Develop real-world applications in Windows. About This Book Create diverse applications featuring the versatility of Small Windows C++ library Learn about object-oriented programming in Windows and how to develop a large object-oriented class library in C++ Understand how to tackle application-specific problems along with acquiring a deep understanding of the workings of Windows architecture Who This Book Is For This book is for application developers who want a head-first approach into Windows programming. It will teach you how to develop an object-oriented class library in C++ and enhanced applications in Windows. Basic knowledge of C++ and the object-oriented framework is assumed to get the most out of this book. What You Will Learn Develop advanced real-world applications in Windows Design and implement a graphical object-oriented class library in C++ Get to grips with the workings of the integral aspects of the Win32 API, such as mouse input, drawing, cut-and-paste, file handling, and drop files Identify general problems when developing graphical applications as well as specific problems regarding drawing, spreadsheet, and word processing applications Implement classes, functions, and macros of the object-oriented class library developed in the book and how we implement its functionality by calling functions and macros in the Win32 API In Detail It is critical that modern developers have the right tools to build practical, user-friendly, and efficient applications in order to compete in today’s market. Through hands-on guidance, this book illustrates and demonstrates C++ best practices and the Small Windows object-oriented class library to ease your development of interactive Windows applications. Begin with a focus on high level application development using Small Windows. Learn how to build four real-world applications which focus on the general problems faced when developing graphical applications. Get essential troubleshooting guidance on drawing, spreadsheet, and word processing applications. Finally finish up with a deep dive into the workings of the Small Windows class library, which will give you all the insights you need to build your own object-oriented class library in C++. Style and approach This book takes a tutorial-style approach that will demonstrate the features of a C++ object-oriented library by developing interactive Windows applications.

Develop applications on one of the most popular platforms for IoT using Particle Photon and Electron with this fast-paced guide About This Book Get an introduction to IoT architecture, command-line build tools and applications of IoT devices and sensors Design and develop connected IoT applications using Particle Photon and Electron in a step-by-step manner, gaining an entry point into the field of IoT Get tips on troubleshooting IoT applications Who This Book Is For This book is for developers, IoT enthusiasts and hobbyists who want to enhance their knowledge of IoT machine-to-machine architecture using Particle Photon and Electron, and implement cloud-based IoT projects. What You Will Learn Setup the Particle Photon and Electron on the cloud using the command-line tools Build and deploy applications on the Photon and Electron using the Web-based IDE Setup a local cloud server to interact with Particle Photon and Electron Connect various components and sensors to Particle Photon and Electron Tinker with the existing firmware and deploy a custom firmware on the Photon and Electron Setup communication between two or more Particle Photon and Electron Debug and troubleshoot Particle Photon and Electron projects Use webhooks to communicate with various third-party server applications In Detail IoT is basically the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.. The number of connected devices is growing rapidly and will continue to do so over years to come. By 2020, there will be more than 20 billion connected devices and the ability to program such devices will be in high demand. Particle provides prototyping boards for IoT that are easy to program and deploy. Most importantly, the boards provided by Particle can be connected to the Internet very easily as they include Wi-Fi or a GSM module. Starting with the basics of programming Particle Photon and Electron, this book will take you through setting up your local servers and running custom firmware, to using the Photon and Electron to program autonomous cars. This book also covers in brief a basic architecture and design of IoT applications. It gives you an overview of the IoT stack. You will also get information on how to debug and troubleshoot Particle Photon and Electron and set up your own debugging framework for any IoT board. Finally, you’ll tinker with the firmware of the Photon and Electron by modifying the existing firmware and deploying them to your boards. By the end of this book, you should have a fairly good understanding of the IoT ecosystem and you should be able to build standalone projects using your own local server or the Particle Cloud Server. Style and approach This project-based guide contains easy-to-follow steps to program Particle Photon and Electron. You will learn to build connected applications with the help of projects of increasing complexity, and with each project, a new concept in IoT is taught.

Achieve the gold standard in penetration testing with Kali using this masterpiece, now in its third edition! About This Book Get a rock-solid insight into penetration testing techniques and test your corporate network against threats like never before Formulate your pentesting strategies by relying on the most up-to-date and feature-rich Kali version in town—Kali Linux 2 (aka Sana). Experience this journey with new cutting-edge wireless penetration tools and a variety of new features to make your pentesting experience smoother Who This Book Is For If you are an IT security professional or a student with basic knowledge of Unix/Linux operating systems, including an awareness of information security factors, and you want to use Kali Linux for penetration testing, this book is for you. What You Will Learn Find out to download and install your own copy of Kali Linux Properly scope and conduct the initial stages of a penetration test Conduct reconnaissance and enumeration of target networks Exploit and gain a foothold on a target system or network Obtain and crack passwords Use the Kali Linux NetHunter install to conduct wireless penetration testing Create proper penetration testing reports In Detail Kali Linux is a comprehensive penetration testing platform with advanced tools to identify, detect, and exploit the vulnerabilities uncovered in the target network environment. With Kali Linux, you can apply appropriate testing methodology with defined business objectives and a scheduled test plan, resulting in a successful penetration testing project engagement. Kali Linux – Assuring Security by Penetration Testing is a fully focused, structured book providing guidance on developing practical penetration testing skills by demonstrating cutting-edge hacker tools and techniques with a coherent, step-by-step approach. This book offers you all of the essential lab preparation and testing procedures that reflect real-world attack scenarios from a business perspective, in today's digital age. Style and approach This practical guide will showcase penetration testing through cutting-edge tools and techniques using a coherent, step-by-step approach.

