XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide - Visual Basic Edition. Create your own exciting games with Visual Basic and Microsoft XNA 4.0

Kurt Jaegers

XNA Game Studio enables hobbyists and independent game developers to easily create video games, and now gives that power to Visual Basic developers. XNA lets you bring your creations to life on Windows, the Xbox 360 and the Windows Phone platforms. The latest release of XNA has added support to Visual Basic and therefore, Visual Basic developers now have the power to give life to their creativity with XNA.This book covers both the concepts and the implementations necessary to get you started on bringing your own creations to life with XNA. It presents four different games, including a puzzler, space shooter, multi-axis shoot 'em up, and a jump-and-run platformer. Each game introduces new concepts and techniques to build a solid foundation for your own ideas and creativity.This book details the creation of four games, all in different styles, from start to finish using Visual Basic and the Microsoft XNA framework. Beginning with the basics of drawing images to the screen, the book then incrementally introduces sprite animation, particles, sound effects, tile-based maps, and path finding. It then explores combining XNA with Windows Forms to build an interactive map editor, and builds a platform-style game using the editor-generated maps. Finally, the book covers the considerations necessary for deploying your games to the Xbox 360 platform.By the end of the book, you will have a solid foundation of game development concepts and techniques as well as working sample games to extend and innovate upon. You will have the knowledge necessary to create games that you can complete without an army of fellow game developers at your back.

Moodle Course Design Best Practices. Design and develop outstanding Moodle learning experiences - Second Edition

Susan Smith Nash

Moodle is a leading virtual learning environment for your online course. This book incorporates the principles of instructional design, showing you how to apply them to your Moodle courses. With this guidance, you will develop and deploy better courses, content, and assessments than ever.This book will guide you as you learn how to build and incorporate many different types of course materials and dynamic activities. You will learn how to improve the structure and presentation of resources, activities, and assessments. All this will help you to create better for self-led courses, instructor-led courses, and courses for collaborative groups. The use of multimedia features to enhance your Moodle courses is also explained in this book.Our goal is to encourage creativity, and the free MoodleCloud hosting option is an ideal place for teachers, students, trainers, and administrators to jump in and play with all the new features, which include powerful new plug-ins, new resources, and activities.Moodle can be your sandbox as well as your castle of learning! With this book, you will build learning experiences that will last your learners’ lifetimes.

GitHub Essentials. Unleash the power of collaborative development workflows using GitHub - Second Edition

Achilleas Pipinellis

Whether you are an experienced developer or a novice, learning to work with Version Control Systems is a must in the software development world. Git is the most popular tool for that purpose, and GitHub was built around it, leveraging its powers by bringing it to the web.Starting with the basics of creating a repository, you will then learn how to manage the issue tracker, the place where discussions about your project take place. Continuing our journey, we will explore how to use the wiki and write rich documentation that will accompany your project. You will also master organization/team management and some of the features that made GitHub so well known, including pull requests. Next, we will focus on creating simple web pages hosted on GitHub and lastly, we will explore the settings that are configurable for a user and a repository.

Graph Machine Learning. Take graph data to the next level by applying machine learning techniques and algorithms

Claudio Stamile, Aldo Marzullo, Enrico Deusebio

Graph Machine Learning will introduce you to a set of tools used for processing network data and leveraging the power of the relation between entities that can be used for predictive, modeling, and analytics tasks. The first chapters will introduce you to graph theory and graph machine learning, as well as the scope of their potential use. You’ll then learn all you need to know about the main machine learning models for graph representation learning: their purpose, how they work, and how they can be implemented in a wide range of supervised and unsupervised learning applications. You'll build a complete machine learning pipeline, including data processing, model training, and prediction in order to exploit the full potential of graph data. After covering the basics, you’ll be taken through real-world scenarios such as extracting data from social networks, text analytics, and natural language processing (NLP) using graphs and financial transaction systems on graphs. You’ll also learn how to build and scale out data-driven applications for graph analytics to store, query, and process network information, and explore the latest trends on graphs. By the end of this machine learning book, you will have learned essential concepts of graph theory and all the algorithms and techniques used to build successful machine learning applications.

