Build and customize a wide range of powerful Unity AI systems with over 70 hands-on recipes and techniques About This Book Empower your agent with decision making capabilities using advanced minimaxing and Negamaxing techniques Discover how AI can be applied to a wide range of games to make them more interactive. Instigate vision and hearing abilities in your agent through collider based and graph based systems Who This Book Is For This book is intended for those who already have a basic knowledge of Unity and are eager to get more tools under their belt to solve AI and gameplay-related problems. What You Will Learn Use techniques such as A*and A*mbush to empower your agents with path finding capabilities. Create a representation of the world and make agents navigate it Construct decision-making systems to make the agents take different actions Make different agents coordinate actions and create the illusion of technical behavior Simulate senses and apply them in an awareness system Design and implement AI in board games such as Tic-Tac-Toe and Checkers Implement efficient prediction mechanism in your agents with algorithms such as N-Gram predictor and na?ve Bayes classifier Understand and analyze how the influence maps work. In Detail Unity 5 comes fully packaged with a toolbox of powerful features to help game and app developers create and implement powerful game AI. Leveraging these tools via Unity’s API or built-in features allows limitless possibilities when it comes to creating your game’s worlds and characters. This practical Cookbook covers both essential and niche techniques to help you be able to do that and more. This Cookbook is engineered as your one-stop reference to take your game AI programming to the next level. Get to grips with the essential building blocks of working with an agent, programming movement and navigation in a game environment, and improving your agent's decision making and coordination mechanisms - all through hands-on examples using easily customizable techniques. Discover how to emulate vision and hearing capabilities for your agent, for natural and humanlike AI behaviour, and improve them with the help of graphs. Empower your AI with decision-making functions through programming simple board games such as Tic-Tac-Toe and Checkers, and orchestrate agent coordination to get your AIs working together as one. Style and approach This recipe-based guide will take you through implementing various AI algorithms. Each topic is explained and placed among other related techniques, sometimes building on the knowledge from previous chapters. There are also references to more technical books and papers, so you can dig deeper if you want to.

Over 80 hands-on recipes to improve your skills in project management, team management, process improvement, and Redmine administrationAbout This BookEfficiently install and customize Redmine for your own infrastructure, whether that be Microsoft or open sourceManage multiple projects with multiple teams across the globe in a standardized and effective wayCustomize Redmine to fit your organisation's specific and unique needsWho This Book Is ForThis book is for those who working in management or administrator positions who are already using Redmine or are willing to start using it for project management, tracking, collaboration, or process management. Additionally, individual developers or teams can benefit from recipes related to code repositories, bug tracking, and software project management.What You Will LearnMake Redmine run on Microsoft SQL Server with IISEnjoy the benefits of updating the code on a real-time basis and maintaining consistencyManage multiple projects and teams simultaneouslyLeverage Redmine features to enhance team's performanceUse Redmine for SCRUM and Agile methodologiesDeploy Redmine for Service DeskCustomize the user experience by manually tracking the ongoing projectsExtend Redmine through various pluginsIn DetailIn a variety of online project management tools, Redmine markets itself as offering flexibility. Choosing the right management tool can mean the difference between the success and failure of a project. Flexible project management tools bend themselves to fit your needs, whether that’s communication regarding a simple project, or collaboration, or more complex project methodology such as SCRUM, or an issue-code relationship, or the need of different methodology for your project.Whether you are project manager or system administrator, this book provides valuable recipes to get the best possible performance out of your team, organization, infrastructure, and Redmine itself. Through a series of carefully crafted recipes covering the nitty-gritty of Redmine, you’ll be guided through the installation of Redmine, as well as how to fine-tune and customize your Redmine installation. Finally, we walk you through integrating Redmine with other softwares and databases like Tortoise SVN and Visual Studio and troubleshooting Redmine.Style and approachThis book follows a step-by-step recipe-based approach. Detailed prerequisites make each recipe easy to follow and apply in practice in any kind of live environment.

