apart as a progressive technology leader.

Defending APIs. Uncover advanced defense techniques to craft secure application programming interfaces

Colin Domoney, Chris Wysopal, Isabelle Mauny

Along with the exponential growth of API adoption comes a rise in security concerns about their implementation and inherent vulnerabilities. For those seeking comprehensive insights into building, deploying, and managing APIs as the first line of cyber defense, this book offers invaluable guidance. Written by a seasoned DevSecOps expert, Defending APIs addresses the imperative task of API security with innovative approaches and techniques designed to combat API-specific safety challenges.The initial chapters are dedicated to API building blocks, hacking APIs by exploiting vulnerabilities, and case studies of recent breaches, while the subsequent sections of the book focus on building the skills necessary for securing APIs in real-world scenarios.Guided by clear step-by-step instructions, you’ll explore offensive techniques for testing vulnerabilities, attacking, and exploiting APIs. Transitioning to defensive techniques, the book equips you with effective methods to guard against common attacks. There are plenty of case studies peppered throughout the book to help you apply the techniques you’re learning in practice, complemented by in-depth insights and a wealth of best practices for building better APIs from the ground up.By the end of this book, you’ll have the expertise to develop secure APIs and test them against various cyber threats targeting APIs.

Xamarin Blueprints. Click here to enter text

Michael Williams

Do you want to create powerful, efficient, and independent apps from scratch that will leverage the Xamarin framework and code with C#? Well, look no further; you’ve come to the right place!This is a learn-as-you-build practical guide to building eight full-fledged applications using Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin Android, and Xamarin iOS.Each chapter includes a project, takes you through the process of building applications (such as a gallery Application, a text-to-speech service app, a GPS locator app, and a stock market app), and will show you how to deploy the application’s source code to a Google Cloud Source Repository. Other practical projects include a chat and a media-editing app, as well as other examples fit to adorn any developer’s utility belt. In the course of building applications, this book will teach you how to design and prototype professional-grade applications implementing performance and security considerations.

Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines

Allan Brito, Ton Roosendaal

Blender 3D provides all the features you need to create super-realistic 3D models of machines for use in artwork, movies, and computer games. Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines gives you step-by-step instructions for building weapons, vehicles, robots, and more.This book will show you how to use Blender 3D for mechanical modeling and product visualization. Through the pages of the book, you will find a step-by-step guide to create three different projects: a fantasy weapon, a spacecraft, and a giant robot. Even though these machines are not realistic, you will be able to build your own sensible and incredible machines with the techniques that you will learn in this book along with the exercises and examples.All the three sections of this book, which cover three projects, are planned to have an increasing learning curve. The first project is about a hand weapon, and with that we can image a small-sized object with tiny details. This first part of the book will show you how to deal with these details and model them in Blender 3D.In the second project, we will create a spacecraft, adding a bit of scale to the project, and new materials and textures as well. With this project, we will be working with metal, glass, and other elements that make the spacecraft. Along with the object, a new space environment will be created in the book too.At the end we have a big and complex object, which is the transforming robot. This last part of the book will cover the modeling of two objects and show how you can make one transform into the other. The scale and number of objects in this project are quite big, but the same principles as in the other projects are applied here with a step-by-step guide on how to go through the workflow of the project.

MySQL for Python. Integrating MySQL and Python can bring a whole new level of productivity to your applications. This practical tutorial shows you how with examples and explanations that clarify even the most difficult concepts

