This book provides more than just a step-by-step guide to installing and using Elgg. It includes practical advice gained through experience on what it takes to deploy and maintain an Elgg-based site. If you are a software developer or are familiar with PHP, it provides both a tutorial-based introduction and a quick reference guide so that you can quickly extend and customize Elgg. If you want to create a social networking site using Elgg and do not have a background in software development, this book provides all the information and advice that you need written just for you. If you are a developer, it also contains valuable tutorials and reference material so that you can begin writing code right away.

This is a beginner’s guide with plenty of screenshots and step-by-step instructions. Through three sample games, the reader will learn about practically creating games with Construct. If you have thought of making a game of your own, this book is for you. All you need to know is that you can and how to operate a computer!

This book is part of Packt's Beginner's Guide series. Written in a friendly tone, the book starts at the very beginning with a blank Moodle page and you are taken step by step through the most useful features of Moodle, helped with many illustrative screenshots. This book is for regular, non-technical teachers of pre-teen or early teenage children. It assumes no prior knowledge of Moodle and no particular expertise on the web. Classroom assistants may also find this book a very useful resource. We will assume that you have an installation of Moodle managed by somebody else, so you are responsible only for creating and delivering course content.

This book provides an in-depth tutorial on administering the GlassFish application server. Every chapter starts with a clear discussion of the involved concepts, followed by step-by-step instructions on how to perform the administrative task. Clear illustrations and complete working code examples are used to help you visualize the relevant topics. If you are a Java EE application developer and architect who builds and deploys Java EE, Ruby on Rails, and other supported applications for the GlassFish Application Server, then this book is for you. This book is also very valuable if you are an administrator responsible for maintaining the GlassFish Server runtime. Basic knowledge of Java EE 5 is assumed but you need not have any previous knowledge of GlassFish. Those who already know the basics of GlassFish will still find this book useful as they will gain knowledge of administration tasks.

This book presents practical tutorials and focuses on fun projects. It contains a lot of serious training material, but is presented in a fun and entertaining way. This book targets game designers/developers, artists, and product designers who want to create realistic images, 3D models, and videos of machines. You are expected to have experience with basic Blender operation, as the book is not a 'getting started' tutorial.

Over 70 recipes to get you started with popular Python libraries based on the principal concepts of data visualization About This Book Learn how to set up an optimal Python environment for data visualization Understand how to import, clean and organize your data Determine different approaches to data visualization and how to choose the most appropriate for your needs Who This Book Is For If you already know about Python programming and want to understand data, data formats, data visualization, and how to use Python to visualize data then this book is for you. What You Will Learn Introduce yourself to the essential tooling to set up your working environment Explore your data using the capabilities of standard Python Data Library and Panda Library Draw your first chart and customize it Use the most popular data visualization Python libraries Make 3D visualizations mainly using mplot3d Create charts with images and maps Understand the most appropriate charts to describe your data Know the matplotlib hidden gems Use plot.ly to share your visualization online In Detail Python Data Visualization Cookbook will progress the reader from the point of installing and setting up a Python environment for data manipulation and visualization all the way to 3D animations using Python libraries. Readers will benefit from over 60 precise and reproducible recipes that will guide the reader towards a better understanding of data concepts and the building blocks for subsequent and sometimes more advanced concepts. Python Data Visualization Cookbook starts by showing how to set up matplotlib and the related libraries that are required for most parts of the book, before moving on to discuss some of the lesser-used diagrams and charts such as Gantt Charts or Sankey diagrams. Initially it uses simple plots and charts to more advanced ones, to make it easy to understand for readers. As the readers will go through the book, they will get to know about the 3D diagrams and animations. Maps are irreplaceable for displaying geo-spatial data, so this book will also show how to build them. In the last chapter, it includes explanation on how to incorporate matplotlib into different environments, such as a writing system, LaTeX, or how to create Gantt charts using Python. Style and approach A step-by-step recipe based approach to data visualization. The topics are explained sequentially as cookbook recipes consisting of a code snippet and the resulting visualization.

