Monday, December 1, 2008

Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, Second Edition: A Programmer's Guide

Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications, 2nd edition presents the core mathematics necessary for sophisticated 3D graphics and interactive physical simulations. The book begins with linear algebra and matrix multiplication and expands on this foundation to cover such topics as color and lighting, interpolation, animation and basic game physics. Essential Mathematics focuses on the issues of 3D game development important to programmers and includes optimization guidance throughout. The new edition Windows code will now use Visual Studio.NET. There will also be DirectX support provided, long with OpenGL - due to its cross-platform nature. Programmers will find more concrete examples included in this edition, as well as additional information on tuning, optimization and robustness. The book has a companion CD-ROM with exercises and a test bank for the academic secondary market, and for main market: code examples built around a shared code base, including a math library covering all the topics presented in the book, a core vector/matrix math engine, and libraries to support basic 3D rendering and interaction. There is also an associated website with updates and code patches, and PowerPoint slides from presentations.

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Object-Oriented JavaScript: Create scalable, reusable high-quality JavaScript applications

Once listed in the "nice to have" sections of job postings, these days the knowledge of JavaScript is a deciding factor when it comes to hiring web developers. And rightly so. Where in the past we used to have the occasional few lines of JavaScript embedded in a web page, now we have advanced libraries and extensible architectures, powering the "fat-client", AJAX-type rich internet applications.

JavaScript is the language of the browser, but it's also heavily employed in many other environments: server-side programming, desktop applications, application extensions and widgets. It's a pretty good deal: you learn one language and then code all kinds of different applications. While this book has one chapter specifically dedicated to the web browser environment including DOM, events, and AJAX tutorials, the rest is applicable to all the other environments too.

This book treats JavaScript as a serious object-oriented language, showing you how to build robust, maintainable, and powerful libraries and applications. Along the way, we cover many of the recent innovations such as AJAX, JSON, and interesting design and coding patterns. After reading this book, you'll be prepared to ace your JavaScript job interview and even impress with some bits that the interviewer maybe didn't know. You should read this book if you want to be able to take your JavaScript skills to a new level of sophistication.

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SharePoint Designer Tutorial: Working with SharePoint Websites

Get started with SharePoint Designer to put together a business site with SharePoint. This book is ideal for people new to SharePoint Designer who need to put together a working SharePoint site as quickly as possible. No experience of SharePoint Designer is expected, and no skill with creating SharePoint sites is assumed.

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Beginning SQL Server 2008 for Developers: From Novice to Professional

SQL Server 2008 is a first–rate database management system. It offers more capability than any previous release of SQL Server. More than just a classic relational database management system, SQL Server 2008 includes exciting and powerful features that make it useful for everything from large corporate data warehouses to ad hoc departmental databases. You’ll find enhanced support for XML, new support for spatial data, transparent data encryption, a policy–based management system, and more.

Author and developer Robin Dewson will show you the way from beginner to SQL Server 2008 professional. Learn to install SQL Server 2008 and navigate around Management Studio before getting right to the heart of mastering fundamental SQL Server 2008 tasks: creating tables, storing data, securing data, and retrieving it again. Dewson ensures you’ll be fully prepared to use all the basics and create a solid foundation for your own projects.

Don’t forget about backups! Your database will house important data, so backing up is essential to protect yourself from inevitable hardware failure. Dewson walks you through SQL Server 2008’s easy–to–use backup and recovery feature set, giving you the grounding that you need in order to set up a reliable plan for recovery in your own environment.

Learn to use Transact–SQL, a full–blown procedural language that is built right into the database system. Transact–SQL is the key to unlocking everything that SQL Server 2008 has to offer. Using Transact–SQL, you can write centrally encapsulated business logic through the use of stored procedures, automatically trigger processing through the use of triggers, and manipulate data within the server without having to move data back and forth across the network.

Finally, you’ll learn a bit about SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, a powerful tool that allows enterprise reporting. Reporting Services enables you to develop and serve reports across your organization and even to business partners outside your company. Reporting Services also gives end users the ability to create their own reports, helping them transform business data into valuable, usable information to guide their day–to–day decisions.

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Android Essentials

Android Essentials is a no–frills, no–nonsense, code–centric run through the guts of application development on Google’s Mobile OS. This book uses the development of a sample application to work through topics, focusing on giving developers the essential tools and examples required to make viable commercial applications work. Covering the entirety of the Android catalog in less than 150 pages is simply impossible. Instead, this book focuses on just four main topics: the application life cycle and OS integration, user interface, location–based services, and networking.