Moodle E-Learning Course Development. A complete guide to create and develop engaging e-learning courses with Moodle

William Rice, William Rice

IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook. Harness IPython for powerful scientific computing and Python data visualization with this collection of more than 100 practical data science recipes

Cyrille Rossant

Getting Started with SQL Server 2014 Administration. Optimize your database server to be fast, efficient, and highly secure using the brand new features of SQL Server 2014

Gethyn Ellis

Building a Cyber Resilient Business. A cyber handbook for executives and boards

Dr. Magda Lilia Chelly, Shamane Tan, Hai Tran

With cyberattacks on the rise, it has become essential for C-suite executives and board members to step up and collectively recognize cyber risk as a top priority business risk. However, non-cyber executives find it challenging to understand their role in increasing the business’s cyber resilience due to its complex nature and the lack of a clear return on investment.This book demystifies the perception that cybersecurity is a technical problem, drawing parallels between the key responsibilities of the C-suite roles to line up with the mission of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).The book equips you with all you need to know about cyber risks to run the business effectively. Each chapter provides a holistic overview of the dynamic priorities of the C-suite (from the CFO to the CIO, COO, CRO, and so on), and unpacks how cybersecurity must be embedded in every business function. The book also contains self-assessment questions, which are a helpful tool in evaluating any major cybersecurity initiatives and/or investment required.With this book, you’ll have a deeper appreciation of the various ways all executives can contribute to the organization’s cyber program, in close collaboration with the CISO and the security team, and achieve a cyber-resilient, profitable, and sustainable business.

SwiftUI Cookbook. A guide to solving the most common problems and learning best practices while building SwiftUI apps - Second Edition

Giordano Scalzo, Edgar Nzokwe

SwiftUI provides an innovative and simple way to build beautiful user interfaces (UIs) for all Apple platforms, from iOS and macOS through to watchOS and tvOS, using the Swift programming language. In this recipe-based cookbook, you’ll cover the foundations of SwiftUI as well as the new SwiftUI 3 features introduced in iOS 15 and explore a range of essential techniques and concepts that will help you through the development process.The cookbook begins by explaining how to use basic SwiftUI components. Once you’ve learned the core concepts of UI development, such as Views, Controls, Lists, and ScrollViews, using practical implementations in Swift, you'll advance to adding useful features to SwiftUI using drawings, built-in shapes, animations, and transitions. You’ll understand how to integrate SwiftUI with exciting new components in the Apple development ecosystem, such as Combine for managing events and Core Data for managing app data. Finally, you’ll write iOS, macOS, and watchOS apps by sharing the same SwiftUI codebase.By the end of this SwiftUI book, you'll have discovered a range of simple, direct solutions to common problems encountered when building SwiftUI apps.

Hands-On Swift 5 Microservices Development. Build microservices for mobile and web applications using Swift 5 and Vapor 4

Ralph Kuepper, Tanner Nelson

The capabilities of the Swift programming language are extended to server-side development using popular frameworks such as Vapor. This enables Swift programmers to implement the microservices approach to design scalable and easy-to-maintain architecture for iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and watchOS applications.This book is a complete guide to building microservices for iOS applications. You’ll start by examining Swift and Vapor as backend technologies and compare them to their alternatives. The book then covers the concept of microservices to help you get started with developing your first microservice. Throughout this book, you’ll work on a case study of writing an e-commerce backend as a microservice application. You’ll understand each microservice as it is broken down into details and written out as code throughout the book. You’ll also become familiar with various aspects of server-side development such as scalability, database options, and information flow for microservices that are unwrapped in the process. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with microservices testing and see how it is different from testing a monolith application. Along the way, you’ll explore tools such as Docker, Postman, and Amazon Web Services.By the end of the book, you’ll be able to build a ready-to-deploy application that can be used as a base for future applications.

Salesforce AppExchange Success Blueprint. Transform your ideas into profitable and scalable Salesforce applications

Jakub Stefaniak

Are you ready to turn your million-dollar ideas into reality? Salesforce AppExchange Success Blueprint is your ultimate guide to becoming a successful ISV partner and publishing your Salesforce applications on the AppExchange. This book covers every facet of the application development process, from the initial partnership establishment to smoothly preparing for security review and managing app releases. Packed with real-world examples, case studies, and detailed guides, it’ll help you master AppExchange development.Throughout this experience, you’ll discover how to create customer-centric applications that seamlessly integrate with external systems, ensuring a frictionless user experience. You’ll also navigate the intricate process of preparing for security reviews and managing app releases. In addition, you’ll delve into the critical realm of business strategy, addressing essential elements such as maximizing profitability, achieving operational excellence, leveraging analytics to make data-driven decisions, and effectively handling technical debt to maintain your app's robustness and scalability.By the end of this journey, you’ll possess a deep understanding of AppExchange development from both technical and business standpoints, making you well-prepared to excel in the Salesforce ecosystem. Let's embark on this exciting path together!