Harness the power of Nginx to make the most of your infrastructure and serve pages faster than ever About This Book ?Discover possible interactions between Nginx and Apache to get the best of both worlds ?Learn to exploit the features offered by NGinx for your web applications ?Get the newest techniques available, designed with the latest version in mind Who This Book Is For By covering both the early setup stages and advanced topics, this book suits web administrators who interested in solutions to optimize their infrastructure, whether you are looking into replacing your existing web server software or integrating a new tool to cooperate with applications that are already up and running. If you, your visitors, and your operating system have been disappointed by Apache, this book is exactly what you need. What You Will Learn ?Get to know the basics of the Nginx configuration: syntax, structure, and semantics ?Understand the advanced load balancing functionality of Nginx and the newest innovative IO mechanisms ?Create virtual host configurations effortlessly ?Discover all the first-party modules: how to enable, configure, and use them ?Establish advanced rewrite rules with the Nginx Rewrite module ?Set up Nginx to work with PHP, Python, and more via FastCGI ?Configure Nginx to work as frontend for your existing HTTP server ?Manipulate configuration files with ease and adapt them to various situations ?Discover the common pitfalls and find out how to avoid them In Detail Nginx is a lightweight HTTP server designed for high-traffic websites, with network scalability as the primary objective. With the advent of high speed Internet access, short loading times and fast transfer rates have become a necessity. This free, open source solution will either come as a full replacement of other software such as Apache, or stand in front of your existing infrastructure to improve its overall speed. This book is a detailed guide to setting up Nginx in different ways that correspond to actual production situations: as a standalone server, as a reverse proxy, interacting with applications via FastCGI, and more. In addition, this complete directive reference will be your best friend at all stages of the configuration and maintenance processes. This book is the perfect companion for both Nginx beginners and experienced administrators. For beginners, it will take you through the complete process of setting up this lightweight HTTP server on your system and configuring its various modules so it does exactly what you need quickly and securely. For more experienced administrators, this book provides different approaches that can help you make the most of your current infrastructure. Nginx can be employed in many situations, whether you are looking to construct an entirely new web-serving architecture or simply want to integrate an efficient tool to optimize your site loading speeds. Style and approach This tutorial-style book includes detailed instructions on each of the processes it describes, as well as step-by-step tutorials, commented configuration sections, and in-depth module de*ions, so you can make the most of the performance potential offered by Nginx.

Over 50 recipes to help you build dynamic and powerful real-time Java Hibernate applications About This Book Learn to associate JDBC and Hibernate with object persistence Manage association mappings, implement basic annotations and learn caching Get to grips with Hibernate fundamentals from installation to developing a business application with this step-by-step guide Who This Book Is For This is book for Java developers who now want to learn Hibernate. Good knowledge and understanding of Java is preferred to allow efficient programming of the core elements and applications; it would be helpful if readers are familiar with the basics of SQL. What You Will Learn Set up and install Hibernate on your system and explore different ways in which Hibernate can be configured Learn the basic concepts and fundamentals of Java Hibernate Define mappings without a use of XML file using Annotations Persist collection elements such as list, map, set and array Explore the various mapping options and learn to work with Hibernate associations Understand advanced Hibernate concepts such as caching and inheritance Develop an engaging and robust real-world hibernate application based on a common business scenario Integrate Hibernate with other frameworks to develop robust enterprise applications In Detail Hibernate is a database independent technology, so the same code will work for all databases. It helps a Java developer write a query by mapping Java bean to database tables and help create tuned queries that boost performance. Even with limited SQL knowledge one can easily perform database operations. This makes the development faster and more accurate than JDBC. Hibernate supports useful features like connection pooling, caching, and inheritance etc. This book will provide a useful hands-on guide to Hibernate to accomplish the development of a real-time Hibernate application. We will start with the basics of Hibernate, which include setting up Hibernate – the pre-requisites and multiple ways of configuring Hibernate using Java. We will then dive deep into the fundamentals of Hibernate such as SessionFactory, session, criteria, working with objects and criteria. This will help a developer have a better understanding of how Hibernate works and what needs to be done to run a Hibernate application. Moving on, we will learn how to work with annotations, associations and collections. In the final chapters, we will see explore querying, advanced Hibernate concepts and integration with other frameworks. Style and approach This book is a practical guide filled with carefully organized step-by-step instructions. All recipes are arranged in an easy-to understand and clear manner allowing you to apply the solutions to other situations.

