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 60 recipes will help you build smart IoT solutions and surprise yourself with captivating IoT projects you thought only existed in Bond movies About This Book This book offers key solutions and advice to address the hiccups faced when working on Arduino-based IoT projects in the real world Take your existing skills and capabilities to the next level by building challenging IoT applications with ease. Be the tech disruptor you always wanted to be with key recipes that help you solve Arduino IoT related problems smarter and faster. Put IoT to work through recipes on building Arduino-based devices that take control of your home, health, and life! Who This Book Is For This book is primarily for tech enthusiasts and early IoT adopters who would like to make the most of IoT and address the challenges encountered while developing IoT-based applications with Arduino. This book is also good for developers with basic electronics knowledge who need help to successfully build Arduino projects. What You Will Learn Monitor several Arduino boards simultaneously Tweet sensor data directly from your Arduino board Post updates on your Facebook wall directly from your Arduino board Create an automated access control with a fingerprint sensor Control your entire home from a single dashboard Make a GPS tracker that you can track in Google Maps Build a live camera that streams directly from your robot In Detail Arduino is a powerful and very versatile platform used by millions of people around the world to create DIY electronics projects. It can be connected to a wide variety of sensors and other components, making it the ideal platform to build amazing Internet of Things (IoT) projects on—the next wave in the era of computing. This book takes a recipe-based approach, giving you precise examples on how to build IoT projects of all types using the Arduino platform. You will come across projects from several fields, including the popular robotics and home automation domains. Along with being introduced to several forms of interactions within IoT, including projects that directly interact with well-known web services such as Twitter, Facebook, and Dropbox we will also focus on Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interactions, where Arduino projects interact without any human intervention. You will learn to build a few quick and easy-to-make fun projects that will really expand your horizons in the world of IoT and Arduino. Each chapter ends with a troubleshooting recipe that will help you overcome any problems faced while building these projects. By the end of this book, you will not only know how to build these projects, but also have the skills necessary to build your own IoT projects in the future. Style and approach This book takes a recipe-based approach, giving you precise examples on how to build IoT projects using the Arduino platform. You will learn to build fun and easy projects through a task-oriented approach.

Explore the world of data science from scratch with Julia by your side About This Book An in-depth exploration of Julia's growing ecosystem of packages Work with the most powerful open-source libraries for deep learning, data wrangling, and data visualization Learn about deep learning using Mocha.jl and give speed and high performance to data analysis on large data sets Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at data analysts and aspiring data scientists who have a basic knowledge of Julia or are completely new to it. The book also appeals to those competent in R and Python and wish to adopt Julia to improve their skills set in Data Science. It would be beneficial if the readers have a good background in statistics and computational mathematics. What You Will Learn Apply statistical models in Julia for data-driven decisions Understanding the process of data munging and data preparation using Julia Explore techniques to visualize data using Julia and D3 based packages Using Julia to create self-learning systems using cutting edge machine learning algorithms Create supervised and unsupervised machine learning systems using Julia. Also, explore ensemble models Build a recommendation engine in Julia Dive into Julia’s deep learning framework and build a system using Mocha.jl In Detail Julia is a fast and high performing language that's perfectly suited to data science with a mature package ecosystem and is now feature complete. It is a good tool for a data science practitioner. There was a famous post at Harvard Business Review that Data Scientist is the sexiest job of the 21st century. (https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century). This book will help you get familiarised with Julia's rich ecosystem, which is continuously evolving, allowing you to stay on top of your game. This book contains the essentials of data science and gives a high-level overview of advanced statistics and techniques. You will dive in and will work on generating insights by performing inferential statistics, and will reveal hidden patterns and trends using data mining. This has the practical coverage of statistics and machine learning. You will develop knowledge to build statistical models and machine learning systems in Julia with attractive visualizations. You will then delve into the world of Deep learning in Julia and will understand the framework, Mocha.jl with which you can create artificial neural networks and implement deep learning. This book addresses the challenges of real-world data science problems, including data cleaning, data preparation, inferential statistics, statistical modeling, building high-performance machine learning systems and creating effective visualizations using Julia. Style and approach This practical and easy-to-follow yet comprehensive guide will get you learning about Julia with respect to data science. Each topic is explained thoroughly and placed in context. For the more inquisitive, we dive deeper into the language and its use case. This is the one true guide to working with Julia in data science.