Extend your game development skills by harnessing the power of Android SDK About This Book Gain the knowledge to design and build highly interactive and amazing games for your phone and tablet from scratch Create games that run at super-smooth 60 frames per second with the help of these easy-to-follow projects Understand the internals of a game engine by building one and seeing the reasoning behind each of the components Who This Book Is For If you are completely new to Java, Android, or game programming, this book is for you. If you want to publish Android games for fun or for business and are not sure where to start, then this book will show you what to do, step by step, from the start. What You Will Learn Set up an efficient, professional game development environment in Android Studio Explore object-oriented programming (OOP) and design scalable, reliable, and well-written Java games or apps on almost any Android device Build simple to advanced game engines for different types of game, with cool features such as sprite sheet character animation and scrolling parallax backgrounds Implement basic and advanced collision detection mechanics Process multitouch screen input effectively and efficiently Implement a flexible and advanced game engine that uses OpenGL ES 2 to ensure fast, smooth frame rates Use animations and particle systems to provide a rich experience Create beautiful, responsive, and reusable UIs by taking advantage of the Android SDK Integrate Google Play Services to provide achievements and leaderboards to the players In Detail Gaming has historically been a strong driver of technology, whether we're talking about hardware or software performance, the variety of input methods, or graphics support, and the Android game platform is no different. Android is a mature, yet still growing, platform that many game developers have embraced as it provides tools, APIs, and services to help bootstrap Android projects and ensure their success, many of which are specially designed to help game developers. Since Android uses one of the most popular programming languages, Java, as the primary language to build apps of all types, you will start this course by first obtaining a solid grasp of the Java language and its foundation APIs. This will improve your chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. We will show you how to get your Android development environment set up and you will soon have your first working game. The course covers all the aspects of game development through various engrossing and insightful game projects. You will learn all about frame-by-frame animations and resource animations using a space shooter game, create beautiful and responsive menus and dialogs, and explore the different options to play sound effects and music in Android. You will also learn the basics of creating a particle system and will see how to use the Leonids library. By the end of the course, you will be able to configure and use Google Play Services on the developer console and port your game to the big screen. This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: Learning Java by Building Android Games by John Horton Android Game Programming by Example by John Horton Mastering Android Game Development by Raul Portales Style and approach This course is a step-by-step guide where you will learn to build Android games from scratch. It takes a practical approach where each project is a game. It starts off with simple arcade games, and then gradually the complexity of the games keep on increasing as you uncover the new and advanced tools that Android offers.

Learn to use some of the most exciting and powerful tools to deliver world-class quality software with continuous delivery and DevOps About This Book Get to know the background of DevOps so you understand the collaboration between different aspects of an IT organization and a software developer Deploy top-quality software and ensure software maintenance and release management with this practical guide This course covers some of the most exciting technology available to DevOps engineers, and demonstrates multiple techniques for using them Real-world and realistic examples are provided to help you as you go about the implementation and adoption of continuous delivery and DevOps Who This Book Is For This course is for developers who want to understand how the infrastructure that builds today's enterprises works, and how to painlessly and regularly ship quality software. What You Will Learn Set up and familiarize yourself with all the tools you need to be efficient with DevOps Design an application that is suitable for continuous deployment systems with DevOps in mind Test the code using automated regression testing with Jenkins Selenium Managing the lifecycle of hosts, from creation to ongoing management using Puppet Razor Find out how to manage, use, and work with Code in the Git version management system See what traps, pitfalls, and hurdles to look out for as you implement continuous delivery and DevOps In Detail Harness the power of DevOps to boost your skill set and make your IT organization perform better. If you’re keen to employ DevOps techniques to better your software development, this course contains all you need to overcome the day-to-day complications of managing complex infrastructures the DevOps way. Start with your first module – Practical DevOps - that encompasses the entire flow from code from testing to production. Get a solid ground-level knowledge of how to monitor code for any anomalies, perform code testing, and make sure the code is running smoothly through a series of real-world exercise, and develop practical skills by creating a sample enterprise Java application. In the second module, run through a series of tailored mini-tutorials designed to give you a complete understanding of every DevOps automation technique. Create real change in the way you deliver your projects by utilizing some of the most commendable software available today. Go from your first steps of managing code in Git to configuration management in Puppet, monitoring using Sensu, and more. In the final module, get to grips with the continuous delivery techniques that will help you reduce the time and effort that goes into the delivery and support of software. This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: Practical DevOps by Joakim Verona DevOps Automation Cookbook by Michael Duffy Continuous Delivery and DevOps : A Quickstart Guide - Second Edition by Paul Swartout Style and approach This course is an easy to follow project based guide for all those with a keen interest in deploying world-class software using some of the most effective and remarkable technologies available.

