Stencyl Essentials. Build beautiful, unique, cross-platform games rapidly with the free Stencyl 2D game engine and toolset

Richard Sneyd

OpenAI GPT For Python Developers. The art and science of building AI-powered apps with GPT-4, Whisper, Weaviate, and beyond

Aymen El Amri

“OpenAI GPT for Python Developers” is meticulously crafted to provide Python developers with a deep dive into the mechanics and applications of GPT technology, beginning with a captivating narrative on the evolution of OpenAI and the fundamental workings of GPT models. As readers progress, they will be expertly guided through the essential steps of setting up a development environment tailored for AI innovations, coupled with insightful advice on selecting the most appropriate GPT model to suit specific project needs.The guide progresses into practical tutorials that cover the implementation of chat completions and the art of prompt engineering, providing a solid foundation in harnessing the capabilities of GPT for generating human-like text responses. Practical applications are further expanded with discussions on the creation of autonomous AI-to-AI dialogues, the development of AI avatars, and the strategic use of AI in interactive applications.In addition to technical skills, this book addresses the ethical implications and prospects of AI technologies, encouraging a holistic view of AI development. The guide is enriched with detailed examples, step-by-step tutorials, and comprehensive explanations that illuminate the theoretical aspects and emphasize practical implementation.

Computer Vision for the Web. Unleash the power of the Computer Vision algorithms in JavaScript to develop vision-enabled web content

Foat Akhmadeev

This book will give you an insight into controlling your applications with gestures and head motion and readying them for the web. Packed with real-world tasks, it begins with a walkthrough of the basic concepts of Computer Vision that the JavaScript world offers us, and you’ll implement various powerful algorithms in your own online application. Then, we move on to a comprehensive analysis of JavaScript functions and their applications. Furthermore, the book will show you how to implement filters and image segmentation, and use tracking.js and jsfeat libraries to convert your browser into Photoshop. Subjects such as object and custom detection, feature extraction, and object matching are covered to help you find an object in a photo. You will see how a complex object such as a face can be recognized by a browser as you move toward the end of the book. Finally, you will focus on algorithms to create a human interface. By the end of this book, you will be familiarized with the application of complex Computer Vision algorithms to develop your own applications, without spending much time learning sophisticated theory.

Cinematic Photoreal Environments in Unreal Engine 5. Create captivating worlds and unleash the power of cinematic tools without coding

Giovanni Visai

As Unreal Engine 5 continues to conquer all industries thanks to its real-time technology, UE skills are becoming more sought after than ever. This three-part book covers all the processes behind the creation of a stunning environment in UE 5.Starting with the steps for installing the game engine and learning about its potential, you’ll quickly progress toward generating a variety of different upwards scaling outputs, each bigger than the previous one. After completing the first part and getting realistic shots of a single object, you’ll delve into the world of landscapes, procedural material and foliage, the Landmass plugin, and water tools by creating an environment using Megascan assets. At this point, you’ll know everything you need to create a fascinating and realistic environment. The final part of this book will teach you how to craft cinematic shots by working with cinematic tools, post processing, and framing tools, and by rendering a photorealistic shot in the last chapter.By the end of this Unreal Engine book, you'll be able to create outstanding and realistic environments using the powerful tools provided by UE as well as have an understanding of the importance of filming and composition in world building.

Web Scraping with Python. Successfully scrape data from any website with the power of Python

Richard Penman

HTML5 Canvas Cookbook. Over 80 recipes to revolutionize the Web experience with HTML5 Canvas

Eric Rowell

The HTML5 canvas is revolutionizing graphics and visualizations on the Web. Powered by JavaScript, the HTML5 Canvas API enables web developers to create visualizations and animations right in the browser without Flash. Although the HTML5 Canvas is quickly becoming the standard for online graphics and interactivity, many developers fail to exercise all of the features that this powerful technology has to offer.The HTML5 Canvas Cookbook begins by covering the basics of the HTML5 Canvas API and then progresses by providing advanced techniques for handling features not directly supported by the API such as animation and canvas interactivity. It winds up by providing detailed templates for a few of the most common HTML5 canvas applications—data visualization, game development, and 3D modeling. It will acquaint you with interesting topics such as fractals, animation, physics, color models, and matrix mathematics.By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of the HTML5 Canvas API and a toolbox of techniques for creating any type of HTML5 Canvas application, limited only by the extent of your imagination.