Unleash the power of XMPP in order to build exciting, real-time, federated applications based on open standards in a secure and highly scalable fashion About This Book Learn about the fundamentals of XMPP and be able to work with the core functionality both server-side and in the browser Build a simple 1-to-1 chat (the “Hello World” of XMPP), explore multi-user chat, publish subscribe systems, and work with a decentralized social network Author Lloyd Watkins is a member of the XMPP standards committee Who This Book Is For If you want to learn about the fundamentals of XMPP, be able to work with the core functionality both server-side and in the browser then this book is for you.No knowledge of XMPP is required, or of TCP/IP networking. It's important that you already know how to build applications of some form, and are looking get a better understanding of how to implement XMPP for one or more of its many uses. You should be interested in the decentralized web, know HTML, and likely know JavaScript and NodeJS. You will probably know JSON, and hopefully XML (this is the native output of XMPP). What You Will Learn Install and configure an XMPP server and use it to connect from a traditional desktop client and send a message Build a simple server-side application that will respond to messages from our logged in desktop client Install and run XMPP-FTW, connect to the server from the browser, and handle incoming/outgoing messages Connect to a multi-user chat room, send/receive stanzas, add a room password, join a protected room, set the room’s subject, and change a user's affiliation Get to grips with the publish-subscribe extension of XMPP and use it to build a pusher system that can make any website real-time Build a simple XMPP component and create an extension for XMPP-FTW that allows you to use your own custom format Build an XMPP version of the classic game “Pong” In Detail XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) is a messaging protocol that enables communication between two or more devices via the Internet. With this book, developers will learn about the fundamentals of XMPP, be able to work with the core functionality both server-side and in the browser, as well as starting to explore several of the protocol extensions. You will not only have a solid grasp of XMPP and how it works, but will also be able to use the protocol to build real-world applications that utilize the power of XMPP. By the end of this book, you will know more about networking applications in general, and have a good understanding of how to extend XMPP, as well as using it in sample applications. Style and approach Through a number of hands-on projects, this book shows you how to build usable applications that highlights a feature of XMPP.

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.

Turn your Raspberry Pi into a secret agent toolbox with this set of exciting projects About This Book Turn your Raspberry Pi into a multi-purpose secret agent gadget for audio and video surveillance, Wi-Fi exploration, or playing pranks on your friends Detect an intruder on camera or with sensors and set off an alarm or receive messages to your phone Find out what the other computers on your network are up to and make yourself anonymous on the Internet This book has been updated for new additions to your toolkit featuring the tiny, recently released Raspberry Pi Zero board Who This Book Is For This book is for those who are new to the Raspberry Pi Zero ,Raspberry Pi 2 or Raspberry Pi 3 and have some experience with the original Raspberry Pi models, and even for those budding secret agents who would like to use Pi Zero as a secret agent toolbox. No programming experience is assumed. Suitable for the novice and expert alike, each topic provides a fast and easy way to get started with exciting applications, with practical examples in every chapter. What You Will Learn Install and configure the Raspbian Jessie operating system for maximum mischief Detect an intruder with motion detection or a laser trip wire and set off an alarm Listen in to conversations from a distance over Bluetooth Distort your voice in weird and wonderful ways Track the Pi's whereabouts using GPS Connect your Pi to the mobile Internet using a 3G dongle and make yourself anonymous on the net Display secret messages and codes to fellow agents on a LED display In Detail This book is for all mischievous Raspberry Pi owners who’d like to see their computer transform into a neat spy gadget to be used in a series of practical pranks and projects. No previous skills are required to follow along, and if you’re completely new to Linux, you’ll pick up much of the basics for free. We’ll help you set up your Raspberry Pi Zero , Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3 and guide you through a number of pranks and secret agent techniques that are so inconspicuous yet high on mischief. You’ll learn how to configure your operating system for maximum mischief and start exploring audio, video, or Wi-Fi techniques. We’ll show you how to record, listen, or talk to people from a distance and how to set up your own phone network. Then, you’ll plug in your webcam and set up a motion detector with an alarm and find out what the other computers on your Wi-Fi network are up to. Once you've mastered the techniques, we’ll combine them with a battery pack and GPS for the ultimate off-road spy kit. Style and Approach This easy-to-follow guide is for budding secret agents who want to create tools for mischief, stealth, and reconnaissance. It’s full of fun, practical examples and easy-to-follow recipes, guaranteeing maximum mischief for all skill levels.