Boost the performance of your Haskell applications using optimization, concurrency, and parallel programming About This Book Explore the benefits of lazy evaluation, compiler features, and tools and libraries designed for high performance Write fast programs at extremely high levels of abstraction Work through practical examples that will help you address the challenges of writing efficient code Who This Book Is For To get the most out of this book, you need to have a working knowledge of reading and writing basic Haskell. No knowledge of performance, optimization, or concurrency is required. What You Will Learn Program idiomatic Haskell that's also surprisingly efficient Improve performance of your code with data parallelism, inlining, and strictness annotations Profile your programs to identify space leaks and missed opportunities for optimization Find out how to choose the most efficient data and control structures Optimize the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and runtime system for specific programs See how to smoothly drop to lower abstractions wherever necessary Execute programming for the GPU with Accelerate Implement programming to easily scale to the cloud with Cloud Haskell In Detail Haskell, with its power to optimize the code and its high performance, is a natural candidate for high performance programming. It is especially well suited to stacking abstractions high with a relatively low performance cost. This book addresses the challenges of writing efficient code with lazy evaluation and techniques often used to optimize the performance of Haskell programs. We open with an in-depth look at the evaluation of Haskell expressions and discuss optimization and benchmarking. You will learn to use parallelism and we'll explore the concept of streaming. We’ll demonstrate the benefits of running multithreaded and concurrent applications. Next we’ll guide you through various profiling tools that will help you identify performance issues in your program. We’ll end our journey by looking at GPGPU, Cloud and Functional Reactive Programming in Haskell. At the very end there is a catalogue of robust library recommendations with code samples. By the end of the book, you will be able to boost the performance of any app and prepare it to stand up to real-world punishment. Style and approach This easy-to-follow guide teaches new practices and techniques to optimize your code, and then moves towards more advanced ways to effectively write efficient Haskell code. Small and simple practical examples will help you test the concepts yourself, and you will be able to easily adapt them for any application.

Create amazing games with solid gameplay features, using a professional-grade workflow inside the Unity engine! About This Book Become a Unity master by creating a practical, in-depth game-development project with Unity Use advanced C# *ing to unlock the complete potential of Unity 5 Use Version Control to Effectively Manage and Scale your workflow Who This Book Is For If you are a Unity developer who now wants to develop and deploy interesting games by leveraging the new features of Unity 5.x, then this is the book for you. Basic knowledge of C# programming is assumed. What You Will Learn Explore hands-on tasks and real-world scenarios to make a Unity horror adventure game Create enemy characters that act intelligently and make reasoned decisions Use data files to save and restore game data in a way that is platform-agnostic Get started with VR development Use Navigation Meshes, Occlusion Culling, and the Profiler tools Work confidently with GameObjects, Rotations, and Transformations Understand specific gameplay features such as AI enemies, inventory systems, and level design In Detail Do you want to take the leap from being an everyday Unity developer to being a pro game developerThen look no further! This book is your one stop solution to creating mesmerizing games with lifelike features and amazing gameplay. This book takes an in-depth focus on a practical project with Unity, building a first-person game with many features. You’ll dive deep into the architecture of a Unity game, creating expansive worlds, interesting render effects, and other features to make your games special. You will create individual game components, use efficient animation techniques, and implement collision and physics effectively. Specifically, we’ll explore optimal techniques for importing game assets, such as meshes and textures; tips and tricks for effective level design; how to animate and * NPCs; how to configure and deploy to mobile devices; how to prepare for VR development; and how to work with version control, and more. By the end of this book, you’ll have developed sufficient competency in Unity development to produce fun games with confidence. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step, practical tutorial approach. You will create an advanced level Unity game with an emphasis on leveraging the advanced Unity 5 features. You will make the most of the Unity 5 advanced features while you develop the game in its entirety.

Over 90 incredible and powerful recipes to help you efficiently use NHibernate in your application About This Book · Master the full range of NHibernate features through detailed example recipes that you can quickly apply to your own applications· Reduce hours of application development time and get a better application architecture and improved performance· Create, maintain, and update your database structure automatically with the help of NHibernate Who This Book Is For This book is written for .NET developers who want to use NHibernate and those who want to deepen their knowledge of the platform. Examples are written in C# and XML. Some basic knowledge of SQL is assumed. If you build .NET applications that use relational databases, this book is for you. What You Will Learn · Create a persistent object model to move data in and out of your database· Build the database from your model automatically· Configure NHibernate for use with WebForms, MVC, WPF, and WinForms applications· Create database queries using a variety of methods· Improve the performance of your applications using a variety of techniques· Build an infrastructure for fast, easy, test-driven development of your data access layer· Implement entity validation, auditing, full-text search, horizontal partitioning (sharding), and spatial queries using NHibernate Contrib projects In Detail NHibernate is a mature, flexible, scalable, and feature-complete open source project for data access. Although it sounds like an easy task to build and maintain database applications, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and develop applications that meet your needs perfectly. NHibernate allows you to use plain SQL and stored procedures less and keep focus on your application logic instead. Learning the best practices for a NHibernate-based application will help you avoid problems and ensure that your project is a success. The book will take you from the absolute basics of NHibernate through to its most advanced features, showing you how to take full advantage of each concept to quickly create amazing database applications. You will learn several techniques for each of the four core NHibernate tasks—configuration, mapping, session and transaction management, and querying—and which techniques fit best with various types of applications. In short, you will be able to build an application using NHibernate by the end of the book. You will also learn how to best implement enterprise application architecture patterns using NHibernate, leading to clean, easy-to-understand code and increased productivity. In addition to new features, you will learn creative ways to extend the NHibernate core, as well as gaining techniques to work with the NHibernate search, shards, spatial, envers, and validation projects. Style and approach This book contains recipes with examples organized in functional areas, each containing step-by-step instructions on everything necessary to execute a particular task. The book is designed so you can read it from start to end or just open up any chapter and start following the recipes.