Transformers for Natural Language Processing. Build, train, and fine-tune deep neural network architectures for NLP with Python, Hugging Face, and OpenAI's GPT-3, ChatGPT, and GPT-4 - Second Edition

Denis Rothman, Antonio Gulli

Transformers are...well...transforming the world of AI. There are many platforms and models out there, but which ones best suit your needs?Transformers for Natural Language Processing, 2nd Edition, guides you through the world of transformers, highlighting the strengths of different models and platforms, while teaching you the problem-solving skills you need to tackle model weaknesses.You'll use Hugging Face to pretrain a RoBERTa model from scratch, from building the dataset to defining the data collator to training the model.If you're looking to fine-tune a pretrained model, including GPT-3, then Transformers for Natural Language Processing, 2nd Edition, shows you how with step-by-step guides.The book investigates machine translations, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, question-answering, and many more NLP tasks. It provides techniques to solve hard language problems and may even help with fake news anxiety (read chapter 13 for more details).You'll see how cutting-edge platforms, such as OpenAI, have taken transformers beyond language into computer vision tasks and code creation using DALL-E 2, ChatGPT, and GPT-4.By the end of this book, you'll know how transformers work and how to implement them and resolve issues like an AI detective.

Learning RabbitMQ. Build and optimize efficient messaging applications with ease

Martin Toshev

RabbitMQ is Open Source Message Queuing software based on the Advanced Message Queue Protocol Standard written in the Erlang Language. RabbitMQ is an ideal candidate for large-scale projects ranging from e-commerce and finance to Big Data and social networking because of its ease of use and high performance. Managing RabbitMQ in such a dynamic environment can be a challenging task that requires a good understanding not only of how to work properly with the message broker but also of its best practices and pitfalls.Learning RabbitMQ starts with a concise description of messaging solutions and patterns, then moves on to concrete practical scenarios for publishing and subscribing to the broker along with basic administration. This knowledge is further expanded by exploring how to establish clustering and high availability at the level of the message broker and how to integrate RabbitMQ with a number of technologies such as Spring, and enterprise service bus solutions such as MuleESB and WSO2. We will look at advanced topics such as performance tuning, secure messaging, and the internals of RabbitMQ. Finally we will work through case-studies so that we can see RabbitMQ in action and, if something goes wrong, we'll learn to resolve it in the Troubleshooting section.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services. Everything you need to know about implementing services with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is contained in this hands-on guide. Easy to follow and totally practical, it’s a must for both new and experienced AX Dynamics developers

Kenny Saelen, Klaas Deforche, Saelen Kenny

Because an ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 plays a central role in an organization, there will always be the need to integrate it with other applications. In many cases, services are the preferred way of doing this, and Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is now more flexible than ever when it comes to the creation and use of these services. Understanding these services will help you identify where they can be used, and do so effectively.Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services is a hands-on guide that provides you with all the knowledge you will need to implement services with Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. The step-by-step examples will walk you through many of the tasks that you need to perform frequently when creating and using services.Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Services provides detailed and practical examples for creating and using services that will make it a resource you will consult many times during your implementationsThis book helps you to identify situations where services can be used for your implementations. By providing step-by-step instructions for many of the common tasks, you will gain practical know-how on to get the job done.Easy to follow instructions are provided for all types of services you will encounter. You will learn how to create document services using the AIF Document Service Wizard and how to use X++ to create custom services. You will also learn how to deploy services and web services and how you can consume them in both X++ and .NET. The services are also put to use in the SysOperation framework, which uses services to run business logic and is the new way to create batch processes in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

Systems Programming with C# and .NET. Building robust system solutions with C# 12 and .NET 8

Dennis Vroegop

If you want to explore the vast potential of C# and .NET to build high-performance applications, then this book is for you. Written by a 17-time awardee of the Microsoft MVP award, this book delves into low-level programming with C# and .NET. The book starts by introducing fundamental concepts such as low-level APIs, memory management, and performance optimization. Each chapter imparts practical skills, guiding you through threads, file I/O, and network protocols. With a focus on real-world applications, you’ll learn how to secure systems, implement effective logging, and deploy applications seamlessly. The book particularly emphasizes debugging, profiling, and addressing challenges unique to multithreaded and asynchronous code. You’ll also gain insights into cybersecurity essentials to help you safeguard data and establish secure communications. Moreover, a dedicated chapter on systems programming in Linux will help you broaden your horizons and explore cross-platform development. For those venturing into embedded systems, the final chapter offers hands-on guidance.By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to deploy, distribute, and maintain applications in production systems.