Acquire and analyze data from all corners of the social web with Python About This Book Make sense of highly unstructured social media data with the help of the insightful use cases provided in this guide Use this easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to apply analytics to complicated and messy social data This is your one-stop solution to fetching, storing, analyzing, and visualizing social media data Who This Book Is For This book is for intermediate Python developers who want to engage with the use of public APIs to collect data from social media platforms and perform statistical analysis in order to produce useful insights from data. The book assumes a basic understanding of the Python Standard Library and provides practical examples to guide you toward the creation of your data analysis project based on social data. What You Will Learn Interact with a social media platform via their public API with Python Store social data in a convenient format for data analysis Slice and dice social data using Python tools for data science Apply text analytics techniques to understand what people are talking about on social media Apply advanced statistical and analytical techniques to produce useful insights from data Build beautiful visualizations with web technologies to explore data and present data products In Detail Your social media is filled with a wealth of hidden data – unlock it with the power of Python. Transform your understanding of your clients and customers when you use Python to solve the problems of understanding consumer behavior and turning raw data into actionable customer insights. This book will help you acquire and analyze data from leading social media sites. It will show you how to employ scientific Python tools to mine popular social websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and more. Explore the Python libraries used for social media mining, and get the tips, tricks, and insider insight you need to make the most of them. Discover how to develop data mining tools that use a social media API, and how to create your own data analysis projects using Python for clear insight from your social data. Style and approach This practical, hands-on guide will help you learn everything you need to perform data mining for social media. Throughout the book, we take an example-oriented approach to use Python for data analysis and provide useful tips and tricks that you can use in day-to-day tasks.

Go beyond the basics and unleash the full power of QGIS with practical, step-by-step examples About This Book This book is your one-stop solution to all of your GIS needs using the open source QGIS Master QGIS by learning about database integration, geoprocessing tools, Python *s, advanced cartography, and custom plugins This example-rich, practical guide will help you create sophisticated analyses and maps Who This Book Is For If you are a GIS professional, a consultant, a student, or perhaps a fast learner who wants to go beyond the basics of QGIS, then this book is for you. It will prepare you to realize the full potential of QGIS. What You Will Learn Create and manage a spatial database Get to know advanced techniques to style GIS data Prepare both vector and raster data for processing Add heat maps, live layer effects, and labels to your maps Master LAStools and GRASS integration with the Processing Toolbox Edit and repair topological data errors Automate workflows with batch processing and the QGIS Graphical Modeler Integrate Python *ing into your data processing workflows Develop your own QGIS plugin In Detail QGIS is an open source solution to GIS. It is widely used by GIS professionals all over the world. It is the leading alternative to the proprietary GIS software. Although QGIS is described as intuitive, it is also by default complex. Knowing which tools to use and how to apply them is essential to producing valuable deliverables on time. Starting with a refresher on the QGIS basics, this book will take you all the way through to creating your first custom QGIS plugin. From the refresher, we will recap how to create, populate, and manage a spatial database. You’ll also walk through styling GIS data, from creating custom symbols and color ramps to using blending modes. In the next section, you will discover how to prepare vector, heat maps, and create live layer effects, labeling, and raster data for processing. You’ll also discover advanced data creation and editing techniques. The last third of the book covers the more technical aspects of QGIS such as using LAStools and GRASS GIS’s integration with the Processing Toolbox, how to automate workflows with batch processing, and how to create graphical models. Finally, you will see how to create and run Python data processing *s and write your own QGIS plugin with pyqgis. By the end of the book, you will understand how to work with all the aspects of QGIS, and will be ready to use it for any type of GIS work. Style and approach This step-by-step comprehensive guide will let you dig your teeth into working with spatial databases, creating your own QGIS plugins, and creating your own custom graphical models.

Save time and resources by getting to know the best practices and intelligence from industry experts About This Book This book helps you gain a fresh perspective through a recipe-based approach on the new Microsoft Server 2016 Hyper-V Over 80 recipes to help you master the administrative tasks of Hyper-V and get to grips with advanced solutions and techniques for virtualization These hands-on advanced recipes will help you deploy, maintain, and upgrade Hyper-V virtual machines Who This Book Is For This book is for Hyper-V administrators who are looking to take advantage of all exciting new features that Microsoft Server 2016 Hyper-V has to offer. What You Will Learn Install and manage Hyper-V in Full, Server Core, and Nano Server Get to know how to migrate and upgrade physical and virtual machines Configure disks, network, memory, security, and auditing settings for virtual machines Take a deep dive into high availability and disaster recovery Save time and money by getting to grips with PowerShell automation Understand the new features around network and nested virtualization, distributed storage QoS, Hyper-V Replica, and much more Gain a full view of your virtual machines and host servers through monitoring, reporting, and troubleshooting tips In Detail Hyper-V is a Windows-based, very cost-effective virtualization solution with easy-to-use and well-known administrative consoles. With this book on your side you will master the worlds of Hyper-V deployment, migration, and management by learning tips, tricks, and best practices, especially when it comes to advanced-level tasks. You will learn how to quickly deploy and automate multiple VMs, and support Hyper-V clusters through different installation methods. You will learn the concepts efficiently with the help of up-to-date real-world examples and improve the scalability and efficiency of large-scale VM deployments with Nano Server. By the end of this book, you will be an ace Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V with the skills needed to administer and manage it effectively and survive in the brave new world of mobile-first, cloud-first. Further, take advantage of bonus appendix explaining Hyper-V and backup architecture and the difference between versions. Style and approach This advanced-level book provides step-by-step recipes on real-world examples so you can get practical, hands-on experience of the subjects.