Harness the power of DevOps to boost your skill set and make your IT organization perform betterAbout This BookGet to know the background of DevOps so you understand the collaboration between different aspects of an IT organization and a software developerImprove your organization's performance to ensure smooth production of software and servicesDeploy top-quality software and ensure software maintenance and release management with this practical guideWho This Book Is ForThis book is aimed at developers and system administrators who wish to take on larger responsibilities and understand how the infrastructure that builds today's enterprises works. This book is also great for operations personnel who would like to better support developers. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of DevOps.What You Will LearnAppreciate the merits of DevOps and continuous delivery and see how DevOps supports the agile processUnderstand how all the systems fit together to form a larger wholeSet up and familiarize yourself with all the tools you need to be efficient with DevOpsDesign an application that is suitable for continuous deployment systems with Devops in mindStore and manage your code effectively using different options such as Git, Gerrit, and GitlabConfigure a job to build a sample CRUD applicationTest the code using automated regression testing with Jenkins SeleniumDeploy your code using tools such as Puppet, Ansible, Palletops, Chef, and VagrantMonitor the health of your code with Nagios, Munin, and GraphiteExplore the workings of Trac—a tool used for issue trackingIn DetailDevOps is a practical field that focuses on delivering business value as efficiently as possible. DevOps encompasses all the flows from code through testing environments to production environments. It stresses the cooperation between different roles, and how they can work together more closely, as the roots of the word imply—Development and Operations.After a quick refresher to DevOps and continuous delivery, we quickly move on to looking at how DevOps affects architecture. You'll create a sample enterprise Java application that you’ll continue to work with through the remaining chapters. Following this, we explore various code storage and build server options. You will then learn how to perform code testing with a few tools and deploy your test successfully. Next, you will learn how to monitor code for any anomalies and make sure it’s running properly. Finally, you will discover how to handle logs and keep track of the issues that affect processesStyle and approachThis book is primarily a technical guide to DevOps with practical examples suitable for people who like to learn by implementing concrete working code. It starts out with background information and gradually delves deeper into technical subjects.

Discover the best way to build, design and launch professional websites with Squarespace quickly, without needing to learn any code About This Book ? Discover time-saving tricks and best practices, and avoid common pitfalls while creating a website ? Create visually stunning Responsive Design templates for your website with Squarespace 7 ? Understand how to monitor, measure, and manage your website after launching it Who This Book Is For This book is ideal for anyone who wants to learn how to use the latest version of Squarespace to create a website from scratch and take it through to go-live. You don't need any prior experience with Squarespace, HTML, or CSS, or building websites in general as everything is done using Squarespace's simple, browser-based interface. What You Will Learn ? Develop an essential Website Toolkit that will act as reference and materials for your entire project, ensuring you stay on-target to meet your objectives ? Set up your Squarespace account, learn how the interface works, and select the correct template for your website's purpose and goals ? Create your website framework, fill it with content, and arrange your pages using Squarespace's easy drag-and-drop tools ? Customize your site's look and feel to match your brand, and create a stunning visual impact for your website on all types of devices, including mobiles and tablets ? Configure the core functions your business needs, whether connecting to social media, promoting events, showcasing your work, or selling goods and services online ? Learn time-saving tricks and how to avoid common pitfalls from an experienced professional with years of Squarespace experience ? Gain valuable insights about search engine optimization, communicating effectively online, and other e-marketing advice ? How to monitor, measure, and manage your website post-launch In Detail Squarespace is a web-based tool that allows non-technical people to create and manage professional-looking websites quickly, without needing to write any code. It empowers business owners to take total control of their own websites, without needing to pay someone to design or maintain it. This book covers much more than just how to use Squarespace. It covers all aspects of creating a successful business website, from developing your brand identity, to writing and structuring content to match your target audience's needs, and dozens of other other valuable tips that will help your website shine. Most importantly, you'll learn the correct steps to follow in order to ensure your project is smooth and stress-free. The book starts by helping you plan your website project and gather all the raw materials you'll need. Next, you'll set up your account and become familiar with the terminology and tools that you'll be using. Once you've learned the basics of how the Squarespace interface, templates, and different page types operate, you will create the framework of your website, ready for you to insert content and functionality. Then, once all the core elements are in place, you'll apply the aesthetic fine-tuning needed to bring your website in line with your brand. After the aesthetics have been honed and all functions tested, you will launch your website and drive traffic to it, monitor it, and improve it. Style and approach This easy-to-follow guide will teach you to build websites the easiest way in the latest version of Squarespace.