Albert Lukaszewski

Python is a dynamic programming language, which is completely enterprise ready, owing largely to the variety of support modules that are available to extend its capabilities. In order to build productive and feature-rich Python applications, we need to use MySQL for Python, a module that provides database support to our applications. Although you might be familiar with accessing data in MySQL, here you will learn how to access data through MySQL for Python efficiently and effectively.This book demonstrates how to boost the productivity of your Python applications by integrating them with the MySQL database server, the world's most powerful open source database. It will teach you to access the data on your MySQL database server easily with Python's library for MySQL using a practical, hands-on approach. Leaving theory to the classroom, this book uses real-world code to solve real-world problems with real-world solutions.The book starts by exploring the various means of installing MySQL for Python on different platforms and how to use simple database querying techniques to improve your programs. It then takes you through data insertion, data retrieval, and error-handling techniques to create robust programs. The book also covers automation of both database and user creation, and administration of access controls. As the book progresses, you will learn to use many more advanced features of Python for MySQL that facilitate effective administration of your database through Python. Every chapter is illustrated with a project that you can deploy in your own situation.By the end of this book, you will know several techniques for interfacing your Python applications with MySQL effectively so that powerful database management through Python becomes easy to achieve and easy to maintain.

Troubleshooting Citrix XenDesktop. The ultimate troubleshooting guide for clear, concise, and real-world solutions to a wide range of common Citrix XenDesktop problems

Gurpinder Singh, Gurpinder Singh

PhoneGap: Beginner's Guide. Create, develop, debug, and deploy your very own mobile applications with PhoneGap

Andrew Lunny, Giorgio Natili, Purusothaman Ramanujam, Johnathan Iannotti

Deep Learning: Practical Neural Networks with Java. Build and run intelligent applications by leveraging key Java machine learning libraries

Fabio M. Soares, Boštjan Kaluža, Alan M. F. Souza, Yusuke Sugomori

Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, spam detection, document search, and trading strategies, to speech recognitionStarting with an introduction to basic machine learning algorithms, this course takes you further into this vital world of stunning predictive insights and remarkable machine intelligence. This course helps you solve challenging problems in image processing, speech recognition, language modeling. You will discover how to detect anomalies and fraud, and ways to perform activity recognition, image recognition, and text. You will also work with examples such as weather forecasting, disease diagnosis, customer profiling, generalization, extreme machine learning and more. By the end of this course, you will have all the knowledge you need to perform deep learning on your system with varying complexity levels, to apply them to your daily work.The course provides you with highly practical content explaining deep learning with Java, from the following Packt books:1. Java Deep Learning Essentials 2. Machine Learning in Java3. Neural Network Programming with Java, Second Edition

Extending Microsoft Business Central with Power Platform. Leverage Power Platform to create scalable Business Central solutions with high business value

Kim Congleton, Shawn Sissenwein

Unlock the untapped potential of Business Central by harnessing the power of the Power Platform with this comprehensive guide, transforming your cumbersome manual processes and limited customization capabilities into a vast array of extended functionalities and possibilities.You’ll begin by exploring the potential of Power Platform and its seamless integration with both the on-premises and cloud versions of Business Central, amplifying the capabilities of your business operations. You’ll then learn how to set up virtual tables and use Dataverse to create a simple model-driven app. As the book progresses, you’ll leverage Power Apps, including both Canvas apps and model-driven apps, to build apps around Business Central processes. The book also highlights Power Automate’s capabilities to create or modify business processes while incorporating new processes and automation. As you advance, you’ll connect to Business Central APIs that can be implemented to connect with Business Central Data and finally integrate Power BI natively with Business Central, empowering you to construct advanced reports and dashboards.With the hands-on experience gained throughout the book, you’ll build expertise in customizing Business Central with Power Platform to deliver more scalable and maintainable solutions.

Beginning C++ Game Programming. Learn to program with C++ by building fun games - Second Edition

John Horton

The second edition of Beginning C++ Game Programming is updated and improved to include the latest features of Visual Studio 2019, SFML, and modern C++ programming techniques. With this book, you’ll get a fun introduction to game programming by building five fully playable games of increasing complexity. You’ll learn to build clones of popular games such as Timberman, Pong, a Zombie survival shooter, a coop puzzle platformer and Space Invaders.The book starts by covering the basics of programming. You’ll study key C++ topics, such as object-oriented programming (OOP) and C++ pointers, and get acquainted with the Standard Template Library (STL). The book helps you learn about collision detection techniques and game physics by building a Pong game. As you build games, you’ll also learn exciting game programming concepts such as particle effects, directional sound (spatialization), OpenGL programmable shaders, spawning objects, and much more. Finally, you’ll explore game design patterns to enhance your C++ game programming skills.By the end of the book, you’ll have gained the knowledge you need to build your own games with exciting features from scratch