Build, combine, and launch infrastructure in a fast, secure, and effective manner About This Book An up-to-date and comprehensive resource on Terraform that lets you quickly and efficiently launch your infrastructure Learn how to implement your infrastructure as code and make secure, effective changes to your infrastructure Learn to build multi-cloud fault-tolerant systems and simplify the management and orchestration of even the largest scale and most complex cloud infrastructures Who This Book Is For This book is for developers and operators who already have some exposure to working with infrastructure but want to improve their workflow and introduce infrastructure as a code practice. Knowledge of essential Amazon Web Services components (EC2, VPC, IAM) would help contextualize the examples provided. Basic understanding of Jenkins and Shell *s will be helpful for the chapters on the production usage of Terraform. What You Will Learn Understand what Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means and why it matters Install, configure, and deploy Terraform Take full control of your infrastructure in the form of code Manage complete complete infrastructure, starting with a single server and scaling beyond any limits Discover a great set of production-ready practices to manage infrastructure Set up CI/CD pipelines to test and deliver Terraform stacks Construct templates to simplify more complex provisioning tasks In Detail Terraform is a tool used to efficiently build, configure, and improve production infrastructure. It can manage existing infrastructure as well as create custom in-house solutions. This book shows you when and how to implement infrastructure as a code practices with Terraform. It covers everything necessary to set up complete management of infrastructure with Terraform, starting with the basics of using providers and resources. This book is a comprehensive guide that begins with very small infrastructure templates and takes you all the way to managing complex systems, all using concrete examples that evolve over the course of the book. It finishes with the complete workflow of managing a production infrastructure as code – this is achieved with the help of version control and continuous integration. At the end of this book, you will be familiar with advanced techniques such as multi-provider support and multiple remote modules. Style and approach This book focuses on providing the practical skills required to make full use of Terraform. It will take the readers slowly from very small infrastructure templates to the managing complex systems, all by using concrete examples, evolving over the course of the book.

Learn how to build amazing and complex reactive web applications easily with Vue.js About This Book Learn how to propagate DOM changes across the website without writing extensive jQuery callbacks code. Learn how to achieve reactivity and easily compose views with Vue.js and understand what it does behind the scenes. Explore the core features of Vue.js with small examples, learn how to build dynamic content into preexisting web applications, and build Vue.js applications from scratch. Who This Book Is For This book is perfect for novice web developer seeking to learn new technologies or frameworks and also for webdev gurus eager to enrich their experience. Whatever your level of expertise, this book is a great introduction to the wonderful world of reactive web apps. What You Will Learn Build a fully functioning reactive web application in Vue.js from scratch. The importance of the MVVM architecture and how Vue.js compares with other frameworks such as Angular.js and React.js. How to bring reactivity to an existing static application using Vue.js. How to use plugins to enrich your applications. How to develop customized plugins to meet your needs. How to use Vuex to manage global application’s state. In Detail Vue.js is one of the latest new frameworks to have piqued the interest of web developers due to its reactivity, reusable components, and ease of use. This book shows developers how to leverage its features to build high-performing, reactive web interfaces with Vue.js. From the initial structuring to full deployment, this book provides step-by-step guidance to developing an interactive web interface from scratch with Vue.js. You will start by building a simple application in Vue.js which will let you observe its features in action. Delving into more complex concepts, you will learn about reactive data binding, reusable components, plugins, filters, and state management with Vuex. This book will also teach you how to bring reactivity to an existing static application using Vue.js. By the time you finish this book you will have built, tested, and deployed a complete reactive application in Vue.js from scratch. Style and approach This book is a thorough, step-by-step guide showing readers how to build complete web apps with Vue.js. While teaching its intricacies, this book shows how to implement the MVVM architecture in the real world and build high-performing web interfaces.