Get the best out of Node.js by mastering its most powerful components and patterns to create modular and scalable applications with ease About This Book Create reusable patterns and modules by leveraging the new features of Node.js . Understand the asynchronous single thread design of node and grasp all its features and patterns to take advantage of various functions. This unique guide will help you get the most out of Node.js and its ecosystem. Who This Book Is For The book is meant for developers and software architects with a basic working knowledge of JavaScript who are interested in acquiring a deeper understanding of how to design and develop enterprise-level Node.js applications. Basic knowledge of Node.js is also helpful to get the most out of this book. What You Will Learn Design and implement a series of server-side JavaScript patterns so you understand why and when to apply them in different use case scenarios Become comfortable with writing asynchronous code by leveraging constructs such as callbacks, promises, generators and the async-await syntax Identify the most important concerns and apply unique tricks to achieve higher scalability and modularity in your Node.js application Untangle your modules by organizing and connecting them coherently Reuse well-known techniques to solve common design and coding issues Explore the latest trends in Universal JavaScript, learn how to write code that runs on both Node.js and the browser and leverage React and its ecosystem to implement universal applications In Detail Node.js is a massively popular software platform that lets you use JavaScript to easily create scalable server-side applications. It allows you to create efficient code, enabling a more sustainable way of writing software made of only one language across the full stack, along with extreme levels of reusability, pragmatism, simplicity, and collaboration. Node.js is revolutionizing the web and the way people and companies create their software. In this book, we will take you on a journey across various ideas and components, and the challenges you would commonly encounter while designing and developing software using the Node.js platform. You will also discover the "Node.js way" of dealing with design and coding decisions. The book kicks off by exploring the basics of Node.js describing it's asynchronous single-threaded architecture and the main design patterns. It then shows you how to master the asynchronous control flow patterns,and the stream component and it culminates into a detailed list of Node.js implementations of the most common design patterns as well as some specific design patterns that are exclusive to the Node.js world.Lastly, it dives into more advanced concepts such as Universal Java*, and scalability' and it's meant to conclude the journey by giving the reader all the necessary concepts to be able to build an enterprise grade application using Node.js. Style and approach This book takes its intended readers through a comprehensive explanation to create a scalable and efficient real-time server-side apps.

Utilize R to uncover hidden patterns in your Big Data About This Book Perform computational analyses on Big Data to generate meaningful results Get a practical knowledge of R programming language while working on Big Data platforms like Hadoop, Spark, H2O and SQL/NoSQL databases, Explore fast, streaming, and scalable data analysis with the most cutting-edge technologies in the market Who This Book Is For This book is intended for Data Analysts, Scientists, Data Engineers, Statisticians, Researchers, who want to integrate R with their current or future Big Data workflows. It is assumed that readers have some experience in data analysis and understanding of data management and algorithmic processing of large quantities of data, however they may lack specific skills related to R. What You Will Learn Learn about current state of Big Data processing using R programming language and its powerful statistical capabilities Deploy Big Data analytics platforms with selected Big Data tools supported by R in a cost-effective and time-saving manner Apply the R language to real-world Big Data problems on a multi-node Hadoop cluster, e.g. electricity consumption across various socio-demographic indicators and bike share scheme usage Explore the compatibility of R with Hadoop, Spark, SQL and NoSQL databases, and H2O platform In Detail Big Data analytics is the process of examining large and complex data sets that often exceed the computational capabilities. R is a leading programming language of data science, consisting of powerful functions to tackle all problems related to Big Data processing. The book will begin with a brief introduction to the Big Data world and its current industry standards. With introduction to the R language and presenting its development, structure, applications in real world, and its shortcomings. Book will progress towards revision of major R functions for data management and transformations. Readers will be introduce to Cloud based Big Data solutions (e.g. Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon RDS, Microsoft Azure and its HDInsight clusters) and also provide guidance on R connectivity with relational and non-relational databases such as MongoDB and HBase etc. It will further expand to include Big Data tools such as Apache Hadoop ecosystem, HDFS and MapReduce frameworks. Also other R compatible tools such as Apache Spark, its machine learning library Spark MLlib, as well as H2O. Style and approach This book will serve as a practical guide to tackling Big Data problems using R programming language and its statistical environment. Each section of the book will present you with concise and easy-to-follow steps on how to process, transform and analyse large data sets.