Object-Oriented Programming with Swift 2. Click here to enter text

Gaston C. Hillar

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects; these are data structures that contain data in the form of fields, often known as attributes and code. Objects are everywhere, and so it is very important to recognize elements, known as objects, from real-world situations and know how they can easily be translated into object-oriented code.Object-Oriented Programming with Swift is an easy-to-follow guide packed full of hands-on examples of solutions to common problems encountered with object-oriented code in Swift. It starts by helping you to recognize objects using real-life scenarios and demonstrates how working with them makes it simpler to write code that is easy to understand and reuse. You will learn to protect and hide data with the data encapsulation features of Swift. Then, you will explore how to maximize code reuse by writing code capable of working with objects of different types. After that, you'll discover the power of parametric polymorphism and will combine generic code with inheritance and multiple inheritance. Later, you move on to refactoring your existing code and organizing your source for easy maintenance and extensions.By the end of the book, you will be able to create better, stronger, and more reusable code, which will help you build better applications.

Zabbix 5 IT Infrastructure Monitoring Cookbook. Explore the new features of Zabbix 5 for designing, building, and maintaining your Zabbix setup

Nathan Liefting, Brian van Baekel

Zabbix offers useful insights into your infrastructure performance and issues and enables you to enhance your monitoring setup with its variety of powerful features. This book covers hands-on, easy-to-follow recipes for using Zabbix 5 for effectively monitoring the performance of devices and applications over networks.The book starts by guiding you through the installation of Zabbix and using the Zabbix frontend. You'll then work your way through the most prominent features of Zabbix and make the right design choices for building a scalable and easily manageable environment. The book contains recipes for building items and triggers for different types of monitoring, building templates, and using Zabbix proxies. As you advance, you’ll learn how to use the Zabbix API for customization and manage your Zabbix server and database efficiently. Finally, you'll find quick solutions to the common and not-so-common problems that you may encounter in your everyday Zabbix monitoring work.By the end of this Zabbix book, you’ll have learned how to use Zabbix for all your monitoring needs and be able to build a solid Zabbix setup by leveraging its key functionalities.

Flex 3 with Java. Develop rich internet applications quickly and easily using Adobe Flex 3, ActionScript 3.0 and integrate with a Java backend using BlazeDS 3.2

Satish Kore

Flex 3 is a great technology for developing Rich Internet Applications for the Web as well as for the desktop. If you are a developer looking to design great-looking and sophisticated user interfaces that resemble desktop-based applications, and want to utilize an existing server technology such as Java to develop RIAs, this book is for you.Targeting developers who want to get started with Adobe Flex 3 programming, this simple and clear handbook introduces Flex technology quickly and straightforwardly. Utilizing your existing knowledge of Java, it gives you the insight and hands-on experience to program with Flex 3.This book provides comprehensive information on various aspects of Flex 3 and ActionScript 3.0. These include developing simple applications, handling events, creating custom components and events, using RPC services, integration with Java and BlazeDS, styling and formatting, and how to package and deploy Flex applications.You will start with downloading, installing and configuring Flex 3 SDK and Flex Builder 3 and learn basic concepts such as what MXML and ActionScript are, understanding UI components, controls, compilers, and more. Further you will develop simple applications and slowly advance into more depth where you will learn advanced concepts such as creating custom components, debugging, integrating with Java, using RPC services, styling, internationalizing, and deploying Flex applications, and more.One of the things you're really going to love about this book is that you will develop a full-blown e-commerce application using a combination of Flex 3, ActionScript 3.0, BlazeDS 3.2, and Java. At the end of the book you will have the knowledge and experience needed to develop Rich Internet Applications.