Create engaging user experiences and awesome user interfaces using this guide About This Book ? Move beyond default UI templates, create and customize amazing UIs with Android Custom View ? Enable smooth data flow and create futuristic UIs by creating flexible custom views ? Scale your apps with responsive and data intensive views Who This Book Is For This book is for Android developers who want to create great user interfaces and move beyond the basics of the standard UI elements. They must have basic Android development knowledge along with basic Java programming. What You Will Learn ? Extend the standard UI widget framework by creating Custom views ? Add complex rendering, animations, and interactions to your views ? Optimize performance and decrease battery usage ? Implement custom views to share between multiple projects, or share it publicly ? Create 3D custom views using OpenGL ES In Detail To build great user interfaces for your Android apps that go beyond the standard UI elements, you need to use custom Android views. With these, you can give your app a distinctive look and ensure that it functions properly across multiple devices. This book will help you construct a great UI for your apps by teaching you how to create custom Android views. You will start by creating your first Android custom view and go through the design considerations. You will then see how the right choices will enable your custom view to perform seamlessly across multiple platforms and Android versions. You will create custom styleable attributes that work with Android XML layouts, learn to process touch events, define custom attributes, and add properties and events to them. By the end of this book, you will be able to create apps with custom views that are responsive and adaptable to make your app distinctive and an instant hit with its users. Style and approach The approach will be that of a step by step practical tutorial. The book will take you through a complete journey, right from creating your first Android view to customizing it to enable it to support any complex app.

Get to grips with object-oriented programming in Swift to efficiently build powerful real-world applicationsAbout This BookLeverage the most efficient object-oriented design patterns in your Swift applicationsWrite robust, safer, and better code using the blueprints that generate objectsBuild a platform with object-oriented code by using real-world elements and represent them in your appWho This Book Is ForIf you are an iOS developer who has a basic idea of object-oriented programming and want to incorporate its concepts with Swift to optimize your application's code and create reusable and easily to understand building blocks, then this book is for you. This is a very useful resource for developers who want to shift from Objective C, C#, Java, Python, JavaScript, or other object-oriented languages to SwiftWhat You Will LearnBuild solid, stable, and reliable applications using SwiftWork with encapsulation, abstraction, and polymorphism using Swift 2.0Customize constructors and destructors based on your needsDevelop Swift 2.0 with classes, instances, properties, and methodsTake advantage of generic code to maximize code reuse and generalize behaviorsUse state of inheritance, specialization, and the possibility to overload membersWrite high quality object-oriented code to build apps for iOS or Mac OS XIn DetailObject-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects; these are data structures that contain data in the form of fields, often known as attributes and code. Objects are everywhere, and so it is very important to recognize elements, known as objects, from real-world situations and know how they can easily be translated into object-oriented code.Object-Oriented Programming with Swift is an easy-to-follow guide packed full of hands-on examples of solutions to common problems encountered with object-oriented code in Swift. It starts by helping you to recognize objects using real-life scenarios and demonstrates how working with them makes it simpler to write code that is easy to understand and reuse.You will learn to protect and hide data with the data encapsulation features of Swift. Then, you will explore how to maximize code reuse by writing code capable of working with objects of different types. After that, you'll discover the power of parametric polymorphism and will combine generic code with inheritance and multiple inheritance. Later, you move on to refactoring your existing code and organizing your source for easy maintenance and extensions.By the end of the book, you will be able to create better, stronger, and more reusable code, which will help you build better applications.Style and approachThis simple guide is packed with practical examples of solutions to common problems. Each chapter includes exercises and the possibility for you to test your progress by answering questions.