Develop and implement a fully-functional, systematic CRM plan with CiviCRM About This Book Develop an integrated online system that manages contacts, donations, event registrations, memberships, bulk e-mail, campaigns, case management, and other functions such as activity tracking, grant distribution, and reporting. Plan a constituency relationship management strategy with ladders of engagement that will improve how your organization realizes its mission. Use case studies and step-by-step examples to put the raw concepts into real-life terminology and build your solutions. Who This Book Is For The book is primarily for administrators tasked with implementing, configuring, maintaining, and updating CiviCRM, and staff users who are looking to better understand the tools available in order to become power users. CiviCRM is software that may be used by advocacy groups, non-profit, and non-governmental organizations, elected officials, professional and trade associations, government entities, political campaigns and parties, and other similar organizations, and this book will prove useful to all such users. What You Will Learn Install and configure your CiviCRM Analyze your current workflows and processes to translate them effectively into the CiviCRM model Build an integrated system to solicit, retain, and manage your donors and members through robust management and reporting tools for administrators Raise more money with CiviCRM with effective solicitation campaigns Market events effectively and track registrations and payments Improve communications with constituents using targeted broadcast e-mail campaigns Track ongoing communications with constituents including from Outlook and Gmail using activities and case management tools Take advantage of the many CiviCRM tools to generate both simple and complex event structures and manage registrants through every phase of the project In Detail CiviCRM provides a powerful toolbox of resources to help organizations manage relationships with constituents. It is free, open source, web-based, and geared specifically to meet the constituent relationship management needs of the not-for-profit sector. Beginning with broader questions about how your organization is structured, which existing workflows are critical to your operations, and the overarching purpose of a centralized CRM, the book proceeds step by step through configuring CiviCRM, understanding the choices when setting up the system, importing data, and exploring the breadth of tools available throughout the system. You will see how to best use this software to handle event registrations, accept and track contributions, manage paid and free memberships and sub*ions, segment contacts, send bulk e-mails with open and click-through tracking, manage outreach campaigns, and set up case management workflows that match your organization’s roles and rules. With specific emphasis on helping implementers ask the right questions, consider key principals when setting up the system, and understand usage through case studies and examples, the book comprehensively reviews the functionality of CiviCRM and the opportunities it provides. With this book, you can help your organization better achieve its mission as a charity, industry association, professional society, political advocacy group, community group, government agency, or other similar organization and position yourself to become a power user who efficiently and effectively navigates the system. Style and approach This guide is packed with step-by-step tutorials and real-life examples interspersed with practical advice and best practices on how to use CiviCRM strategically. You will be able to quickly grasp and implement the basic elements of CiviCRM before moving on to more advanced tools.

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.

Recipes to help you build computer vision applications that make the most of the popular C++ library OpenCV 3 About This Book Written to the latest, gold-standard specification of OpenCV 3 Master OpenCV, the open source library of the computer vision community Master fundamental concepts in computer vision and image processing Learn about the important classes and functions of OpenCV with complete working examples applied to real images Who This Book Is For OpenCV 3 Computer Vision Application Programming Cookbook Third Edition is appropriate for novice C++ programmers who want to learn how to use the OpenCV library to build computer vision applications. It is also suitable for professional software developers who wish to be introduced to the concepts of computer vision programming. It can also be used as a companion book for university-level computer vision courses. It constitutes an excellent reference for graduate students and researchers in image processing and computer vision. What You Will Learn Install and create a program using the OpenCV library Process an image by manipulating its pixels Analyze an image using histograms Segment images into homogenous regions and extract meaningful objects Apply image filters to enhance image content Exploit the image geometry in order to relay different views of a pictured scene Calibrate the camera from different image observations Detect people and objects in images using machine learning techniques Reconstruct a 3D scene from images In Detail Making your applications see has never been easier with OpenCV. With it, you can teach your robot how to follow your cat, write a program to correctly identify the members of One Direction, or even help you find the right colors for your redecoration. OpenCV 3 Computer Vision Application Programming Cookbook Third Edition provides a complete introduction to the OpenCV library and explains how to build your first computer vision program. You will be presented with a variety of computer vision algorithms and exposed to important concepts in image and video analysis that will enable you to build your own computer vision applications. This book helps you to get started with the library, and shows you how to install and deploy the OpenCV library to write effective computer vision applications following good programming practices. You will learn how to read and write images and manipulate their pixels. Different techniques for image enhancement and shape analysis will be presented. You will learn how to detect specific image features such as lines, circles or corners. You will be introduced to the concepts of mathematical morphology and image filtering. The most recent methods for image matching and object recognition are described, and you’ll discover how to process video from files or cameras, as well as how to detect and track moving objects. Techniques to achieve camera calibration and perform multiple-view analysis will also be explained. Finally, you’ll also get acquainted with recent approaches in machine learning and object classification. Style and approach This book will arm you with the basics you need to start writing world-aware applications right from a pixel level all the way through to processing video sequences.