Over 70 practical recipes to gain operational data intelligence with Splunk Enterprise About This Book This is the most up-to-date book on Splunk 6.3 and teaches you how to tackle real-world operational intelligence scenarios efficiently Get business insights using machine data using this easy-to-follow guide Search, monitor, and analyze your operational data skillfully using this recipe-based, practical guide Who This Book Is For This book is intended for users of all levels who are looking to leverage the Splunk Enterprise platform as a valuable operational intelligence tool. The recipes provided in this book will appeal to individuals from all facets of business, IT, security, product, marketing, and many more! Also, existing users of Splunk who want to upgrade and get up and running with Splunk 6.3 will find this book invaluable. What You Will Learn Use Splunk to gather, analyze, and report on data Create dashboards and visualizations that make data meaningful Build an operational intelligence application with extensive features and functionality Enrich operational data with lookups and workflows Model and accelerate data and perform pivot-based reporting Build real-time, *ed, and other intelligence-driven alerts Summarize data for longer term trending, reporting, and analysis Integrate advanced JavaScript charts and leverage Splunk's API In Detail Splunk makes it easy for you to take control of your data, and with Splunk Operational Cookbook, you can be confident that you are taking advantage of the Big Data revolution and driving your business with the cutting edge of operational intelligence and business analytics. With more than 70 recipes that demonstrate all of Splunk’s features, not only will you find quick solutions to common problems, but you’ll also learn a wide range of strategies and uncover new ideas that will make you rethink what operational intelligence means to you and your organization. You’ll discover recipes on data processing, searching and reporting, dashboards, and visualizations to make data shareable, communicable, and most importantly meaningful. You’ll also find step-by-step demonstrations that walk you through building an operational intelligence application containing vital features essential to understanding data and to help you successfully integrate a data-driven way of thinking in your organization. Throughout the book, you’ll dive deeper into Splunk, explore data models and pivots to extend your intelligence capabilities, and perform advanced searching to explore your data in even more sophisticated ways. Splunk is changing the business landscape, so make sure you’re taking advantage of it. Style and approach Splunk is an excellent platform that allows you to make sense of machine data with ease. The adoption of Splunk has been huge and everyone who has gone beyond installing Splunk wants to know how to make most of it. This book will not only teach you how to use Splunk in real-world scenarios to get business insights, but will also get existing Splunk users up to date with the latest Splunk 6.3 release.

Leverage the power of digital forensics for Windows systems About This Book Build your own lab environment to analyze forensic data and practice techniques. This book offers meticulous coverage with an example-driven approach and helps you build the key skills of performing forensics on Windows-based systems using digital artifacts. It uses specific open source and Linux-based tools so you can become proficient at analyzing forensic data and upgrade your existing knowledge. Who This Book Is For This book targets forensic analysts and professionals who would like to develop skills in digital forensic analysis for the Windows platform. You will acquire proficiency, knowledge, and core skills to undertake forensic analysis of digital data. Prior experience of information security and forensic analysis would be helpful. You will gain knowledge and an understanding of performing forensic analysis with tools especially built for the Windows platform. What You Will Learn Perform live analysis on victim or suspect Windows systems locally or remotely Understand the different natures and acquisition techniques of volatile and non-volatile data. Create a timeline of all the system actions to restore the history of an incident. Recover and analyze data from FAT and NTFS file systems. Make use of various tools to perform registry analysis. Track a system user's browser and e-mail activities to prove or refute some hypotheses. Get to know how to dump and analyze computer memory. In Detail Over the last few years, the wave of the cybercrime has risen rapidly. We have witnessed many major attacks on the governmental, military, financial, and media sectors. Tracking all these attacks and crimes requires a deep understanding of operating system operations, how to extract evident data from digital evidence, and the best usage of the digital forensic tools and techniques. Regardless of your level of experience in the field of information security in general, this book will fully introduce you to digital forensics. It will provide you with the knowledge needed to assemble different types of evidence effectively, and walk you through the various stages of the analysis process. We start by discussing the principles of the digital forensics process and move on to show you the approaches that are used to conduct analysis. We will then study various tools to perform live analysis, and go through different techniques to analyze volatile and non-volatile data. Style and approach This is a step-by-step guide that delivers knowledge about different Windows artifacts. Each topic is explained sequentially, including artifact analysis using different tools and techniques. These techniques make use of the evidence extracted from infected machines, and are accompanied by real-life examples.

Combine the powerful UE4 with Blender to create visually appealing and comprehensive game environments About This Book The only resource that shows how you can incorporate Blender into your Unreal Engine 4 Game environment Create amazing 3D game environments by leveraging the power of Blender and Unreal Engine 4 Practical step-by-step approach with plenty of illustrative examples to get you started immediately Who This Book Is For This book would be ideal for 3D artists and game designers who want to create amazing 3D game environments and leverage the power of Blender with Unreal Engine 4. 3D design basics would be necessary to get the most out of this book. Some previous experience with Blender would be helpful but not essential What You Will Learn Create a fully functioning game level of your own design using Blender and Unreal Engine 4 Customize your level with detailed 3D assets created with Blender Import assets into Unreal Engine 4 to create an amazing finished product Build a detailed dynamic environment with goals and an ending Explore Blender’s incredible animation tools to animate elements of your game Create great environments using sound effects, particle effects, and class blueprints In Detail Unreal Engine 4 now has support for Blender, which was not available in earlier versions. This has opened up new possibilities and that is where this book comes in. This is the first book in the market combining these two powerful game and graphic engines. Readers will build an amazing high-level game environment with UE4 and will show them how to use the power of Blender 3D to create stunning animations and 3D effects for their game. This book will start with creating levels, 3D assets for the game, game progression, light and environment control, animation, and so on. Then it will teach readers to add amazing visual effects to their game by applying rendering, lighting, rigging, and compositing techniques in Blender. Finally, readers will learn how to smoothly transfer blender files to UE4 and animate the game assets. Each chapter will add complexities to the game environment. Style and approach This will have a clear, step-by-step approach to creating game assets in Blender and then importing them to UE4 to create stunning game environments. All asset creation techniques are explained in detail along with tips on how to use them to create your own game environments. The book offers end-to-end coverage of how to design a game level from scratch.