Real-Time 3D Graphics with WebGL 2. Build interactive 3D applications with JavaScript and WebGL 2 (OpenGL ES 3.0) - Second Edition

Farhad Ghayour, Diego Cantor

As highly interactive applications have become an increasingly important part of the user experience, WebGL is a unique and cutting-edge technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the web. Packed with 80+ examples, this book guides readers through the landscape of real-time computer graphics using WebGL 2. Each chapter covers foundational concepts in 3D graphics programming with various implementations. Topics are always associated with exercises for a hands-on approach to learning.This book presents a clear roadmap to learning real-time 3D computer graphics with WebGL 2. Each chapter starts with a summary of the learning goals for the chapter, followed by a detailed description of each topic. The book offers example-rich, up-to-date introductions to a wide range of essential 3D computer graphics topics, including rendering, colors, textures, transformations, framebuffers, lights, surfaces, blending, geometry construction, advanced techniques, and more. With each chapter, you will level up your 3D graphics programming skills. This book will become your trustworthy companion in developing highly interactive 3D web applications with WebGL and JavaScript.

DevOps for Networking. Bringing Network Automation into DevOps culture

Steven Armstrong

Frustrated that your company’s network changes are still a manual set of activities that slow developers down? It doesn’t need to be that way any longer, as this book will help your company and network teams embrace DevOps and continuous delivery approaches, enabling them to automate all network functions.This book aims to show readers network automation processes they could implement in their organizations. It willteach you the fundamentals of DevOps in networking and how to improve DevOps processes and workflows by providing automation in your network. You will be exposed to various networking strategies that are stopping your organization from scaling new projects quickly.You will see how SDN and APIs are influencing DevOps transformations, which will in turn help you improve the scalability and efficiency of your organizations networks operations. You will also find out how to leverage variousconfiguration management tools such as Ansible, to automate your network.The book will also look at containers and the impact they are having on networking as well as looking at howautomation impacts network security in a software-defined network.

Machine Learning for the Web. Gaining insight and intelligence from the internet with Python

Andrea Isoni

Python is a general purpose and also a comparatively easy to learn programming language. Hence it is the language of choice for data scientists to prototype, visualize, and run data analyses on small and medium-sized data sets. This is a unique book that helps bridge the gap between machine learning and web development. It focuses on the difficulties of implementing predictive analytics in web applications. We focus on the Python language, frameworks, tools, and libraries, showing you how to build a machine learning system. You will explore the core machine learning concepts and then develop and deploy the data into a web application using the Django framework. You will also learn to carry out web, document, and server mining tasks, and build recommendation engines. Later, you will explore Python’s impressive Django framework and will find out how to build a modern simple web app with machine learning features.

PrimeFaces Cookbook. Here are over 100 recipes for PrimeFaces, the ultimate JSF framework. It's a great practical introduction to leading-edge Java web development, taking you from the basics right through to writing custom components

Mert Caliskan, MERT ??ALI??KAN, Oleg Varaksin, Cagatay Civici

PrimeFaces is the de facto standard in the Java web development. PrimeFaces is a lightweight library with one jar, zero-configuration, and no required dependencies. You just need to download PrimeFaces, add the primefaces-{version}.jar to your classpath and import the namespace to get started. This cookbook provides a head start by covering all the knowledge needed for working with PrimeFaces components in the real world. PrimeFaces Cookbook covers over 100 effective recipes for PrimeFaces 3.x which is a leading component suite to boost JSF applications. The book's range is wide‚Äí from AJAX basics, theming, and input components to advanced usage of datatable, menus, drag & drop, and charts. It also includes creating custom components and PrimeFaces Extensions.You will start with the basic concepts such as installing PrimeFaces, configuring it, and writing a first simple page. You will learn PrimeFaces' theming concept and common inputs and selects components. After that more advanced components and use cases will be discussed. The topics covered are grouping content with panels, data iteration components, endless menu variations, working with files and images, using drag & drop, creating charts, and maps. The last chapters describe solutions for frequent, advanced scenarios and give answers on how to write custom components based on PrimeFaces and also show the community-driven open source project PrimeFaces Extension in action.

