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.
2249
Ebook

Power Apps Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices. A step-by-step practical guide to developing robust Power Apps solutions

Andrea Pinillos, Tim Weinzapfel

Microsoft Power Apps is ideal for businesses seeking to digitally transform their operations by developing custom applications quickly and efficiently, without the heavy investment required for software development. This book leverages the authors’ combined experience in Power Platform, among others, to lay down the foundation for successful app development, focusing on defining project scope and understanding requirements.In this book, you’ll go through several key development areas, including solution creation and Power Platform environments, both critical areas for effective app development and deployment. You'll also discover best practices for choosing when to build a canvas app or a model-driven app based on project requirements and data connections. The chapters will take you through advanced development techniques and show you how to integrate Power Apps with other applications. You'll get a clear understanding of the key aspects of governance, security, app maintenance, and error handling, ensuring that your Power Apps solutions are not only effective but also secure and sustainable.By the end, you’ll confidently create scalable, secure, and maintainable Power Apps for your business needs.

2250
Ebook

Visual Basic Quickstart Guide. Improve your programming skills and design applications that range from basic utilities to complex software

Aspen Olmsted

Whether you’re an absolute beginner or an experienced developer looking to learn the Visual Basic language, this book takes a hands-on approach to guide you through the process. From the very first chapters, you'll delve into writing programs, exploring core concepts such as data types, decision branching, and iteration. Additionally, you’ll get to grips with working with data structures, file I/O, and essential object-oriented principles like inheritance and polymorphism.This book goes beyond the basics to equip you with the skills to read and write code across the entire VB family, spanning VB Script, VBA, VB Classic, and VB.NET, enabling you to handle legacy code maintenance with ease.With clear explanations, practical examples, and hands-on exercises, this book empowers you to tackle real-world software development tasks, whether you're enhancing existing projects or embarking on new ones. It addresses common challenges like distinguishing between the variations of the VB programming language to help you choose the right one for your projects.Don't let VB's extensive legacy daunt you; embrace it with this comprehensive guide that equips you with practical, up-to-date coding skills to overcome the challenges presented by Visual Basic's rich history of over two decades.

2251
Ebook

Implementing Hybrid Cloud with Azure Arc. Explore the new-generation hybrid cloud and learn how to build Azure Arc-enabled solutions

Amit Malik, Daman Kaur, Raja N

With all the options available for deploying infrastructure on multi-cloud platforms and on-premises comes the complexity of managing it, which is adeptly handled by Azure Arc. This book will show you how you can manage environments across platforms without having to migrate workloads from on-premises or multi-cloud to Azure every time.Implementing Hybrid Cloud with Azure Arc starts with an introduction to Azure Arc and hybrid cloud computing, covering use cases and various supported topologies. You'll learn to set up Windows and Linux servers as Arc-enabled machines and get to grips with deploying applications on Kubernetes clusters with Azure Arc and GitOps. The book then demonstrates how to onboard an on-premises SQL Server infrastructure as an Arc-enabled SQL Server and deploy and manage a hyperscale PostgreSQL infrastructure on-premises through Azure Arc. Along with deployment, the book also covers security, backup, migration, and data distribution aspects. Finally, it shows you how to deploy and manage Azure's data services on your own private cloud and explore multi-cloud solutions with Azure Arc.By the end of this book, you'll have a firm understanding of Azure Arc and how it interacts with various cutting-edge technologies such as Kubernetes and PaaS data services.

2252
Ebook

The Android Game Developer's Handbook. Click here to enter text

Avisekhar Roy

Gaming in android is an already established market and growing each day. Previously games were made for specific platforms, but this is the time of cross platform gaming with social connectivity. It requires vision of polishing, design and must follow user behavior. This book would help developers to predict and create scopes of improvement according to user behavior.You will begin with the guidelines and rules of game development on the Android platform followed by a brief description about the current variants of Android devices available. Next you will walk through the various tools available to develop any Android games and learn how to choose the most appropriate tools for a specific purpose. You will then learn JAVA game coding standard and style upon the Android SDK. Later, you would focus on creation, maintenance of Game Loop using Android SDK, common mistakes in game development and the solutions to avoid them to improve performance. We will deep dive into Shaders and learn how to optimize memory and performance for an Android Game before moving on to another important topic, testing and debugging Android Games followed by an overview about Virtual Reality and how to integrate them into Android games. Want to program a different way? Inside you’ll also learn Android game Development using C++ and OpenGL. Finally you would walk through the required tools to polish and finalize the game and possible integration of any third party tools or SDKs in order to monetize your game when it’s one the market!