Write reliable code to create powerful applications by mastering advanced JavaScript design patterns About This Book Learn how to use tried and true software design methodologies to enhance your JavaScript code Discover robust JavaScript implementations of classic and advanced design patterns Packed with easy-to-follow examples that can be used to create reusable code and extensible designs Who This Book Is For This book is ideal for JavaScript developers who want to gain expertise in object-oriented programming with JavaScript and the new capabilities of ES-2015 to improve their web development skills and build professional-quality web applications. What You Will Learn Harness the power of patterns for tasks ranging from application building to code testing Rethink and revitalize your code with the use of functional patterns Improve the way you organize your code Build large-scale apps seamlessly with the help of reactive patterns Identify the best use cases for microservices Get to grips with creational, behavioral, and structural design patterns Explore advanced design patterns including dependency injection In Detail With the recent release of ES-2015, there are several new object-oriented features and functions introduced in JavaScript. These new features enhance the capabilities of JavaScript to utilize design patterns and software design methodologies to write powerful code. Through this book, you will explore how design patterns can help you improve and organize your JavaScript code. You’ll get to grips with creational, structural and behavioral patterns as you discover how to put them to work in different scenarios. Then, you'll get a deeper look at patterns used in functional programming, as well as model view patterns and patterns to build web applications. This updated edition will also delve into reactive design patterns and microservices as they are a growing phenomenon in the world of web development. You will also find patterns to improve the testability of your code using mock objects, mocking frameworks, and monkey patching. We’ll also show you some advanced patterns including dependency injection and live post processing. By the end of the book, you'll be saved of a lot of trial and error and developmental headaches, and you will be on the road to becoming a JavaScript expert. Style and approach Packed with several real-world use cases, this book shows you through step-by-step instructions how to implement the advanced object-oriented programming features to build sophisticated web applications that promote scalability and reusability.

Build, manage, and secure your infrastructure by utilizing the power of SaltStack About This Book First book in the market to incorporate all the latest features of SaltStack. Leverage the power of SaltStack for building, managing and securing your infrastructure. Effectively use commands and control the state of your infrastructure in a jiffy. Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at System Administrators who are looking forward to manage their infrastructure using SaltStack with no prior knowledge about it. What You Will Learn Install Salt on your servers Run commands on all or some of your minions instantly from a central managing server Write custom Salt modules to handle your infrastructure’s unique needs Define the state of your infrastructure and use Salt to enforce that state. Create platform-agnostic state definitions for greater flexibility and power Manage virtual servers on public or private clouds using Salt Cloud Use the event system in Salt to create a reactive and self-healing infrastructure In Detail SaltStack is one of the best infrastructure management platforms available. It provides powerful tools for defining and enforcing the state of your infrastructure in a clear, concise way. With this book learn how to use these tools for your own infrastructure by understanding the core pieces of Salt. In this book we will take you from the initial installation of Salt, through running their first commands, and then talk about extending Salt for individual use cases. From there you will explore the state system inside of Salt, learning to define the desired state of our infrastructure in such a way that Salt can enforce that state with a single command. Finally, you will learn about some of the additional tools that salt provides, including salt-cloud, the reactor, and the event system. We?ll finish by exploring how to get involved with salt and what?s new in the salt community. Finally, by the end of the book, you'll be able to build a reliable, scalable, secure, high-performance infrastructure and fully utilize the power of cloud computing. Style and approach This will be a comprehensive guide on SaltStack along with installation and setting up of Salt on couple of platforms. Then enlightening the readers about remote execution system and configuration management system and ending with concepts of security and best practices.