The Salesforce Business Analyst Handbook. Proven business analysis techniques and processes for a superior user experience and adoption

Srini Munagavalasa

Salesforce business analysis skills are in high demand, and there are scant resources to satisfy this demand. This practical guide for business analysts contains all the tools, techniques, and processes needed to create business value and improve user adoption.The Salesforce Business Analyst Handbook begins with the most crucial element of any business analysis activity: identifying business requirements. You’ll learn how to use tacit business analysis and Salesforce system analysis skills to rank and stack all requirements as well as get buy-in from stakeholders. Once you understand the requirements, you’ll work on transforming them into working software via prototyping, mockups, and wireframing. But what good is a product if the customer cannot use it? To help you achieve that, this book will discuss various testing strategies and show you how to tailor testing scenarios that align with business requirements documents. Toward the end, you’ll find out how to create easy-to-use training material for your customers and focus on post-production support – one of the most critical phases. Your customers will stay with you if you support them when they need it!By the end of this Salesforce book, you’ll be able to successfully navigate every phase of a project and confidently apply your new knowledge in your own Salesforce implementations.

Learning Nagios. A beginners guide on Nagios - Third Edition

Wojciech Kocjan, Piotr Beltowski

Nagios, a powerful and widely used IT monitoring and management software for problem -solving. It detects problems related to your organizations infrastructure and helps in resolving the issue before it impacts the business. Following the success of the previous edition, this book will continue to help you monitor the status of network devices and also notify the system administrators of network problems. Starting with the fundamentals, the book will teach you how to install and configure Nagios for your environment. The book helps you learn how to end downtimes, adding comments and generating reports using the built-in Web interface of Nagios. Moving on, you will be introduced to the third-party web interfaces and applications for checking the status and report specific information. As you progress further in Learning Nagios, you will focus on the standard set of Nagios plugins and also focus on teach you how to efficiently manage large configurations and using templates. Once you are up to speed with this, you will get to know the concept and working of notifications and events in Nagios. The book will then uncover the concept of passive check and shows how to use NRDP (Nagios Remote Data Processor). The focus then shifts to how Nagios checks can be run on remote machines and SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) can be used from Nagios. Lastly, the book will demonstrate how to extend Nagios by creating custom check commands, custom ways of notifying users and showing how passive checks and NRDP can be used to integrate your solutions with Nagios. By the end of the book, you will be a competent system administrator who could monitor mid-size businesses or even large scale enterprises.

Programming ArcGIS 10.1 with Python Cookbook. This book provides the recipes you need to use Python with AcrGIS for more effective geoprocessing. Shortcuts, scripts, tools, and customizations put you in the driving seat and can dramatically speed up your workflow

Eric Pimpler

ArcGIS is an industry standard geographic information system from ESRI.This book will show you how to use the Python programming language to create geoprocessing scripts, tools, and shortcuts for the ArcGIS Desktop environment.This book will make you a more effective and efficient GIS professional by showing you how to use the Python programming language with ArcGIS Desktop to automate geoprocessing tasks, manage map documents and layers, find and fix broken data links, edit data in feature classes and tables, and much more.Programming ArcGIS 10.1 with Python Cookbook starts by covering fundamental Python programming concepts in an ArcGIS Desktop context. Using a how-to instruction style you'll then learn how to use Python to automate common important ArcGIS geoprocessing tasks.In this book you will also cover specific ArcGIS scripting topics which will help save you time and effort when working with ArcGIS. Topics include managing map document files, automating map production and printing, finding and fixing broken data sources, creating custom geoprocessing tools, and working with feature classes and tables, among others.In Python ArcGIS 10.1 Programming Cookbook you'll learn how to write geoprocessing scripts using a pragmatic approach designed around an approach of accomplishing specific tasks in a Cookbook style format.