Make life at the office easier for server administrators by helping them build resilient Ubuntu server systems About This Book Tackle the issues you come across in keeping your Ubuntu server up and running Build server machines and troubleshoot cloud computing related issues using Open Stack Discover tips and best practices to be followed for minimum maintenance of Ubuntu Server 3 Who This Book Is For This book is for a vast audience of Linux system administrators who primarily work on Debian-based systems and spend long hours trying fix issues with the enterprise server. Ubuntu is already one of the most popular OSes and this book targets the most common issues that most administrators have to deal with. With the right tools and definite solutions, you will be able to keep your Ubuntu servers in the pink of health. What You Will Learn Deploy packages and their dependencies with repositories Set up your own DNS and network for Ubuntu Server Authenticate and validate users and their access to various systems and services Maintain, monitor, and optimize your server resources and avoid tremendous load Get to know about processes, assigning and changing priorities, and running processes in background Optimize your shell with tools and provide users with an improved shell experience Set up separate environments for various services and run them safely in isolation Understand, build, and deploy OpenStack on your Ubuntu Server In Detail Ubuntu is becoming one of the favorite Linux flavors for many enterprises and is being adopted to a large extent. It supports a wide variety of common network systems and the use of standard Internet services including file serving, e-mail, Web, DNS, and database management. A large scale use and implementation of Ubuntu on servers has given rise to a vast army of Linux administrators who battle it out day in and day out to make sure the systems are in the right frame of operation and pre-empt any untoward incidents that may result in catastrophes for the businesses using it. Despite all these efforts, glitches and bugs occur that affect Ubuntu server's network, memory, application, and hardware and also generate cloud computing related issues using OpenStack. This book will help you end to end. Right from setting up your new Ubuntu Server to learning the best practices to host OpenStack without any hassles. You will be able to control the priority of jobs, restrict or allow access users to certain services, deploy packages, tackle issues related to server effectively, and reduce downtime. Also, you will learn to set up OpenStack, and manage and monitor its services while tuning the machine with best practices. You will also get to know about Virtualization to make services serve users better. Chapter by chapter, you will learn to add new features and functionalities and make your Ubuntu server a full-fledged, production-ready system. Style and approach This book contains topic-by-topic discussion in an easy-to-understand language with loads of examples to help you take care of Ubuntu Server. Plenty of screenshots will guide you through a step-by-step approach.

Get hands-on experience with vRealize Orchestrator and automate your VMware environment About This Book Gain an in-depth understanding of vRO in the VMware infrastructure Create your own advanced vRO *s using JavaScript A step-by-step tutorial to manage and create workflows with vRO Who This Book Is For This book is for VMware vSphere administrators who have minimal experience with automation tools and want to learn how to effectively automate their environment with VMware vRealize Orchestrator. A basic understanding of the VMware vSphere terms and concepts would be helpful. What You Will Learn Familiarize yourself with the Orchestrator architecture and Explore how plugins can expand Orchestrator's capabilitiesExplore how plug-ins can expand Orchestrator’s capabilities Deploy and configure the vRealize Orchestrator appliance Schedule and run workflows using the vSphere Web Client Create your own workflows with minimal work Use workflow presentations to improve your automation projects Integrate JavaScript to enhance your workflows Debug your workflows for errors and fix them Learn how to create, import, and export packages, to enable easy exchange solutions with others In Detail The automation of virtual environments has become the focus of many endeavors. VMware vRealize Orchestrator is a tool that enables you to automate not only your VMware environments, but also the surrounding hardware and software infrastructure. Orchestrator is also a central tool in the VMware cloud initiative and is extensively used by products such as vRealize Automation. In this book, you will learn how Orchestrator is able to help you automate your complete VMware infrastructure as well as its surrounding hardware and software. After deploying and configuring the vRealize Orchestrator appliance, you will learn how to run the existing workflows that are a part of the Orchestrator library. You will also see how the vSphere Web Client integration of Orchestrator reduces the time you spend on your daily admin tasks. The main aspect here is to learn how to create new workflows from existing ones. You will also look at how you can create completely new workflows. This includes learning about JavaScript and using presentation features to improve the layout and user friendliness of your workflows. Toward the end, you will learn to check for errors in your workflows and debug them. By the time you're done with the book, you'll be proficient in managing your workflows. Style and approach This book follows a sequential approach with ample screenshots in the examples that convey a deeper understanding of all Orchestrator-related tasks.

