From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all time classic. Paul Sherman of Interpol's Narcotics Bureau flies to Amsterdam on the trail of a dope king. With enormous skill the atmosphere is built up: Amsterdam with its canals and high houses; stolid police; psychopaths; women in distress and above all – murder.

Reissue of the classic tale of war at sea, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Suddenly, just before dawn, the lights went out aboard the San Andreas. For the British hospital ship sailing the deadly, U-boat patrolled Norwegian waters, a nightmare of violence and betrayal has begun. A terrifying game of sabotage in which an unknown traitor among the crew holds all the cards. The red crosses on the vessel’s sides spell anything but safety. For a dangerous secret has turned the ship into a priceless quarry. With the Captain out of action Bosun Archie McKinnon takes over. Alone in treacherous, frozen seas, her compass smashed, the San Andreas is being drawn relentlessly into the enemy’s hands.

Reissue of the gripping tale of sabotage at sea, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. In the heart of the Aegean Sea, a luxury yacht is on fire and sinking fast. Minutes later, a four-engined jet with a fire in its nose-cone crashes into the sea. Is there a sinister connection between these two tragedies? And is it an accident that the Ariadne, a NATO spy ship, is the only vessel in the vicinity - the only witness? Only Commander Talbot of the Ariadne can provide the answers as he uncovers a deadly plot involving drugs and terrorism - leading to the heart of the Pentagon.

Gripping and tense story of secret agents, even more secret government facilities, and a deadly virus, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. HELL IS ABOUT TO BE UNLEASHED… Five strands of high-voltage wire, 200 yards of bare ground and double barbed wire fences patrolled by armed guards with dogs separated Mordon Research Centre from the outside world. Yet behind the locked doors of E block, a scientist lies dead, and a new toxin of terrifying power has vanished…

From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all time classic Millions of pounds in gold bullion are being pirated in the Irish Sea. Investigations by the British Secret Service, and a sixth sense, have bought Philip Calvert to a bleak, lonely bay in the Western Highlands. But the sleepy atmosphere of Torbay is deceptive. The place is the focal point of many mysterious disappearances. Even the unimaginative Highland Police Sergeant seems to be acting a part. But why? This story is Alistair MacLean at his enthralling best. It has all the edge-of-the-seat suspense, and dry humour that millions of readers have devoured for years.

With a new introduction by Deborah Levy and a striking new cover design by the artist Stanley Donwood, Ballard’s final novel sees consumerism evolve into something even more sinister. A gunman opens fire in a shopping mall. Not a terrorist, apparently, but a madman with a rifle. Or not, as he is mysteriously (and quickly) set free without charge. One of the victims is the father of Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and life-long rebel. Now he is driving out to Brooklands, the apparently peaceful town on the M25 which has at its heart the very shiny shoppers’ paradise where the shooting happened – the Metro-Centre. Then the main suspect is released – thanks to the testimony of self-styled pillars of the community like the doctor who treated Richard’s father on his deathbed. Richard, determined to unravel the mystery, starts to believe that something deeply sinister lurks behind the pristine facades of the labyrinthine mall, its 24-hour cable TV and sports club…

An unforgettable voyage of the imagination from the bestselling author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’ – one of his most acclaimed novels. In parched Port-la-Nouvelle in central Africa, Dr Mallory watches his clinic fail and dreams of discovering a third Nile to make the Sahara bloom. During his search for water, an ancient tree stump is uprooted by a bulldozer and water wells up, spreading until it becomes an enormous river. With the once arid land now abounding in birds and beasts, the obsessed Mallory forges up-river in an old car ferry, clashing with hostile factions as he tries to find the source of his own creation.

When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’, reissued here with a new introduction from Martin Amis. Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, either in the name of science or profit. While the submerged streets of London are drained in search of treasure, Dr Robert Kerans – part of a group of intrepid scientists – comes to accept this submarine city and finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it. First published in 1962, Ballard’s mesmerising and ferociously imaginative novel gained him widespread critical acclaim and established his reputation as one of Britain’s finest writers of science fiction. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Robert Macfarlane, Martin Amis, James Lever and Ali Smith) and brand-new cover designs.