Create complex websites quickly and easily using the building blocks of Drupal 8, the most powerful version of Drupal yetAbout This BookBuild complete, complex websites with no prior knowledge of web development entirely using the intuitive Drupal user interfaceFollow a practical case study chapter-by-chapter to construct a complete website as you progressEnsure your sites are modern, responsive and mobile-friendly through utilizing the full features available in Drupal 8Who This Book Is ForIf you want to learn to use Drupal 8 for the first time, or you are transitioning over from a previous version of Drupal, this is the book for you. No knowledge of PHP, MySQL, or HTML is assumed or requiredWhat You Will LearnSet up a local “stack” development environment and install your first Drupal 8 siteFind out what is available in Drupal 8 coreDefine content types and taxonomies—and find out when you should do soUse the powerful Views moduleGet hands-on with image and media handlingExtend Drupal using custom community modulesDevelop the look and feel of your website using Drupal themesManage site users and permissionsIn DetailDrupal 8 sets a new standard for ease of use, while offering countless new ways to tailor and deploy your content to the Web. Drupal 8 allows user to easily customize data structures, listings, and pages, and take advantage of new capabilities for displaying data on mobile devices, building APIs, and adapting to multilingual needs.The book takes you step by step through building a Drupal 8 website. Start with the basics, such as setting up a local “stack” development environment and installing your first Drupal 8 site, then move on to image and media handling, and extending Drupal modules. Push your knowledge by getting to grips with the modular nature of Drupal, and learning to extend it by adding new functionalities to create your new modules. By the end of the book, you will be able to develop and manage a modern and responsive website using Drupal.Style and approachThis is an absolute beginners’ guide, providing step-by-step instructions to help you learn Drupal 8 from scratch.

Learn the fundamentals of vRealize Automation to accelerate the delivery of your IT servicesAbout This BookLearn to install the vRealize Automation product in a distributed architecture using a load balancerPlan backup and recovery strategies for every vRealize automation componentUse vRealize Automation to manage applications and improve operational efficiency using this simple and intuitive guideWho This Book Is ForThis book is for anyone who wants to start their journey with vRealize Automation. It is your one-stop instruction guide to installing and configuring a distributed setup using NSX load balancer. Regardless of whether or not you have used vRealize Automation before, following the steps provided in each chapter will get you started with the product.What You Will LearnUnderstand the basic building blocks of vRealize Automation before embarking on the journey of installationFamiliarize yourself with the requirements and steps that need to be performed during the first phase of the distributed installationCarry out a functional validation of the first phase of installation before completing the installationBuild a blueprint for vSphere endpoint, an essential step for a successful deployment of a service catalogCreate, configure, and deploy tenants, endpoints, blueprints, and the service catalogGet to grips with the failover process for all components in vRealize AutomationLearn to configure the NSX loadbalancer for vRealize Orchestrator for high availabilityLeverage ASD to develop XaaS (Anything as a Service) in vRealize Automation to deliver valuable competenceIn DetailWith the growing interest in Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC), vRealize Automation offers data center users an organized service catalog and governance for administrators. This way, end users gain autonomy while the IT department stays in control, making sure security and compliance requirements are met. Learning what each component does and how they dovetail with each other will bolster your understanding of vRealize Automation.The book starts off with an introduction to the distributed architecture that has been tested and installed in large scale deployments. Implementing and configuring distributed architecture with custom certificates is unarguably a demanding task, and it will be covered next. After this, we will progress with the installation. A vRealize Automation blueprint can be prepared in multiple ways; we will focus solely on vSphere endpoint blueprint. After this, we will discuss the high availability configuration via NSX loadbalancer for vRealize Orchestrator. Finally, we end with Advanced Service Designer, which provides service architects with the ability to create advanced services and publish them as catalog items.Style and approachThis book takes a step-by-step approach, is explained in a conversational and easy-to-follow style, and includes ample screenshots . Each topic is explained sequentially through planning, preparing, installing, configuring, and validating of all vRealize Automation’s components.