Get savvy with R language and actualize projects aimed at analysis, visualization and machine learning About This Book Proficiently analyze data and apply machine learning techniques Generate visualizations, develop interactive visualizations and applications to understand various data exploratory functions in R Construct a predictive model by using a variety of machine learning packages Who This Book Is For This Learning Path is ideal for those who have been exposed to R, but have not used it extensively yet. It covers the basics of using R and is written for new and intermediate R users interested in learning. This Learning Path also provides in-depth insights into professional techniques for analysis, visualization, and machine learning with R – it will help you increase your R expertise, regardless of your level of experience. What You Will Learn Get data into your R environment and prepare it for analysis Perform exploratory data analyses and generate meaningful visualizations of the data Generate various plots in R using the basic R plotting techniques Create presentations and learn the basics of creating apps in R for your audience Create and inspect the transaction dataset, performing association analysis with the Apriori algorithm Visualize associations in various graph formats and find frequent itemset using the ECLAT algorithm Build, tune, and evaluate predictive models with different machine learning packages Incorporate R and Hadoop to solve machine learning problems on big data In Detail The R language is a powerful, open source, functional programming language. At its core, R is a statistical programming language that provides impressive tools to analyze data and create high-level graphics. This Learning Path is chock-full of recipes. Literally! It aims to excite you with awesome projects focused on analysis, visualization, and machine learning. We’ll start off with data analysis – this will show you ways to use R to generate professional analysis reports. We’ll then move on to visualizing our data – this provides you with all the guidance needed to get comfortable with data visualization with R. Finally, we’ll move into the world of machine learning – this introduces you to data classification, regression, clustering, association rule mining, and dimension reduction. 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: R Data Analysis Cookbook by Viswa Viswanathan and Shanthi Viswanathan R Data Visualization Cookbook by Atmajitsinh Gohil Machine Learning with R Cookbook by Yu-Wei, Chiu (David Chiu) Style and approach This course creates a smooth learning path that will teach you how to analyze data and create stunning visualizations. The step-by-step instructions provided for each recipe in this comprehensive Learning Path will show you how to create machine learning projects with R.

The latest in modern Python recipes for the busy modern programmer About This Book Develop succinct, expressive programs in Python Learn the best practices and common idioms through carefully explained and structured recipes Discover new ways to apply Python for the new age of development Who This Book Is For The book is for web developers, programmers, enterprise programmers, engineers, big data scientist, and so on. If you are a beginner, Python Cookbook will get you started. If you are experienced, it will expand your knowledge base. A basic knowledge of programming would help. What You Will Learn See the intricate details of the Python syntax and how to use it to your advantage Improve your code readability through functions in Python Manipulate data effectively using built-in data structures Get acquainted with advanced programming techniques in Python Equip yourself with functional and statistical programming features Write proper tests to be sure a program works as advertised Integrate application software using Python In Detail Python is the preferred choice of developers, engineers, data scientists, and hobbyists everywhere. It is a great *ing language that can power your applications and provide great speed, safety, and scalability. By exposing Python as a series of simple recipes, you can gain insight into specific language features in a particular context. Having a tangible context helps make the language or standard library feature easier to understand. This book comes with over 100 recipes on the latest version of Python. The recipes will benefit everyone ranging from beginner to an expert. The book is broken down into 13 chapters that build from simple language concepts to more complex applications of the language. The recipes will touch upon all the necessary Python concepts related to data structures, OOP, functional programming, as well as statistical programming. You will get acquainted with the nuances of Python syntax and how to effectively use the advantages that it offers. You will end the book equipped with the knowledge of testing, web services, and configuration and application integration tips and tricks. The recipes take a problem-solution approach to resolve issues commonly faced by Python programmers across the globe. You will be armed with the knowledge of creating applications with flexible logging, powerful configuration, and command-line options, automated unit tests, and good documentation. Style and approach This book takes a recipe-based approach, where each recipe addresses specific problems and issues. The recipes provide discussions and insights and an explanation of the problems.