A remarkable collection of short stories set in Wyoming from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’. ‘Bad Dirt’ is filled with the vivid and willful characters for which Proulx has become known. Each story occupies a community or landscape described in rich and robust language, with an eye for detail unparalleled in American fiction. In ‘The Contest’, the men of Elk Tooth, Wyoming, vow to put aside their razors for two seasons and wait to see who has the longest beard come the 4th of July. Deb Sipple, the moving protagonist of ‘That Trickle Down Effect’, finds that his opportunism – and his smoking habit – lead to a massive destruction. And ‘What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?’ is the story of Gilbert Wolfscale, whose rabid devotion to his ranch drives off his wife and sons. Proulx displays her wit in every story of this stunning collection, as well as her knowledge of the West, of history, of ranching and of farming. Her profound sympathy for characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in tough territory makes this collection extraordinarily compelling.

Master the skills required to steer cross-platform applications from drawing board to app store(s) using Xamarin About This Book Develop your Xamarin development skills with this comprehensive guide on various patterns and features so you can create elegant and high-quality applications Create adaptive user interfaces on separate platforms without compromising the user experience and platform identity Implement application lifecycle management concepts to manage and finalize cross-platform projects and efficiently collaborate with others Who This Book Is For This book is ideal for those who want to take their entry–level Xamarin mobile development skills to the next level to become the go-to person within their organization. To fully understand the patterns and concepts described, you should possess a reasonable level of knowledge about the core elements of Xamarin and cross-platform application development with it. What You Will Learn Configure your environment for cross-platform projects with Xamarin Gain memory management skills to avoid memory leaks and premature code cycles while decreasing the memory print of your applications Employ asynchronous and parallel patterns to execute non-interactive and non-blocking processes Create and use SQLite databases for offline scenarios Integrate network resources with cross-platform applications Design and implement eye-catching and reusable UI components without compromising nativity in mobile applications Manage the application lifecycle of cross-platform development projects Distribute Xamarin applications through public or private channels In Detail The main goal of this book is to equip you with the required know-how to successfully analyze, develop, and manage Xamarin cross-platform projects using the most efficient, robust, and scalable implementation patterns. This book starts with general topics such as memory management, asynchronous programming, local storage, and networking, and later moves onto platform-specific features. During this transition, you will learn about key tools to leverage the patterns described, as well as advanced implementation strategies and features. The book also presents User Interface design and implementation concepts on Android and iOS platforms from a Xamarin and cross-platform perspective, with the goal to create a consistent but native UI experience. Finally, we show you the toolset for application lifecycle management to help you prepare the development pipeline to manage and see cross-platform projects through to public or private release. Style and approach This is a comprehensive guide on various Xamarin features and patterns. Each topic is explained and demonstrated with code samples, which are revised in each section in an iterative manner and analyzed with available diagnostic tools to demonstrate the benefits of different patterns.

With this book you will explore WebSphere Application Server security concepts, which you can expand upon while working on mini-projects. With the author's style of writing you will gain the knowledge and confidence needed to implement WebSphere Application Servers securely. Right from the basics of securing your WebSphere Application Server to advanced security features, the author utilizes exercises, screenshots, and clear instructions. If you are a system administrator or an IT professional who wants to learn about the security side of the IBM WebSphere Application Server v7.0, this book will walk you through the key aspects of security and show you how to implement them. You do not need any previous experience in WebSphere Application Server, but some understanding of Java EE technologies will be helpful. In addition, Java EE application developers and architects who want to understand how the security of a WebSphere environment affects Java EE enterprise applications will find this book useful.

More than just a step-by-step guide, this book offers examples, tips, and tricks that are all discussed in detail, providing the reader with the knowledge and confidence to implement them. Supporting diagrams, illustrations, and screenshots promote understanding and enhance the overall reading experience. The author's onsite experience in implementing Oracle GoldenGate in the financial sector is thoroughly reflected in this book. This book is for Solution Architects and Database Architects who wish to learn about the functionality and efforts required in implementing a data replication, migration or integration solution using GoldenGate. It is also designed for System Administrators and Database Administrators who want to implement, or those who have already implemented, Goldengate and who want to explore its advanced features. An intermediate understanding of Oracle database technology is assumed.

Part of Packt's Beginner's Guide Series, this book has lots of screenshots and step-by-step instructions to help you get to grips with the techniques as quickly as possible. Each chapter is dedicated to a different aspect of the Squid proxy server, so you will have a thorough understanding of how everything works and how it is connected by the end of the book. If you are a Linux or Unix system administrator and you want to enhance the performance of your network or you are a web developer and want to enhance the performance of your website, this book is for you. You are expected to have some basic knowledge of networking concepts, but may not have used caching systems or proxy servers before now.