Kali Linux Web Penetration Testing Cookbook. Identify, exploit, and prevent web application vulnerabilities with Kali Linux 2018.x - Second Edition

Gilberto Najera-Gutierrez

Web applications are a huge point of attack for malicious hackers and a critical area for security professionals and penetration testers to lock down and secure. Kali Linux is a Linux-based penetration testing platform that provides a broad array of testing tools, many of which can be used to execute web penetration testing. Kali Linux Web Penetration Testing Cookbook gives you the skills you need to cover every stage of a penetration test – from gathering information about the system and application, to identifying vulnerabilities through manual testing. You will also cover the use of vulnerability scanners and look at basic and advanced exploitation techniques that may lead to a full system compromise. You will start by setting up a testing laboratory, exploring the latest features of tools included in Kali Linux and performing a wide range of tasks with OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite and other web proxies and security testing tools. As you make your way through the book, you will learn how to use automated scanners to find security ?aws in web applications and understand how to bypass basic security controls. In the concluding chapters, you will look at what you have learned in the context of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and the top 10 web application vulnerabilities you are most likely to encounter, equipping you with the ability to combat them effectively. By the end of this book, you will have acquired the skills you need to identify, exploit, and prevent web application vulnerabilities.

Compiere 3. An essential and concise guide to understanding and implementing Compiere

Andries L Pretorius

Compiere is a world leading open source commercially supported ERP system. Very large companies have already chosen Compiere over traditional systems. By its nature ERP is a complex subject and while you may be familiar with ERP this book will introduce you to the concepts of Compiere. Here you will learn the Compiere essentials quickly and concisely.The aim of this book is to get you up and running with Compiere through a practical hands on approach. This book will also give you an overview of the main Compiere business process aspects. This book will help you get comfortable with using and exploring the Compiere system as you prepare for a roll out in your organization.Maturing from an open source project to a leading edge competitor in the ERP space, Compiere offers what other traditional big name systems lack. Offering its best of class functionality on a model driven architecture, the latest enterprise platform independent web technologies (GWT, Java, JBoss, Oracle, Postgress), while maintaining openness, value, flexibility, scalability and most of all an integrated ERP platform that can be extended upon with ease.In this book we will introduce you to understanding Compiere functionality exploring the different essential business processes. We will cover the setup, the business processes of sales, purchasing, inventory, financial management as well as advanced aspects like workflow, project planning and migration.Every chapter is illustrated by example so as to facilitate quick and practical reading. This is not a Java programming manual and the book’s aim is to take your basic knowledge of the ERP environment and ensure a proper practical understanding of the critical functional aspects during the Compiere implementation process.

Troubleshooting OpenStack. Click here to enter text

Tony Campbell

OpenStack is a collection of software projects that work together to provide a cloud fabric. OpenStack is one of the fastest growing open source projects in history that unlocks cloud computing for everyone. With OpenStack, you are able to create public or private clouds on your own hardware. The flexibility and control afforded by OpenStack puts the cloud within reach of anyone willing to learn this technology.Starting with an introduction to OpenStack troubleshooting tools, we’ll walk through each OpenStack service and how you can quickly diagnose, troubleshoot, and correct problems in your OpenStack. Understanding the various projects and how they interact is essential for anyone attempting to troubleshoot an OpenStack cloud. We will start by explaining each of the major components and the dependencies between them, and move on to show you how to identify and utilize an effective set of OpenStack troubleshooting tools and fix common Keystone problems. Next, we will expose you to common errors and problems you may encounter when using the OpenStack Block Storage service (Cinder). We will then examine Heat, the OpenStack Orchestration Service, where you will learn how to trace errors, determine their root cause, and effectively correct the issue.Finally, you will get to know the best practices to architect your OpenStack cloud in order to achieve optimal performance, availability, and reliability.

Mastering PhoneGap Mobile Application Development. Take your PhoneGap experience to the next level and create engaging real-world applications

Kerri Shotts, Kerri Shotts

PhoneGap is a useful and flexible tool that enables you to create complex hybrid applications for mobile platforms. In addition to the core technology, there is a large and vibrant community that creates third-party plugins that can take your app to the next level.This book will guide you through the process of creating a complex data-driven hybrid mobile application using PhoneGap, web technologies, and third-party plugins.A good foundation is critical, so you will learn how to create a useful workflow to make development easier. From there, the next version of JavaScript (ES6) and the CSS pre-processor SASS are introduced as a way to simplify creating the look of the mobile application. Responsive design techniques are also covered, including the flexbox layout module. As many apps are data-driven, you'll build an application throughout the course of the book that relies upon IndexedDB and SQLite. You'll also download additional content and address how to handle in-app purchases. Furthermore, you’ll build your own customized plugins for your particular use case. When the app is complete, the book will guide you through the steps necessary to submit your app to the Google Play and Apple iTunes stores.