A comprehensive and in-depth guide to writing functional programs using F# About This Book Learn how to manage, run, and automate your servers using Puppet Explore how to use F# to develop large-scale applications quickly and simply, and become more productive in today’s age of cloud computing and multi-core programming This easy-to-follow guide is packed with real-world examples that will jump-start you with F# development on the .NET platform Who This Book Is For If you are a C# developer with a basic knowledge of F# and want to explore the functional programming paradigm further to master your F# skills, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn Understand the basics of F# and organize F# source code with Visual Studio Work with F# data structures and create functional data structures in F# interoperate with C# Build and use asynchronous programming patterns with F# Create and use type providers that help perform data analysis from within Visual Studio Develop applications with pure F# code in WPF or ASP.NET MVC Find out how to perform distributed programming with ServiceBus or ZeroMQ Visualize data with charts, and work with Excel and R language Type providers In Detail F# is a multi-paradigm programming language that encompasses object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming language properties. Now adopted in a wide range of application areas and is supported both by industry-leading companies who provide professional tools and by an active open community, F# is rapidly gaining popularity as it emerges in digital music advertising, creating music-focused ads for Spotify, Pandora, Shazam, and anywhere on the web. This book will guide you through the basics and will then help you master F#. The book starts by explaining how to use F# with Visual Studio, file ordering, and the differences between F# and C# in terms of usage. It moves on to explain the functional core of F# such as data types, type declarations, immutability, strong type interference, pattern matching, records, F# data structures, sequence expressions, and lazy evaluation. Next, the book takes you through imperative and asynchronous programming, F# type providers, applications, and testing in F#. Finally, we look into using F# with distributed programming and using F# as a suitable language for data science. In short, this book will help you learn F# for real-world applications and increase your productivity with functional programming. Style and approach This easy-to-follow guide with syntaxes will help you master the concepts of F#. Packed with in-depth examples of real-world uses, this book covers each topic in detail with a reference to C#, so you will understand the difference between the languages.

The ultimate guide to successful interviews for Enterprise, Business, Domain, Solution, and Technical Architect roles as well as IT Advisory Consultant and Software Designer roles About This Book Learn about Enterprise Architects IT strategy and NFR – this book provides you with methodologies, best practices, and frameworks to ace your interview A holistic view of key architectural skills and competencies with 500+ questions that cover 12 domains 100+ diagrams depicting scenarios, models, and methodologies designed to help you prepare for your interview Who This Book Is For This book is for aspiring enterprise, business, domain, solution, and technical architects. It is also ideal for IT advisory consultants and IT designers who wish to interview for such a role. Interviewers will be able leverage this book to make sure they hire candidates with the right competencies to meet the role requirements. What You Will Learn Learn about IT strategies, NFR, methodologies, best practices, and frameworks to ace your interview Get a holistic view of key concepts, design principles, and patterns related to evangelizing web and Java enterprise applications Discover interview preparation guidelines through case studies Use this as a reference guide for adopting best practices, standards, and design guidelines Get a better understanding with 60+ diagrams depicting various scenarios, models, and methodologies Benefit from coverage of all architecture domains including EA (Business, Data, Infrastructure, and Application), SA, integration, NFRs, security, and SOA, with extended coverage from IT strategies to the NFR domain In Detail An architect attends multiple interviews for jobs or projects during the course of his or her career. This book is an interview resource created for designers, consultants, technical, solution, domain, enterprise, and chief architects to help them perform well in interview discussions and launch a successful career. The book begins by providing de*ions of architecture skills and competencies that cover the 12 key domains, including 350+ questions relating to these domains. The goal of this book is to cover all the core architectural domains. From an architect’s perspective, it is impossible to revise or learn about all these key areas without a good reference guide – this book is the solution. It shares experiences, learning, insights, and proven methodologies that will benefit practitioners, SMEs, and aspirants in the long run. This book will help you tackle the NFR domain, which is a key aspect pertaining to architecting applications. It typically takes years to understand the core concepts, fundamentals, patterns, and principles related to architecture and designs. This book is a goldmine for the typical questions asked during an interview and will help prepare you for success! Style and approach This book will help you prepare for interviews for architectural profiles by providing likely questions, explanations, and expected answers. It is an insight-rich guide that will help you develop strategic, tactical, and operational thinking for your interview.

Explore the new frontier of virtual reality with the Oculus Rift and bring the VR revolution to your own projects About This Book Create immersive 3D games especially designed for the Oculus Rift platform Build complex realistic virtual reality (VR) games with the Unity Engine Create striking VR environments with advanced graphical techniques Who This Book Is For This book is for aspiring indie developers and VR enthusiasts who want to bring their ideas into virtual reality with a new platform that provides an unprecedented level of realism and immersion. What You Will Learn Increase immersion with 3D audio and intuitive interfaces Create group VR experiences using multi-player networking Design fun and engaging mechanics that utilize VR principles Explore the best ways to navigate and interact using the Oculus Rift Design intuitive ways to navigate and interact with scenes in VR Add stunning realism to a scene with three-dimensional audio Invent mechanics and features that take full advantage of VR hardware In Detail Virtual reality (VR) is changing the world of gaming and entertainment as we know it. VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift immerse players in a virtual world by tracking their head movements and simulating depth, giving them the feeling that they are actually present in the environment. We will first use the Oculus SDK in the book and will then move on to the widely popular Unity Engine, showing you how you can add that extra edge to your VR games using the power of Unity. In this book, you’ll learn how to take advantage of this new medium by designing around each of its unique features. This book will demonstrate the Unity 5 game engine, one of most widely-used engines for VR development, and will take you through a comprehensive project that covers everything necessary to create and publish a complete VR experience for the Oculus Rift. You will also be able to identify the common perils and pitfalls of VR development to ensure that your audience has the most comfortable experience possible. By the end of the book, you will be able to create an advanced VR game for the Oculus Rift, and you’ll have everything you need to bring your ideas into a new reality. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step tutorial approach with illustrative examples to help you implement the projects on your own. The book lets you first get to grips with the Oculus SDK and then moves on to the Unity Engine to add realistic graphics and features in your games.