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Adobe CS3 Web Workflows: Building Websites with Adobe Creative Suite 3

Maximize your potential as a web designer with Adobe CS3 Web Workflows: Building Websites with Adobe Creative Suite 3, a guide to all the tools in Adobe CS3 and how to use them together to create dynamic web pages. Understand the workflow from one product to another and learn how to use the essential techniques in each program so that you can complete your work skillfully and efficiently. Discover ways you can maximize your productivity with workflows like Photoshop to Dreamweaver, Fireworks to Dreamweaver, Flash to Dreamweaver and Photoshop to Fireworks to Bridge to Dreamweaver.

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Pro Tools All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies

When you add Pro Tools to your home recording studio, you have the software used to create hit records. Throw in Pro Tools All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies, Second Edition and you get the insight you need to capture your sounds, edit your tracks, create a mix, and master your songs for the world to hear. Add a generous helping of your own talent and you have the perfect recipe for music stardom.

This fantastic eight-books-in-one package introduces you to Pro Tools audio- and MIDI-recording software and clues you in on basic multitrack recording techniques. You'll get wise to Pro Tools' many features and functions and find out how top recording studios use them to create the biggest hits on the planet. This do-it-now handbook also gets you up to speed on the essential audio-engineering skills you need to make ultra-high-quality recordings. Discover how to:

* Navigate the Pro Tools windows and menus
* Save hours of experimenting and spend more time recording
* Master microphone placement and other home recording basics
* Edit errors out of your tracks
* Equalize (EQ) tracks and add effects
* Work with midi instruments
* Blend your sounds into a stunning final mix
* Assemble and release an album

Don't spend big bucks and many months taking classes in audio engineering and Pro Tools. Get eight quick-reference guides for one great price with Pro Tools All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies, Second Edition and start recording your breakthrough album right away!

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Nessus Network Auditing, Second Edition

The Updated Version of the Bestselling Nessus Book.

This is the ONLY Book to Read if You Run Nessus Across the Enterprise
Ever since its beginnings in early 1998, the Nessus Project has attracted security researchers from all walks of life. It continues this growth today. It has been adopted as a de facto standard by the security industry, vendor, and practitioner alike, many of whom rely on Nessus as the foundation to their security practices. Now, a team of leading developers have created the definitive book for the Nessus community.

Netcat Power Tools

Originally released in 1996, Netcat is a netowrking program designed to read and write data across both Transmission Control Protocol TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) connections using the TCP/Internet Protocol (IP) protocol suite. Netcat is often referred to as a "Swiss Army knife" utility, and for good reason. Just like the multi-function usefullness of the venerable Swiss Army pocket knife, Netcat's functionality is helpful as both a standalone program and a backe-end tool in a wide range of applications. Some of the many uses of Netcat include port scanning, transferring files, grabbing banners, port listening and redirection, and more nefariously, a backdoor. This is the only book dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the tool's many features, and by the end of this book, you'll discover how Netcat can be one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal.

Nagios 3 Enterprise Network Monitoring: Including Plug-Ins and Hardware Devices

Nagios is an Open Source network, hardware, and application monitoring program. It is designed to inform system administrators of problems on their networks before their clients, end-users or managers do. Nagios is a SysAdmin's best friend. Nagios is installed on over 300,000 machines worldwide, and truly is a global product: approximately 25.6% of users are in the U.S., and 30% in EMEA. Nagios can monitor everything from network bandwidth to the temperature and humidity in a server room. SysAdmins are able to use Nagios for such a variety of purposes through custom software "plug ins" and third party hardware. SysAdmins customize these plug ins instructing Nagios to monitor the servers, applications, or devices that are most critical to their network infrastructure. These plug ins also allow SysAdmins to integrate Nagios with other monitoring devices and applications like Snort and Wireshark. Nagios can also be fully integrated with third party environmental monitoring devices and remote power supplies. When Nagios detects a problem, it can notify the SysAdmin in a variety of different ways (email, instant message, SMS, etc.). Current status information, historical logs, and reports can all be accessed via a web browser. Nagios could send a text message to a SysAdmin sitting on his couch at home that the temperature in the server room is too hot and could potentially damage the equipment. The SysAdmin can then check the status of the server from home using his Nagios Web interface, and then coordinate with the appropriate facility management personnel to check the air conditioning in the server room. This is merely one example of Nagios? capabilities. The same scenario could be applied to an overloaded Exchange server, a router being pounded by a Denial of Service Attack, or a user accessing or downloading unauthorized materials.

* Contains complete case study on deploying Nagios in an enterprise environment.
* Companion Web site offers 100 working Scripts for customizing Nagios plug-ins.
* Helps organizations adhere to federally mandated compliance regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley, or HIPAA.
* Details how to integrate Nagios with third-party hardware.