Cassandra Design Patterns. Build real-world, industry-strength data storage solutions with time-tested design methodologies using Cassandra - Second Edition

Rajanarayanan Thottuvaikkatumana

If you are new to Cassandra but well-versed in RDBMS modeling and design, then it is natural to model data in the same way in Cassandra, resulting in poorly performing applications and losing the real purpose of Cassandra. If you want to learn to make the most of Cassandra, this book is for you.This book starts with strategies to integrate Cassandra with other legacy data stores and progresses to the ways in which a migration from RDBMS to Cassandra can be accomplished. The journey continues with ideas to migrate data from cache solutions to Cassandra. With this, the stage is set and the book moves on to some of the most commonly seen problems in applications when dealing with consistency, availability, and partition tolerance guarantees. Cassandra is exceptionally good at dealing with temporal data and patterns such as the time-series pattern and log pattern, which are covered next. Many NoSQL data stores fail miserably when a huge amount of data is read for analytical purposes, but Cassandra is different in this regard. Keeping analytical needs in mind, you’ll walk through different and interesting design patterns.No theoretical discussions are complete without a good set of use cases to which the knowledge gained can be applied, so the book concludes with a set of use cases you can apply the patterns you’ve learned.

Modernizing Your Windows Applications with the Windows App SDK and WinUI. Expand your desktop apps to support new features and deliver an integrated Windows 11 experience

Matteo Pagani, Marc Plogas

If you're a developer looking to improve and modernize your existing LOB applications to leverage modern Windows features without having to rewrite the entire application from scratch, this book is for you. You’ll learn how to modernize your existing Windows Forms, WPF, and UWP applications and enrich them with the latest Windows features.Starting with sample LOB applications that cover common scenarios, you'll learn the differences between various components and then focus on design features for improved visual aspects like accessibility and responsive layouts.The book shows you how to enhance your existing applications using Windows App SDK components and various Windows APIs, resulting in deeper integration with the operating system. You’ll be taking a closer look at WinML, which enables Windows applications to evaluate machine learning models offline and leverage the power of your machine, or notifications, to engage with your users in a more effective way. You’ll also learn how to make your application deployment-ready by distributing it using various platforms like the Microsoft Store or websites.By the end of this Windows book, you'll be able to create a migration plan for your existing Windows applications and put your knowledge to work by enhancing your application with new features and integrating them with the Windows ecosystem.

Managing Virtual Infrastructure with Veeam ONE. Discover ways to manage your virtual infrastructure with Veeam ONE in a development environment

Kevin Sapp

Software Testing Strategies. A testing guide for the 2020s

Matthew Heusser, Michael Larsen

In today’s world, software is everywhere—from entertainment apps to mission-critical systems that support our health, finance, and infrastructure. Testing plays a vital role in ensuring these systems work reliably. Whether you're a software developer, hobbyist, or IT professional, this book will guide you in mastering the art of testing. It’s about asking the right What if? questions, uncovering vulnerabilities, and ensuring software performs as expected throughout its lifecycle. Testing isn't just about automation; it’s a human-driven, creative process that requires skill, and a deep understanding of software behavior. With practical examples and expert insights, this book helps you craft your own test strategies and explore novel approaches to problem-solving in the testing world. With its help, you’ll hone your testing skills with techniques and methodologies rather than tool-based solutions. Authored by experts Matt Heusser and Michael Larson, the book provides valuable strategies for making testing both effective and engaging. Matt is known for his leadership in project rescue initiatives, while Michael’s work in accessibility testing has helped shape industry standards. By the end of this book, you’ll be equipped to enhance your testing practices and ensure high-quality software in an ever-evolving tech landscape.

iOS 13 Programming for Beginners. Get started with building iOS apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 11 - Fourth Edition

Ahmad Sahar, Craig Clayton

iOS 13 comes with features ranging from Dark Mode and Catalyst through to SwiftUI and Sign In with Apple. If you're a beginner and are looking to experiment and work with these features to create your own apps, then this updated fourth edition gets you off to a strong start. The book offers a comprehensive introduction for programmers who are new to iOS, covering the entire process of learning the Swift language, writing your own apps, and publishing them on the App Store. This edition is updated and revised to cover the new iOS 13 features along with Xcode 11 and Swift 5.The book starts with an introduction to the Swift programming language, and how to accomplish common programming tasks with it. You'll then start building the user interface (UI) of a complete real-world app, using the latest version of Xcode, and also implement the code for views, view controllers, data managers, and other aspects of mobile apps. The book will then help you apply the latest iOS 13 features to existing apps, along with introducing you to SwiftUI, a new way to design UIs. Finally, the book will take you through setting up testers for your app, and what you need to do to publish your app on the App Store.By the end of this book, you'll be well versed with how to write and publish apps, and will be able to apply the skills you've gained to enhance your apps.