Design a complete workflow with Blender to create stunning 3D scenes and films step-by-step! About This Book Give life to a character within a full animated short film by learning the rigging and animation process Make use of the powerful tools available in Blender to produce professional-quality 3D characters and environments Discover advanced techniques by adding fur to a character, creating a grass field, and fine-tuning a shot with post-processing effects to enhance your creations Who This Book Is For This book will give any beginner the necessary skills and knowledge to create own 3D projects with Blender. You don't need to have any previous experience in 3D modeling, but if you do, then this book is a great way get you started with Blender. This book is for anyone who wants to learn Blender by creating concrete projects. What You Will Learn Understand the basics of 3D and how to navigate your way around the Blender interface Create a 3D robot toy model from start to finish using the basic modeling tools of Blender Make a full alien character using the skin mesh modifier and the sculpting tools with an artistic approach Use re-topology techniques to create a clean 3D version of the previously sculpted alien Model a full haunted house and its environment using more advanced modeling tools and techniques such as the Array Modifier, Instance duplication, or Curves Discover the power of the texture paint tool in order to add color to the haunted house Get to know the Cycles render engine by creating different materials for the house and the environment In Detail Blender is a powerful tool, stable, with an integral workflow that will allow you to understand your learning of 3D creation with serenity. Today, it is considered to be one of the most complete 3D packages on the market and it is free and open source! It is very efficient for many types of productions, such as 3D animated or live action films, architecture, research, or even game creation with its integrated game engine and its use of the Python language. Moreover, Blender has an active community that contributes to expanding its functionalities. Today, it is used in many professional products and by many companies. Through this book, you will create many types of concert projects using a step-by-step approach. You will start by getting to know the modeling tools available in Blender as you create a 3D robot toy. Then, you will discover more advanced techniques such as sculpting and re-topology by creating a funny alien character. After that, you will create a full haunted house scene. For the last project, you will create a short film featuring a rat cowboy shooting cheese in a rat trap! This will be a more complex project in which you learn how to rig, animate, compose advanced material, composite, and edit a full sequence. Each project in this book will give you more practice and increase your knowledge of the Blender tools. By the end of this book, you will master a workflow that you will be able to apply to your own creations. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow book that is based on four concrete projects, with increasing levels of difficulty. Each chapter will teach you how to create these projects step-by-step. New tools and techniques are introduced in a theoretical and practical way, so you can apply them in your own projects later.