The book is a tutorial, leading the reader first through the basics of the YUI library before moving on to more complex examples involving the YUI controls and utilities. The book is heavily example driven, and based around an approach of tinkering and extending to improve. This book is for web developers comfortable with JavaScript and CSS, who want to use the YUI library to easily put together rich, responsive web interfaces. No knowledge of the YUI library is presumed.

This book is a Joomla! tutorial packed with features that you can apply to enhance your Joomla! web site. It contains step-by-step instructions for Joomla! users to build rich multimedia web sites using Joomla!. It shows you how to manually implement features into your site, as well as utilize Extensions and more automated methods. A tutorial approach means you can follow this book chapter by chapter or just dip into the topics you find of interest. This book is aimed at Joomla! administrators and site developers who want to add media-rich content elements and interactive features to their site. All you need is to have a basic knowledge of the Joomla! platform and want to develop your site with rich media content. This book is a must-read for Joomla! users wanting to collaborate with external resources such as YouTube, Twitter, Google, and Flickr (amongst others).

Filled with plenty of examples and careful explanations, this step-by-step guide teaches you to build a sub*ion-based business site with Joomla!. This site will evolve chapter by chapter as you apply the techniques and theory that you are learning to it. You will start by looking at the environment in which you develop, setting yourself up with the right tools to develop a professional site as effectively and efficiently as possible. Then you will move on to setting the purpose of our site, and why it is important to have a clear purpose and goals for your site before you ever even install Joomla!. You will begin to look through choosing, installing and customizing extensions, and proceed to work on your sample sub*ion site as a practical example of the information covered in each chapter. Finally you will look at how to market and monetize your site to ensure the maximum success for your site. This book is written for people with basic knowledge of Joomla! who want to expand their skills and move from simply assembling extensions and installing a template to truly customizing their own site. Readers are expected to have functional knowledge of Joomla! and a very basic understanding of terms such as FTP, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, even if they have no real knowledge of the workings behind these terms. This book does not cover topics such as installing Joomla! and extensions, or creating content. The ideal reader is one who wishes to build a successful business web site using Joomla! and is interested in making as well as saving money by applying professional tools and techniques to the development, monetization, and marketing of their site. Non-business focussed site owners can still benefit greatly from the book, however, if they wish to add a level of professionalism to their work.

The book is ideal for programmers who have worked with C++ or other Windows-based programming languages. It provides developers with everything they need to build complex desktop applications using C++. If you have already learned the C++ language, and want to take your programming to the next level, then this book is ideal for you.

This book is a concise and practical guide aimed at getting the results you want as quickly as possible. This book is for Java developers who want to create rich reports for either the web or print, and want to get started quickly with JasperReports to do this. No knowledge of JasperReports is presumed, although obviously familiarity with Java, SQL, and XML are assumed where they are required.

To develop your confidence in F#, this tutorial will first introduce you to simpler tasks such as curve fitting. You will then advance to more complex tasks such as implementing algorithms for trading semi-automation in a practical scenario-based format.If you are a data analyst or a practitioner in quantitative finance, economics, or mathematics and wish to learn how to use F# as a functional programming language, this book is for you. You should have a basic conceptual understanding of financial concepts and models. Elementary knowledge of the .NET framework would also be helpful.