Hands-On Design Patterns with C# and .NET Core. Write clean and maintainable code by using reusable solutions to common software design problems

Gaurav Aroraa, Jeffrey Chilberto

Design patterns are essentially reusable solutions to common programming problems. When used correctly, they meet crucial software requirements with ease and reduce costs. This book will uncover effective ways to use design patterns and demonstrate their implementation with executable code specific to both C# and .NET Core.Hands-On Design Patterns with C# and .NET Core begins with an overview of object-oriented programming (OOP) and SOLID principles. It provides an in-depth explanation of the Gang of Four (GoF) design patterns, including creational, structural, and behavioral. The book then takes you through functional, reactive, and concurrent patterns, helping you write better code with streams, threads, and coroutines. Toward the end of the book, you’ll learn about the latest trends in architecture, exploring design patterns for microservices, serverless, and cloud native applications. You’ll even understand the considerations that need to be taken into account when choosing between different architectures such as microservices and MVC.By the end of the book, you will be able to write efficient and clear code and be comfortable working on scalable and maintainable projects of any size.

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premise. Explore the capabilities of Dynamics NAV 2018 and Dynamics 365 Business Central and implement them efficiently - Fourth Edition

Roberto Stefanetti, Alex Chow

Microsoft Dynamics Business Central is a full business solution suite and a complete ERP solution, which contains a robust set of development tools; these tools can help you to gain control over your business and can simplify supply chains, manufacturing, and operations. Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premise covers the latest features of Dynamics Business Central and NAV from the end users' and developers' perspectives. It also provides an insight into different tools available for implementation, whether it's a new installation or migrating from the previous version of Dynamics NAV.This book will take you from an introduction to Dynamics NAV 2018 through to exploring all the techniques related to implementation and migration. You will also learn to expand functionalities within your existing Microsoft Dynamics NAV installation, perform data analysis, and implement free third-party add-ons to your existing installation. As you progress through the book, you will learn to work with third-party add-on tools. In the concluding chapters, you will explore Dynamics 365 Business Central, the new Cloud solution based on the Microsoft NAV platform, and techniques for using Docker and Sandbox to develop applications.By the end of the book, you will have gained a deep understanding of the key components for successful Dynamics NAV implementation for an organization.

Instant Oracle GoldenGate. A concise and clear step-by-step guide to get you quickly started with Oracle GoldenGate

Tony Bruzzese

Oracle GoldenGate is a comprehensive package for low-impact, real-time data capture, distribution, and delivery of transactional data across heterogeneous systems for continuous availability, zero downtime migration, and disaster recovery. All in all, it is a precise tool for data replication, regardless of the platform that you use in today’s environment. Instant Oracle GoldenGate exemplifies the ease of use of this package through the use of real-world examples. This book gives a good overview and hands-on approach to the most commonly used implementations in an Oracle GoldenGate environment.This How-to book will take you through a number of real-world examples quickly and effectively by eliminating much of the guess work for all users from novices to experienced users.You will learn about the key components of the architecture and simple one-way replication for a number of database tables or an entire schema. You’ll be covering key concepts and the implementation of high availability configurations such as Oracle RAC, encryption, and many different ways to transform and filter data to your target systems.

Qt 5 and OpenCV 4 Computer Vision Projects. Get up to speed with cross-platform computer vision app development by building seven practical projects

Zhuo Qingliang

OpenCV and Qt have proven to be a winning combination for developing cross-platform computer vision applications. By leveraging their power, you can create robust applications with both an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) and high-performance capabilities. This book will help you learn through a variety of real-world projects on image processing, face and text recognition, object detection, and high-performance computing. You’ll be able to progressively build on your skills by working on projects of increasing complexity.You’ll begin by creating an image viewer application, building a user interface from scratch by adding menus, performing actions based on key-presses, and applying other functions. As you progress, the book will guide you through using OpenCV image processing and modification functions to edit an image with filters and transformation features. In addition to this, you’ll explore the complex motion analysis and facial landmark detection algorithms, which you can use to build security and face detection applications. Finally, you’ll learn to use pretrained deep learning models in OpenCV and GPUs to filter images quickly. By the end of this book, you will have learned how to effectively develop full-fledged computer vision applications with OpenCV and Qt.