An example-driven guide that explores the world of modern web development with JavaScript About This Book Explore the new features of ECMAScript 6 and how they can be incorporated to build cutting edge web applications Learn about modern web architectures and build real-world apps on top of them Make use of modern JavaScript tools, techniques and frameworks to enhance your web development skills Who This Book Is For This book is for existing JavaScript developers who want to explore some of the modern JavaScript features, techniques, and architectures to develop cutting edge web applications. What You Will Learn Learn to create single page websites Gain expertise in responsive and dynamic website design Enable Real-time communications between client-client and client-server/server-client Create APIs for large-scale applications Write complete applications using functional reactive programming In Detail Over the years, JavaScript has taken significant strides in the world of modern web development to enhance the development of a wide range of applications with different architectures. This book explores the advanced and new features that have arrived in JavaScript and how they can be applied to develop high-quality applications with different architectures. The book begins by covering a single page application that builds on the innovative MVC approach using AngularJS. As we move forward, the book shows you how to develop an enterprise-level application with the microservices architecture, using Node to build web services. We then focus on network programming concepts and you’ll build a real-time web application with websockets. When you’ve gained a solid grip on the different architectures, we’ll move on to the area where JavaScript shines, that is, UI development. You’ll learn to build responsive, declarative UIs with React and Bootstrap. As we near the end of this book, you’ll see how the performance of web applications can be enhanced using Functional Reactive Programming (FRP). Along the way, the book also explores how the power of JavaScript can be increased multi-fold. After reading this book, you will have a solid knowledge of the latest JavaScript techniques, tools, and architecture to build modern web apps. Style and approach Covering all the new features in ECMAScript 6, this book takes a project-based approach to introduce you to all the latest techniques, tools, and architectures of JavaScript web development. Each project that the book builds will show you a different angle of the power of JavaScript in modern web development.

100 recipes that teach you how to perform various machine learning tasks in the real world About This Book Understand which algorithms to use in a given context with the help of this exciting recipe-based guide Learn about perceptrons and see how they are used to build neural networks Stuck while making sense of images, text, speech, and real estateThis guide will come to your rescue, showing you how to perform machine learning for each one of these using various techniques Who This Book Is For This book is for Python programmers who are looking to use machine-learning algorithms to create real-world applications. This book is friendly to Python beginners, but familiarity with Python programming would certainly be useful to play around with the code. What You Will Learn Explore classification algorithms and apply them to the income bracket estimation problem Use predictive modeling and apply it to real-world problems Understand how to perform market segmentation using unsupervised learning Explore data visualization techniques to interact with your data in diverse ways Find out how to build a recommendation engine Understand how to interact with text data and build models to analyze it Work with speech data and recognize spoken words using Hidden Markov Models Analyze stock market data using Conditional Random Fields Work with image data and build systems for image recognition and biometric face recognition Grasp how to use deep neural networks to build an optical character recognition system In Detail Machine learning is becoming increasingly pervasive in the modern data-driven world. It is used extensively across many fields such as search engines, robotics, self-driving cars, and more. With this book, you will learn how to perform various machine learning tasks in different environments. We’ll start by exploring a range of real-life scenarios where machine learning can be used, and look at various building blocks. Throughout the book, you’ll use a wide variety of machine learning algorithms to solve real-world problems and use Python to implement these algorithms. You’ll discover how to deal with various types of data and explore the differences between machine learning paradigms such as supervised and unsupervised learning. We also cover a range of regression techniques, classification algorithms, predictive modeling, data visualization techniques, recommendation engines, and more with the help of real-world examples. Style and approach You will explore various real-life scenarios in this book where machine learning can be used, and learn about different building blocks of machine learning using independent recipes in the book.

Start pulling the strings of your infrastructure with Puppet – learn how to configure, customize, and manage your systems more intelligently About This Book Explore the wider Puppet ecosystem of useful tools Design and manage your Puppet architecture for optimum performance Write more efficient code that keeps your infrastructure more robust Who This Book Is For If you are a Puppet user, this book will help you on different levels. If you a beginner, we summarize the key Puppet components and give you the elements to have a broader vision. For more experienced users, you will be surprised by with topics on designing, implementing, adapting, and deploying Puppet architectures. If you are expert, you will find topics and information that is rarely exposed in other books, giving you an insight into Puppet's future and its usage on alternative devices. What You Will Learn Learn the principles of Puppet language and ecosystem Extract the features of Hiera and PuppetDB’s power usage Explore the different approaches to Puppet architecture design Use Puppet to manage network, cloud, and virtualization devices Manage and test the Puppet code workflow Tweak, hack, and adapt the Puppet extension points Get a run through of the strategies and patterns to introduce Puppet automation Master the art of writing reusable modules In Detail Puppet has changed the way we manage our systems, but Puppet itself is changing and evolving, and so are the ways we are using it. To tackle our IT infrastructure challenges and avoid common errors when designing our architectures, an up-to-date, practical, and focused view of the current and future Puppet evolution is what we need. With Puppet, you define the state of your IT infrastructure, and it automatically enforces the desired state. This book will be your guide to designing and deploying your Puppet architecture. It will help you utilize Puppet to manage your IT infrastructure. Get to grips with Hiera and learn how to install and configure it, before learning best practices for writing reusable and maintainable code. You will also be able to explore the latest features of Puppet 4, before executing, testing, and deploying Puppet across your systems. As you progress, Extending Puppet takes you through higher abstraction modules, along with tips for effective code workflow management. Finally, you will learn how to develop plugins for Puppet - as well as some useful techniques that can help you to avoid common errors and overcome everyday challenges. Style and approach This is a collection of specific information about multiple topics related to Puppet and its ecosystem. Starting from a review of the very basics to more advanced topics, mixing practical advice with important theory and broader perspective, along with implementation details.