IBM DB2 9.7 Advanced Application Developer Cookbook. This cookbook is essential reading for every ambitious IBM DB2 application developer. With over 70 practical recipes, it will help you master the most sophisticated elements and techniques used in designing high quality DB2 applications

Sanjay Kumar, Mohankumar Saraswatipura

With lots of new features, DB2 9.7 delivers one the best relational database systems in the market. DB2 pureXML optimizes Web 2.0 and SOA applications.DB2 LUW database software offers industry leading performance, scale, and reliability on your choice of platform on various Linux distributions, leading Unix Systems like AIX, HP-UX and Solaris and MS Windows platforms. This DB2 9.7 Advanced Application Developer Cookbook will provide an in-depth quick reference during any application's design and development. This practical cookbook focuses on advanced application development areas that include performance tips and the most useful DB2 features that help in designing high quality applications. This book dives deep into tips and tricks for optimized application performance.With this book you will learn how to use various DB2 features in database applications in an interactive way.

WordPress Search Engine Optimization. A complete guide to dominating search engines with your WordPress site

Michael David, Michael David

WordPress is a powerful platform for creating feature-rich and attractive websites but, with a little extra tweaking and effort, your WordPress site can dominate search engines and bring thousands of new customers to your business.WordPress Search Engine Optimization will show you the secrets that professional SEO companies use to take websites to the top of search results. You'll take your WordPress site to the next level; you'll brush aside even the stiffest competition with the advanced tutorials in this book.

C# Data Structures and Algorithms. Harness the power of C# to build a diverse range of efficient applications - Second Edition

Marcin Jamro

Building your own applications is exciting but challenging, especially when tackling complex problems tied to advanced data structures and algorithms. This endeavor demands profound knowledge of the programming language as well as data structures and algorithms. C# Data Structures and Algorithms, armed with critical knowledge from an entrepreneur, author, industry expert, and seasoned developer with significant international experience, offers just that to C# developers.Starting with an introduction to algorithms, this book gradually immerses you in the world of arrays, lists, stacks, queues, dictionaries, and sets. Real-world examples, enriched with code snippets and illustrations, provide a practical understanding of these concepts. You’ll also learn how to sort arrays using various algorithms, setting a solid foundation for your programming expertise. As you progress, you’ll venture into more complex data structures – trees and graphs – and discover algorithms for tasks such as determining the shortest path in a graph before advancing to see various algorithms in action, such as solving Sudoku.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use the C# language to build algorithmic components that are not only easy to understand and debug but also seamlessly applicable in various apps, spanning web and mobile platforms.

C# 9 and .NET 5 - Modern Cross-Platform Development. Build intelligent apps, websites, and services with Blazor, ASP.NET Core, and Entity Framework Core using Visual Studio Code - Fifth Edition

Mark J. Price

In C# 9 and .NET 5 – Modern Cross-Platform Development, Fifth Edition, expert teacher Mark J. Price gives you everything you need to start programming C# applications.This latest edition uses the popular Visual Studio Code editor to work across all major operating systems. It is fully updated and expanded with a new chapter on the Microsoft Blazor framework.The book’s first part teaches the fundamentals of C#, including object-oriented programming and new C# 9 features such as top-level programs, target-typed new object instantiation, and immutable types using the record keyword. Part 2 covers the .NET APIs, for performing tasks like managing and querying data, monitoring and improving performance, and working with the file system, async streams, serialization, and encryption. Part 3 provides examples of cross-platform apps you can build and deploy, such as websites and services using ASP.NET Core or mobile apps using Xamarin.Forms. The best type of application for learning the C# language constructs and many of the .NET libraries is one that does not distract with unnecessary application code. For that reason, the C# and .NET topics covered in Chapters 1 to 13 feature console applications. In Chapters 14 to 20, having mastered the basics of the language and libraries, you will build practical applications using ASP.NET Core, Model-View-Controller (MVC), and Blazor.By the end of the book, you will have acquired the understanding and skills you need to use C# 9 and .NET 5 to create websites, services, and mobile apps.

Microsoft Visual C++ Windows Applications by Example. Code and explanation for real-world MFC C++ Applications

Stefan Bjornander