The Ultimate Guide to Snowpark. Design and deploy Snowpark with Python for efficient data workloads

Shankar Narayanan SGS, Vivekanandan SS, Jeff Hollan

Snowpark is a powerful framework that helps you unlock numerous possibilities within the Snowflake Data Cloud. However, without proper guidance, leveraging the full potential of Snowpark with Python can be challenging. Packed with practical examples and code snippets, this book will be your go-to guide to using Snowpark with Python successfully.The Ultimate Guide to Snowpark helps you develop an understanding of Snowpark and how it enables you to implement workloads in data engineering, data science, and data applications within the Data Cloud. From configuration and coding styles to workloads such as data manipulation, collection, preparation, transformation, aggregation, and analysis, this guide will equip you with the right knowledge to make the most of this framework. You'll discover how to build, test, and deploy data pipelines and data science models. As you progress, you’ll deploy data applications natively in Snowflake and operate large language models (LLMs) using Snowpark container services.By the end of this book, you'll be able to leverage Snowpark's capabilities and propel your career as a Snowflake developer to new heights.

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 book, 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 book, 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.

Managing Kubernetes Resources Using Helm. Simplifying how to build, package, and distribute applications for Kubernetes - Second Edition

Andrew Block, Austin Dewey, Rimantas Mocevicius "rimusz"

Containerization is one of the best ways to implement DevOps, and learning how to execute it effectively is an essential part of a developer’s skillset. Kubernetes is the current industry standard for container orchestration. This book will help you discover the efficiency of managing applications running on Kubernetes with Helm.Starting with a brief introduction to Helm and its impact on users working with containers and Kubernetes, you’ll delve into the primitives of Helm charts and their architecture and use cases. From there, you’ll understand how to write Helm charts in order to automate application deployment on Kubernetes and work your way toward more advanced strategies. These enterprise-ready patterns are focused on concepts beyond the basics so that you can use Helm optimally, looking at topics related to automation, application development, delivery, lifecycle management, and security.By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to leverage Helm to build, deploy, and manage applications on Kubernetes.

Python Machine Learning By Example. Unlock machine learning best practices with real-world use cases - Fourth Edition

Yuxi (Hayden) Liu

The fourth edition of Python Machine Learning By Example is a comprehensive guide for beginners and experienced machine learning practitioners who want to learn more advanced techniques, such as multimodal modeling. Written by experienced machine learning author and ex-Google machine learning engineer Yuxi (Hayden) Liu, this edition emphasizes best practices, providing invaluable insights for machine learning engineers, data scientists, and analysts.Explore advanced techniques, including two new chapters on natural language processing transformers with BERT and GPT, and multimodal computer vision models with PyTorch and Hugging Face. You’ll learn key modeling techniques using practical examples, such as predicting stock prices and creating an image search engine.This hands-on machine learning book navigates through complex challenges, bridging the gap between theoretical understanding and practical application. Elevate your machine learning and deep learning expertise, tackle intricate problems, and unlock the potential of advanced techniques in machine learning with this authoritative guide.

Joomla! 1.5 SEO. Improve the search engine friendliness of your web site

Herbert-Jan Dinther, Chris Davenport

Some sites always appear at the top of a search result while others fail to even make it to the top ten. Wouldn't you want to see your site on the first page of any search result? This is not easily feasible if you are depending solely on the marketing guys whom you hire for SEO.Joomla! SEO will help you to attract more visitors and improve the way you rank in search engines by giving you the techniques and knowledge to work your site into higher visitor numbers. It will help you to create and improve your site in an easy way. Joomla! is great, and you can make it perform even better by using the guidelines and ideas in this book.Search Engine Optimization is becoming a must for every web site. As the competition on the Internet grows you need to make sure your site is among the top results on the major search engines. More and more people use search engines to find the information they are looking for, so you need to make sure you show up in those search result pages to get those visitors to your web site.Joomla! SEO will provide you with a lot of information, ranging from keywords strategies through technical improvements and content creation. All this information and the tutorials provided are targeted to give you the best base for gaining higher rankings.In the book, you will learn how to build a keyword strategy and create a better site structure for SEO. You will read about technical improvements that will give you better options for SEO. There is a separate chapter that helps you create search-engine friendly and keyword-rich URLs.In the end, you will have a web site that is ready to outperform your competitors and a manual to refer to for improving every step you take.