This book is written in a hands-on style that actively involves you while you read through its chapters. In every chapter you, along with the author, will be implementing one or more fully working example plugins. The process is accompanied with a detailed step-by-step explanation of the code, at the same time providing you with resources to create your own plugins. If you are a MySQL application developer or a programmer who wants to interface with MySQL server, this book is for you. Basic knowledge of C/C++, SQL, and MySQL in particular is assumed in the book, but no deep familiarity with any of the topics is required.

This book is a concise and practical guide aimed at getting the results you want as quickly as possible. It steers the reader through each point of reporting from setup to *ing, designing, formatting, and deploying BIRT reports using a common example that runs through the book. If you are a Java developer and want to create rich reports using BIRT, then this book is for you. You will need a basic understanding of SQL to follow along.

This is a practical, hands-on book based around a case study website, which you will build in this easy-to-understand workshop by using CMS Made Simple. The case study grows chapter by chapter, from CMS installation to the finished website. It provides clear instructions and detailed screenshots, so you can see exactly what to do at each step of the build. When you have completed the case study, you will have the knowledge and confidence to build a website with rich functionality and individual design that is optimized for search engines and can be handed over to the customer. This book is perfect for newcomers as well as webmasters who are looking for an introduction to building powerful and professional websites with a content management system. Basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is the only requirement. The workshop covers all aspects of web publishing and is aimed for web designers, web developers, editors, and web managers.

This is a practical, hands-on book, with a lot of code and images. It presents the real code that generates every image and describes almost every single line of it, so that you know exactly what's going on. Introductory, de*ive, and theoretical parts are mixed with examples, so that reading and understanding them is easy. All of the examples build gradually with code snippets, their explanations, and plot images where necessary with the complete code and output presented at the end. This book is essentially for Python developers who have a good knowledge of Python; no knowledge of Matplotlib is required. You will be creating 2D plots using Matplotlib in no time at all.

Packed with easy-to-follow examples and screenshots, this book is designed to be followed from beginning to end, although those with existing WordPress MU sites will be able to jump in at the later chapters and pick out the things that are important to them. The author's expertise with creating a wide variety of WordPress sites enables her to share insights on using WordPress effectively, in a clear and friendly way. Those interested in digging further will be given the chance to customize their site further. Throughout the book, you will build up a blog network for Vampire Slayers – SlayerCafe.com, as an example. If you wish to manage multiple blogs and build a blog network, then this book is for you. You are not expected to be experienced with PHP coding. Some knowledge of HTML, and some experience with the blogging and social networking world will be helpful, but not essential.

This is a practical, hands-on book based around sound SEO techniques specifically applied to Drupal. Each chapter starts with a brief overview of the important concepts then quickly moves into practical step-by-step actions you can take immediately. Throughout the book, you'll get clear instructions and detailed screenshots, so you can see exactly what to do each step of the way. You will install and configure a selection of Drupal modules – each of which will move you one step closer to optimization. Chapter-by-chapter, your Drupal site will become more optimized so that by the end of the book, your site is 100% ready for Google. This book is written for Drupal site owners and those who create Drupal sites including themers, developers, programmers, and consultants. A basic understanding of Drupal will be helpful: what a node is, how to create nodes, how to log in to the admin sections of your Drupal site, and how to properly install and enable a module. No knowledge of SEO will be assumed but a basic knowledge of search engines is expected.

This book takes a step-by-step approach to building Flash applications for use with the Drupal Content Management System. In each chapter, you walk through the evolution of a real Flash application designed for Drupal. Every chapter builds on the previous one by presenting a more challenging feature for each additional chapter. This book is written for developers who wish to build dynamic flash applications. Although we will be using Drupal for our Content Management System, the lessons learned within this book can easily be applied to other content management systems such as Joomla or WordPress. Because of this, you are not assumed to be familiar with Drupal. Any interaction with Drupal will be described in full detail so that anyone can follow along. As for Flash, it is not necessary to be familiar with how to use Flash since that too will be covered within this book. However, it is recommended that you have some modest understanding of ActionScript and PHP since there are many code examples within this book.