Explore machine learning concepts using the latest numerical computing library — TensorFlow — with the help of this comprehensive cookbook About This Book Your quick guide to implementing TensorFlow in your day-to-day machine learning activities Learn advanced techniques that bring more accuracy and speed to machine learning Upgrade your knowledge to the second generation of machine learning with this guide on TensorFlow Who This Book Is For This book is ideal for data scientists who are familiar with C++ or Python and perform machine learning activities on a day-to-day basis. Intermediate and advanced machine learning implementers who need a quick guide they can easily navigate will find it useful. What You Will Learn Become familiar with the basics of the TensorFlow machine learning library Get to know Linear Regression techniques with TensorFlow Learn SVMs with hands-on recipes Implement neural networks and improve predictions Apply NLP and sentiment analysis to your data Master CNN and RNN through practical recipes Take TensorFlow into production In Detail TensorFlow is an open source software library for Machine Intelligence. The independent recipes in this book will teach you how to use TensorFlow for complex data computations and will let you dig deeper and gain more insights into your data than ever before. You’ll work through recipes on training models, model evaluation, sentiment analysis, regression analysis, clustering analysis, artificial neural networks, and deep learning – each using Google’s machine learning library TensorFlow. This guide starts with the fundamentals of the TensorFlow library which includes variables, matrices, and various data sources. Moving ahead, you will get hands-on experience with Linear Regression techniques with TensorFlow. The next chapters cover important high-level concepts such as neural networks, CNN, RNN, and NLP. Once you are familiar and comfortable with the TensorFlow ecosystem, the last chapter will show you how to take it to production. Style and approach This book takes a recipe-based approach where every topic is explicated with the help of a real-world example.

Discover over 90 practical and exciting recipes that leverage the power of OpenVPN 2.4 to help you obtain a reliable and secure VPN About This Book Master the skills of configuring, managing, and securing your VPN using the latest OpenVPN Gain expertise in establishing IPv6 connections and understand PolarSSL using the latest version of OpenVPN This book contains enticing recipes about OpenVPN functionalities that cater to mission critical applications Who This Book Is For This book is for system administrators who have a basic knowledge of OpenVPN and are eagerly waiting to build, secure, and manage VPNs using the latest version. This book assumes some prior knowledge of TCP/IP networking and OpenVPN and you must have network administration skills to get the most out of this book. What You Will Learn Determine the best type of OpenVPN setup for your networking needs Get to grips with the encryption, authentication, and certifications features of OpenSSL. Integrate an OpenVPN server into the local IT infrastructure with the *ing features of OpenVPN Ease the integration of Windows clients into the VPN using Windows-specific client-side configuration Understand the authentication plugins for PAM and LDAP Get to know the difference between TUN-style and TAP-style networks and when to use what Troubleshoot your VPN setup Establish a connection via IPv6 along with demonstrations In Detail OpenVPN provides an extensible VPN framework that has been designed to ease site-specific customization, such as providing the capability to distribute a customized installation package to clients, and supporting alternative authentication methods via OpenVPN’s plugin module interface. This book provides you with many different recipes to help you set up, monitor, and troubleshoot an OpenVPN network. You will learn to configure a scalable, load-balanced VPN server farm that can handle thousands of dynamic connections from incoming VPN clients. You will also get to grips with the encryption, authentication, security, extensibility, and certifications features of OpenSSL. You will also get an understanding of IPv6 support and will get a demonstration of how to establish a connection via IPv64. This book will explore all the advanced features of OpenVPN and even some undocumented options, covering all the common network setups such as point-to-point networks and multi-client TUN-style and TAP-style networks. Finally, you will learn to manage, secure, and troubleshoot your virtual private networks using OpenVPN 2.4. Style and approach This practical, recipe-based book covers the core functionalities of OpenVPN ending with troubleshooting, performance tuning and making the readers inquisitive about the advanced features.