This is a cookbook of easy-to-follow recipes about ACT! 2011 dashboard and report practices. If you are an ACT! end user who wants to learn about the existing reports and dashboards available in ACT! 2009, 2010, and 2011, then this book is for you. If you are an ACT! administrator who wants to make changes to ACT!'s dashboard and reporting features or a sales manager who needs to measure the effectiveness of his sales force, you will also find this book helpful. New CRM users will learn how to measure the success of their database. Prior knowledge of ACT! is not essential; however, you'll find it helpful to have good working knowledge of how to add data to ACT!, or to work with an ACT! database that has already been populated with data.

Moodle Security is packed with practical examples, which guide you through optimizing the protection of your Moodle site. Each chapter covers a different security threat and how to secure your site against it. You will also find recommendations for what is best for your particular system and usage. If you are in charge of Moodle – whether you are an administrator or lead teacher – then securing it is one of the most important things that you can do. You need to know the basics of working with Moodle, but no previous experience of system administration is required.

This book is a comprehensive beginner's guide that teaches you to use GnuCash from scratch with jargon-free step-by-step tutorials packed with tips. There are multiple choice questions to make learning more interesting and additional challenges thrown at the more adventurous user for a deep grasp of the topic. This book is written for you – the self-employed, the owner, partner or leader of micro-enterprises, home businesses, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), and other small businesses – to help you maintain your books of accounts using GnuCash. This book is also for you – office-bearers of non-profits and students who want to learn accounting hands-on. If you are using a spreadsheet to maintain your business books and are wasting time, or you are handing over a shoe box of receipts to your high-priced accountant or are using another accounting application that is overkill for small business, get this book and download GnuCash.

A practical tutorial, this book shows you how to set up and configure Dynamics AX 2009 and then how to improve and maintain its performance with clear step-by-step instructions, enabling Dynamics AX to fit your company's needs. If you are a network administrator or IT personnel charged with setting up and configuring Dynamics AX 2009 in your company, then this book is for you. A basic knowledge of Dynamics AX 2009 and general Windows Server Administration is required and familiarity with maintaining a SQL Server database server. Additionally, if you are a VAR tasked with implementing Dynamics AX into companies, then this book will provide you with a good overview and details of the whole Dynamics AX 2009 system.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administration Cookbook contains step-by-step instructions for SharePoint administrators to gain control of their SharePoint environment. The book is designed so that you can refer to it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and read those that interest you in no particular order. If you are a SharePoint Administrator looking for solutions to the many problems faced while managing SharePoint, then this book is for you. It is written for SharePoint administrators who are either already working on SharePoint, or have recently started working and eager to learn more about SharePoint administration. You need to have some basic knowledge of SharePoint in order to follow the recipes in this book.

This fast-paced guide enables developers to design and build Enterprise applications for the cloud. You will find it easy to follow this book, as the authors use an actual online portal application for the case study. Throughout the development of the sample application there is discussion of important considerations for moving an application into the cloud. If you provide technological leadership to their enterprise—senior developers, architects, CIO/CTO and you want or need to guide your enterprise's application design to Azure, this is the perfect book for you! Since the examples are in .NET, the book will skew to MS-oriented developers. But a lot of what is discussed will be applicable to anyone wanting to work with Azure. No matter what language you use, you provision the application fabric the same way, and all the underlying concepts will be the same. You will need experience with Visual Studio, and some basic SQL Server knowledge.

This hands-on guide takes a look at the main functional areas of Drupal that have significant new features. It explains these new features and how to use them, drawing attention to significant differences from how things used to behave, and giving the reader an idea of the kind of consequences these changes will bring to them. Drupal 7 First Look is written for site administrators, themers, and developers who have some experience with Drupal 6 (or even Drupal 5) and want to upgrade their sites, themes, or modules to Drupal 7 or just learn more about Drupal 7. No programming experience is required, but several code examples are covered for readers that want more in-depth information about building themes and modules.

This is a very visual book with more than 750 illustrations and screenshots, never leaving any intermediate steps out from the tutorials. It contains precise tutorials that explain the various tools, how to use them, and the visual results. The examples used in the book are an excellent starting point for your own diagrams, both as ideas and as true diagrams – all the diagrams in the book can be downloaded for your own use. This book is written for both beginners and seasoned users of OmniGraffle. If you are new to the software, then this book will teach you everything you need to know to make stunning diagrams. For seasoned OmniGraffle users, this book contains a lot of tricks and techniques that will save their work and time.