Design and develop modern web applications with Google's bold and productive language through engaging example projects About This Book Full of engaging and varied example projects to equip you to build your own web applications Learn the Dart language and key libraries Productively create fast and reliable web applications Who This Book Is For If you are a front- or back-end web developer who is looking to build complex full-featured web applications without the quagmire of disconnected JavaScript frameworks, this book is a practical walkthrough of substantial applications that will have you and your team coding Dart in a productive manner. This book will give you a compiled, optional typed, scalable environment to rapidly develop applications. As Dart was designed to be familiar, any developer with even a small amount of knowledge of JavaScript or another programming language will be at home with the language immediately and will be coding quickly. What You Will Learn Master the core Dart language, type system, and key development tools Connect to existing web services, process JSON, and create your own framework for the data display Run and debug the Dart server and web applications and compile them in JavaScript Handle form data and encryption Build and deploy server applications on the major OSes and implement the REST API Work with PostgreSQL—an industry standard relational database system Create robust applications with unit tests, documentation, and diagnostic logging Develop command-line applications, and explore the key data structures and libraries In Detail Designed to create next generation apps, Google’s Dart offers a much more robust framework and also supersedes JavaScript in several aspects. Familiar yet innovative, compact yet scalable, it blows away the accumulated JavaScript legacy limitations. Dart was designed for great tool-ability and developer productivity, allowing you to create better application faster than before. Google chose it for their billion dollar advertising business and you have its power for your projects too. This book will introduce you the Dart language starting from its conception to its current form, and where it headed is through engaging substantial practical projects. You will be taken through building typical applications and exploring the exciting new technologies of HTML5. With example code projects such as a live data monitoring and viewing system, a blogging system, a slides presentation application, and more, then this book will walk you through step by step through building data-driven web applications with ease and speed. Style and approach A varied collection of compelling practical Dart projects that are developed progressively with full explanations of concepts and implementation. Each project introduces features of the language and environment, demonstrating how Dart can be used in rich structured web applications.

Build exciting games with Unity on iOS and publish them on the App Store About This Book Take advantage of Unity 5's new tools to create a fully interactive mobile game Learn how to connect your iTunes developer account and use Unity 5 to communicate with it Use your Macintosh computer to publish your game to the App Store Who This Book Is For This book is for iOS developers who want to learn how to build games with Unity for the iOS platform. Some prior experience in game development would be useful. What You Will Learn Create your own iTunes Connect Developer account and create an app within it Set up iTunes Game Center features in iTunes Connect so you can use them within Unity 5 Construct a game using C# that allows users to interactively control the game character Use Unity 5's editor window to create a custom editor tool specific for the game made in the book Store and keep track of data so the player is able to collect in-game pick-ups that can be used to purchase in-game goods Use all game features so the player is able to fully navigate menus between the front menu and in the game state Make, test, and finally release builds so you can play on your device and then submit the game to Apple for review In Detail Over recent years, the market for mobile game development using Unity has grown multi-fold with an overwhelming 600 million gamers playing games developed using Unity engine. The newly launched Unity 5 offers a wide range of dedicated and powerful tools for iOS developers who intend to follow the basics and gradually elevate their skills to revolutionize the way they design and publish games for the App Store. From beginners, to those who are experienced making video games, this book goes through the steps of using Unity 5 to make a game from the ground up and setting the game up with iTunes Game Center features. The book begins with an introduction to setting up an iTunes Connect developer account, this will allow you to use Unity to its full potential with iOS. You will create a new app in iTunes Connect with the settings for Apple approval. You will learn, in detail, how to use Unity 5 and the programming language C# to make a fully interactive game that keeps track of player progress, Game Center Leaderboards, and Achievements, as well as displaying iAds and offering In-App purchases. Moving on, you’ll discover how to create development and release builds, enabling you to test the game on your device before finally submitting the game for Apple’s approval. By the end of the book, you will have a complete understanding of how iTunes and Unity can be used in combination to build and publish a fully interactive and reliable game to the App Store. Style and approach This is a step-by-step guide that covers the fundamentals of gaming and reveals the secrets of building and monetizing games for the iOS platform.