A fast-paced guide to get you up and running with Android application development using Android Studio 2 About This Book Configure, build, and run Android projects with Android Studio 2 Test your apps using the Android emulator and learn how to manage virtual devices Explore how Android Studio 2 can be made a part of your workflow to reduce the overall development time Who This Book Is For If you are an Android developer looking to quickly take advantage of Android Studio 2 and add it to your workflow, then this book is for you. It is assumed that you are familiar with the OOP paradigm and Java. You are recommended to have prior knowledge of the main characteristics of the Android mobile system to get the most out of this book. What You Will Learn Install Android Studio on your system and configure the Android Software Development Kit Create your first project and explore its structure Manage a project in Android Studio 2 with Gradle Improve your productivity while programming by getting the best of the code editor Design the user interface using layouts and see how to handle various user events Integrate Google Play services into your project efficiently Monitor your app while it's running and constantly improve its performance In Detail Android Studio 2, the official IDE for Android application development, dramatically improves your workflow by letting you quickly see changes running on your device or emulator. It gives developers a unique platform by making app builds and deployment faster. This book will get you up and running with all the essential features of Android Studio 2 to optimize your development workflow. Starting off with the basic installation and configuration of Android Studio 2, this book will help you build a new project by showing you how to create a custom launcher icon and guiding you to choose your project. You will then gain an insight into the additional tools provided in Android Studio, namely the Software Development Kit (SDK) Manager, Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager, and Javadoc. You’ll also see how to integrate Google Play Services in an Android project. Finally, you’ll become familiar with the Help section in Android Studio, which will enable you to search for support you might require in different scenarios. Style and approach A comprehensive and practical guide that will give you the essential skills required to develop Android applications quickly using Android Studio. With the help of a real-world project, this book will show how to make Android Studio a part of your development process and optimize it.

Build up your e-learning development skills with Articulate Storyline About This Book Develop interactive e-learning projects using advanced techniques Impress your clients and/or audience with out-of-the-box interactions Step-by-step walkthroughs provide practical solutions Who This Book Is For This book is for anyone experienced in using the basic functions of Articulate Storyline who are yearning to learn more. It’s designed to provide a brief overview of key concepts, to help you refresh your knowledge of common functions, and teach you how to push Storyline to the limit! What You Will Learn Familiarize yourself with best practices for e-learning development Review key Storyline concepts before diving in deep with development Discover new ways of working within Storyline to extend slide content and enhance interactivity Personalize your story with advanced variable-based interactions See how JavaScript can be used in your stories to do some really neat things Assess your learners using customized assessment options and find out how to troubleshoot common issues Customize the learning experience by modifying the player properties and publishing settings Customize your story and prepare it for publishing In Detail Storyline is a powerful e-learning authoring tool that allows you to take your creativity to the next level. However, more often than not, projects don't require such complex interactions, leaving Storyline's full capabilities untapped. This book will provide you with the information you need to take your Storyline development up a notch by leveraging the full suite of possibilities Storyline has to offer. You will be provided with a refresher of the key concepts before we take you deep into the exciting world of enhanced interactivity, variables, and even some JavaScript—oh my! With downloadable activities, you can either follow along and compare your output, use the activities as they are, modify the activities to suit your own needs, or reverse-engineer the activities to better understand how they were developed. Style and approach You’ll get hands-on working with project files that were created with you in mind. As you move through each chapters, the practical, step-by-step approach will get you using some of the more advanced features of Storyline to create polished and snazzy interactions.

Create real-time server-side applications with this practical, step-by-step guide About This Book Learn about server-side JavaScript with Node.js and Node modules through the most up-to-date book on Node.js web development Understand website development both with and without the Connect/Express web application framework Develop both HTTP server and client applications Who This Book Is For This book is for anybody looking for an alternative to the "P" languages (Perl, PHP, and Python), or anyone looking for a new paradigm of server-side application development. You should have at least a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and web application development. What You Will Learn Install and use Node.js for both development and deployment Use the Express application framework Configure Bootstrap for mobile-first theming Use data storage engines such as MySQL, SQLITE3, and MongoDB Understand user authentication methods, including OAuth, with third-party services Deploy Node.js to live servers, including microservice development with Docker Perform unit testing with Mocha Perform functional testing of the web application with CasperJS In Detail Node.js is a server-side JavaScript platform using an event driven, non-blocking I/O model allowing users to build fast and scalable data-intensive applications running in real time. Node.js Web Development shows JavaScript is not just for browser-side applications. It can be used for server-side web application development, real-time applications, microservices, and much more. This book gives you an excellent starting point, bringing you straight to the heart of developing web applications with Node.js. You will progress from a rudimentary knowledge of JavaScript and server-side development to being able to create and maintain your own Node.js application. With this book you'll learn how to use the HTTP Server and Client objects, data storage with both SQL and MongoDB databases, real-time applications with Socket.IO, mobile-first theming with Bootstrap, microservice deployment with Docker, authenticating against third-party services using OAuth, and much more. Style and Approach This book is a practical guide for anyone looking to develop striking and robust web applications using Node.js.