2253
Ebook

Docker Deep Dive. Zero to Docker in a single book - Fifth Edition

Nigel Poulton

Docker Deep Dive provides a comprehensive introduction to container technology and Docker’s essential role in modern software development. It covers installation across platforms and presents both developer and operational perspectives to build a solid foundation. Early chapters explain container basics, Docker architecture, and key ecosystem standards.The book then explores advanced technical topics including the Docker Engine, image and container management, application containerization, and multi-container apps with Docker Compose. It guides readers through deploying and managing Docker Swarm clusters and introduces emerging areas like WebAssembly containers and AI workloads with Docker Model Runner.Extensive coverage of networking, persistent storage, and security equips readers with enterprise-grade skills for deploying and maintaining containerized applications. The practical approach ensures confidence in implementing Docker solutions for development and production environments.This newly updated edition includes a brand-new chapter on Docker Model Runner with a full AI LLM project, updates to BuildKit, buildx, Docker Build Cloud, debugging tools, WebAssembly content, and a streamlined Docker Swarm chapter.

2254
Ebook

Artificial Intelligence with Python. Your complete guide to building intelligent apps using Python 3.x - Second Edition

Alberto Artasanchez, Prateek Joshi

Artificial Intelligence with Python, Second Edition is an updated and expanded version of the bestselling guide to artificial intelligence using the latest version of Python 3.x. Not only does it provide you an introduction to artificial intelligence, this new edition goes further by giving you the tools you need to explore the amazing world of intelligent apps and create your own applications.This edition also includes seven new chapters on more advanced concepts of Artificial Intelligence, including fundamental use cases of AI; machine learning data pipelines; feature selection and feature engineering; AI on the cloud; the basics of chatbots; RNNs and DL models; and AI and Big Data.Finally, this new edition explores various real-world scenarios and teaches you how to apply relevant AI algorithms to a wide swath of problems, starting with the most basic AI concepts and progressively building from there to solve more difficult challenges so that by the end, you will have gained a solid understanding of, and when best to use, these many artificial intelligence techniques.

2255
Ebook

Blender 2.5 Materials and Textures Cookbook. Achieving near photographic realism in your 3D models is within easy reach once you’ve learnt the finer points of using materials and textures in Blender. Over 80 recipes cover everything from human faces to flames and explosions

Ton Roosendaal, Colin Litster

Blender 2.5 is one of the most usable 3D suites available. Its material and texture functions offer spectacular surface creation possibilities. It can take you hours just to create basic textures and materials in Blender and when you think of creating complex materials and textures you are petrified. Imagine how you will feel when you overcome these obstacles.This book wastes no time on boring theory and bombards you with examples of ready-created materials and textures from the start, with clear instructions on how they were created, and what you can learn from them for making your own. It covers all core Blender functions you will ever need to easily create perfect simulation of objects from the simplest to the most complex ones.The book begins with recipes that show you how to create natural surface materials, including a variety of pebbles, rocks, wood, and water, as well as man-made metals, complete with rust. By utilizing some of the easiest-to-use animation tools available, you will be able to produce accurate movement in mesh objects. Familiarize yourself with a plethora of tools that will help you to effectively organize your textures and materials.You will learn how to emulate the reflective properties of natural materials and how to simulate materials such as rusted iron, which is difficult to make believable. Transparency and reflection are both tricky natural surface properties to simulate but these recipes will make it easy. Explore ways to speed up animations by using special painting techniques to significantly lower render times. By the end of the book, you will be able to simulate some of the most difficult effects to recreate in any 3D suite, such as smoke, fire, and explosions.

2256
Ebook

Mastering Node.js Web Development. Go on a comprehensive journey from the fundamentals to advanced web development with Node.js

Adam Freeman

Dive into the world of Node.js with this comprehensive guide, taking you from foundational concepts to practical web development mastery. Written by an industry veteran with over 50 programming books under his belt, this book will help both beginners and seasoned developers.Gain a deep understanding of the most important server-side features in web development with Node.js. The first part of the book will get you up to speed with basic features of Node.js and TypeScript. In the second part, you’ll elevate your skills by creating simplified implementations of key server-side features to understand how they work and how they are presented to clients. Armed with the understanding gained from implementing each feature, you will be able to replace custom code with production-ready open-source packages.The third part will help you understand how server-side features are combined for practical web development. Using Adam Freeman’s signature SportsStore application, you will learn how to develop client and server-side components, culminating in a thorough application deployment preparation.By the end of this Node.js book, you will be able to build and deploy server applications to support HTTP clients, including JavaScript applications created with frameworks such as Angular and React.