Develop complete web applications from scratch through practical examples and tips for beginners and more advanced users About This Book Improve your programming experience and become a full stack developer Master real-life web applications, and create and manage four different projects Step-by-step guidance to develop real-world web applications smoothly Who This Book Is For This book is for anyone who wants to discover and explore Yii Framework. Basic programming experience with PHP and object oriented programming is assumed. What You Will Learn Understand basic concepts, along with the installation and customization of Yii Discover models, controllers, and views—concepts applied in a web context—and how they are employed in Yii Use ActiveRecord to manipulate a database Add access control to your web application through authentication and authorization Install and customize an advanced template for multiple applications in the same project Create a RESTful Web Service to allow remote access to data Develop a console application to launch a command in the console as an automated task (cron job) Make code reusable through widgets and components and localize text messages to make a multilanguage web app In Detail Yii is a high-performance PHP framework best for developing Web 2.0 applications. It provides fast, secure, and professional features to create robust projects, however, this rapid development requires the ability to organize common tasks together to build a complete application. It's all too easy to get confused; this is where this book comes in. This book contains a series of practical project examples for developers starting from scratch. Each section contains the most relevant theories for every topic as you walk through developing each project, focusing on key aspects that commonly confuse users. The book starts with all the framework’s basic concepts, such as controllers and views, to introduce you to Yii and creating your first application, a simple news reader. You will be learn to configure URL rules to make a pretty URL, essential for search engine optimization. Next, you will walk through Model and ActiveRecord, key concepts in database interaction. The second application you will develop is a reservation system that allows you to manage rooms, customers, and reservations. For this, you will use database connection through SQL and ActiveRecord. More complex than the first one, this application will introduce you to the advanced template of Yii 2, splitting the app into two parts: a frontend for all visitors and a backend for the admin. Finally, you will move on to the last two applications: one that allows connections from remote clients, through RESTful components of Yii 2, and another that creates and organizes automatic tasks using the console application structure of Yii 2. Style and approach This is a step-by-step guide with each topic introduced in the context of real-world applications, highlighting common cases where users may encounter difficulties.

This book is perfect for IT administrators who are looking to enhance their skills on system and asset management. A fair understanding of the core elements and applications related to SCCM would be helpful.

The style and approach of the book is an easytoread SharePoint admin guide. This is not a stepbystep instruction book, but rather a guide on how to implement and execute a disaster recovery plan to your SharePoint environment.This book is great for both SharePoint and SQL administrators new to the SharePoint 2013 architecture, and who are looking to get a good grounding in how to use implement a solid disaster recoveryrecovery plan. It's assumed that you have some experience in SharePoint and Windows Server and, as well be familiar with SQL.

Android Application Security Essentials is packed with examples, screenshots, illustrations, and real world use cases to secure your apps the right way.If you are looking for guidance and detailed instructions on how to secure app data, then this book is for you. Developers, architects, managers, and technologists who wish to enhance their knowledge of Android security will find this book interesting. Some prior knowledge of development on the Android stack is desirable but not required.

A quick and comprehensive tutorial book for media designers to jump-start interactive multimedia production with computer graphics, digital audio, digital video, and interactivity, using the Pure Data graphical programming environment.An introductory book on multimedia programming for media artists/designers who like to work on interactivity in their projects, digital art/design students who like to learn the first multimedia programming technique, and audio-visual performers who like to customize their performance sets

An example-based approach leads you step-by-step through the implementation and customization of each library component and its associated resources in turn. To emphasize the way that jQuery UI takes the difficulty out of user interface design and implementation, each chapter ends with a 'fun with' section that puts together what you've learned throughout the chapter to make a usable and fun page. In these sections you'll often get to experiment with the latest associated technologies like AJAX and JSON. This book is for front-end designers and developers who need to quickly learn how to use the jQuery UI User Interface Library. To get the most out of this book you should have a good working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and will need to be comfortable using jQuery, the underlying foundation of jQuery UI.

This book is a step-by-step tutorial that includes complete source code for all of the games covered. It adopts an engaging style to teach all the game development concepts. Each block of code is explained, and game development concepts are diagrammed and covered in detail. Each game begins with a concept de*ion and concludes with suggestions for expanding on the finished game. If you are an aspiring game developer who wants to take a shot at creating games for the Microsoft Windows platform with the XNA Framework, then this book is for you. Using this book, you can get started with creating games without any game development experience. A basic knowledge of Visual Basic would be needed to kickstart your game development.

This book contains a collection of recipes with step-by-step directions to build SEO-friendly websites using standard Ajax tools. Each recipe contains behind-the-scene explanations to PHP Ajax questions. This book is an ideal resource for people who like to add Ajax features to websites and who prefer standards and best practices for building SEO-friendly websites. As the book covers advanced topics, readers need to be aware of basic PHP, JavaScript and XML features.