Magento 2 Development Essentials. Get up and running with Magento 2 to create custom solutions, themes, and extensions effectively

Fernando J Miguel

Magento is the e-commerce software and platform trusted by the world's leading brands. Used by thousands of merchants for their transactions worth billions, it provides the flexibility to customize the content and functionality of your website. By strengthening your fundamentals in Magento development, you can develop the best solutions and take advantage of the growing market.This fast-paced tutorial will provide you with skills you need to successfully create themes, extensions, and solutions to Magento 2 projects. This book begins by setting up Magento 2 before gradually moving onto setting the basic options of the Sell System. You will take advantage of Search Engine Optimization aspects, create design and customize theme layout, develop new extensions, and adjust the Magento System to achieve great performance. By sequentially working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly explore all the features of Magento 2 to create a great solution.With ample examples and a practical approach, this book will ensure your success with this astonishing e-commerce management system.

JavaScript and JSON Essentials. Build light weight, scalable, and faster web applications with the power of JSON - Second Edition

Bruno Joseph D'mello, Sai S Sriparasa

JSON is an established and standard format used to exchange data. This book shows how JSON plays different roles in full web development through examples. By the end of this book, you'll have a new perspective on providing solutions for your applications and handling their complexities.After establishing a strong basic foundation with JSON, you'll learn to build frontend apps by creating a carousel. Next, you'll learn to implement JSON with Angular 5, Node.js, template embedding, and composer.json in PHP. This book will also help you implement Hapi.js (known for its JSON-configurable architecture) for server-side scripting.You'll learn to implement JSON for real-time apps using Kafka, as well as how to implement JSON for a task runner, and for MongoDB BSON storage. The book ends with some case studies on JSON formats to help you sharpen your creativity by exploring futuristic JSON implementations. By the end of the book, you'll be up and running with all the essential features of JSON and JavaScript and able to build fast, scalable, and efficient web applications.

Android UI Development with Jetpack Compose. Bring declarative and native UI to life quickly and easily on Android using Jetpack Compose and Kotlin - Second Edition

Thomas Künneth

Compose has caused a paradigm shift in Android development, introducing a variety of new concepts that are essential to an Android developer’s learning journey. It solves a lot of pain points associated with Android development and is touted to become the default way to building Android apps over the next few years. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect all changes and additions that were made by Google since the initial stable release, and all examples are based on Material 3 (also called Material You).This book uses practical examples to help you understand the fundamental concepts of Jetpack Compose and how to use them when you are building your own Android applications. You’ll begin by getting an in-depth explanation of the declarative approach, along with its differences from and advantages over traditional user interface (UI) frameworks. Having laid this foundation, the next set of chapters take a practical approach to show you how to write your first composable function. The chapters will also help you master layouts, an important core component of every UI framework, and then move to more advanced topics such as animation, testing, and architectural best practices.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to write your own Android apps using Jetpack Compose and Material Design.

WordPress Styling with Blocks, Patterns, Templates, and Themes. Explore WordPress styling with step-by-step guidance, practical examples, and tips

Tammie Lister

Experience a revolutionary WordPress styling transformation with WordPress Styling with Blocks, Patterns, Templates, and Themes by uncovering a wealth of features that redefine the future of WordPress. This guide introduces you to full-site editing and block design tools that enable you to shape the overall aesthetics and layout of your dream website with unprecedented ease.Get ready to harness the power of diverse cutting-edge features as you delve into this WordPress book, focusing on the Gutenberg editing experience. Guided by examples that demonstrate effortless customization entirely suited to your preferences, you’ll master the design tools, patterns, and full site editing capabilities to shape impactful websites that mirror your distinct vision and creativity. As you immerse yourself in the core of WordPress styling, you’ll understand the rationale and terminology underpinning each element and how to use it to its full potential.By the end of this book, you'll be equipped to build your dream website, reflecting your distinctive style.