Jane O'Connor has always had a secret fondness for froufrou. An editor at a major publishing house, she has written more than thirty books for children. She lives with her family in the glamour capital of the world – New York City. Robin Preiss Glasser, who habitually sports glasses and jeans, discovered her "inner Nancy" while illustrating this book. "Wearing lace-trimmed socks helps me draw better," she says. She has illustrated many books and lives in Southern California with her family and tiara collection.

Michael Bond was born in Newbury, Berkshire on 13 January 1926 and educated at Presentation College, Reading. He served in the Royal Air Force and the British Army before working as a cameraman for BBC TV for 19 years. In 2015, Michael was awarded a CBE for his services to children’s literature, to add to the OBE he received in 1997. Michael died in 2017, leaving behind one of the great literary legacies of our time.

Relive the story of The Hobbit: There and Back Again in this fantastic photo-filled book. Join Bilbo Baggins and the company of dwarves on the final stage of their amazing journey to defeat the dragon, Smaug, in this fully illustrated storybook of the third of Peter Jackson’s stunning Hobbit movies. Packed with stills from the film, this is the book that Hobbit fans and movie-goers will not want to miss!

Oliver Jeffers graduated from The University of Ulster in 2001 with First Class honours. His outstanding talent has been recognised by several high-profile awards, including the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award. ‘Lost and Found’ animation was broadcast on Channel 4. Oliver lives and works in Brookyln, New York.

The perfect gift for all ages, Pinocchio as you’ve never seen him before: telling his own story through the master storyteller and award-winning author of WAR HORSE. “Now – there’s no point in pretending here – I was, and still am deep down, a puppet. Everyone knows Pinocchio is a puppet. I reckon I must be just about the most famous puppet the world has ever known. But the truth is I’m not just a puppet, I’m more than just bits of wood and string. I’m me. So I thought it was about time that I, Pinocchio, told you my story…” So begins this stunningly beautiful interpretation of the classic story. Michael Morpurgo channels Pinocchio’s words to tell the famous puppet’s story in his own inimitable, cheeky and always funny way. Lavishly illustrated throughout in full colour by the acclaimed Emma Chichester Clark, this is a must-have gift for all book lovers, and an utterly charming and surprising adaptation of a much-loved tale.

Ted Dewan grew up in Massachusetts where he became a science teacher, but moved to London in 1988, making a living from drawing and playing the accordion. His picture book, Crispin, the Pig Who Had It All, won the Blue Peter Award and was an Honour book for the Kate Greenaway Award. The Bing books were first published in 2003. Ted and his wife, author/illustrator Helen Cooper, live in Oxford.

Ted Dewan grew up in Massachusetts where he became a science teacher, but moved to London in 1988, making a living from drawing and playing the accordion. His picture book, Crispin, the Pig Who Had It All, won the Blue Peter Award and was an Honour book for the Kate Greenaway Award. The Bing books were first published in 2003. Ted and his wife, author/illustrator Helen Cooper, live in Oxford.

Ted Dewan has been a full-time illustrator and cartoonist since 1988. He was grew up in Massachusetts where he became a science teacher, but moved to London in 1988, making a living from drawing for various publications and playing the accordion. He married fellow author/illustrator Helen Cooper and they had their first child in 1998. His picture book, Crispin, the Pig Who Had It All, won the Blue Peter Award and was an Honour book for the Kate Greenaway Award. The Bing series of eight books were first published in 2003. Ted lives with his family in Oxford.

A laugh-out-loud new picture book from the author of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs series and the illustrator of the Dinosaur that Pooped series. Uncle Fearless is sure he can look after the baby meerkats all by himself. But taking charge is not as easy as it seems – especially with Trouble about: that naughty meerkat! So, whatever will he do when the meerkats suddenly find themselves in danger?

Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad in 1963. As a child she emigrated to Queens, New York, and attended colleges in Long Island. Then she moved to England and attended Essex University, before returning to America. She lives in New York with her husband and children.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, FUNNY KID FOR PRESIDENT! Being funny is a good gig and it’s pretty much the only thing Max Walburt is good at. At least he thinks he’s good at it . . . . . . Max takes being funny very seriously. At home, he is the Chief-Walburt-Entertainer (CWE) and at school, he’s the funny kid. So when the Redhill Talent Quest comes to town, Max is confident that his jokes will make everyone laugh, win him the competition and a ten-million-pound book deal. That is until Tumbles the Clown auditions, who everyone thinks is hilarious. But who is the strange clown and why was he hiding in the bush on the day his granddad was kidnapped? With the help of his temporary best friend and life coach, Hugo, will Max solve the mystery of his grandfather’s whereabouts and overcome the pressures of fame and entertaining? For fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates and Big Nate, comes FUNNY KID STAND UP, the hilarious sequel in the FUNNY KID series. By bestselling children’s author, Matt Stanton.

Oliver Jeffers graduated from The University of Ulster in 2001 with First Class honours. His outstanding talent has been recognised by several high-profile awards, including the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award. ‘Lost and Found’ animation was broadcast on Channel 4. Oliver lives and works in Brookyln, New York.

Over 80 recipes to help you improve vSphere 6.5's performance and solve problems before they arise About This Book ? The practical recipes provide cost-effective and high performance for any application running in a virtual machine ? Contains best practices and troubleshooting techniques to resolve vSphere 6.5 performance issues ? Get a comprehensive coverage of performance issues and solutions including vCenter Server design and virtual machine and application tuning Who This Book Is For If you are a system administrator and are planning to deploy vSphere 6.5 in your organization and want to maximize its performance, then this book is for you. Prior knowledge of the vSphere 6.5 concepts is essential. What You Will Learn ? Understand the VMM Scheduler, cache aware CPU Scheduler, NUMA aware CPU Scheduler, and more during the CPU Performance Design phase ? Get to know the virtual memory reclamation technique, host ballooning monitoring, and swapping activity ? Choose the right platform while designing your vCenter Server, redundant vCenter design, and vCenter SSO and its deployment ? Learn how to use various performance simulation tools ? Design VCSA Server Certificates to minimize security threats ? Use health check tools for storage and boost vSphere 6.5's performance with VAAI and VASA In Detail vSphere is a mission-critical piece of software for many businesses. It is a complex tool, and incorrect design and deployment can create performance related issues that can negatively affect the business. This book is focused on solving these problems as well as providing best practices and performance-enhancing techniques. This edition is fully updated to include all the new features in version 6.5 as well as the latest tools and techniques to keep vSphere performing at its best. This book starts with interesting recipes, such as the interaction of vSphere 6.5 components with physical layers such as CPU, memory, and networking. Then we focus on DRS, resource control design, and vSphere cluster design. Next, you'll learn about storage performance design and how it works with VMware vSphere 6.5. Moving on, you will learn about the two types of vCenter installation and the benefits of each. Lastly, the book covers performance tools that help you get the most out of your vSphere installation. By the end of this book, you will be able to identify, diagnose, and troubleshoot operational faults and critical performance issues in vSphere 6.5. Style and approach This cookbook is written in a practical, helpful style with numerous recipes focusing on answering and providing solutions to common and not-so-common performance issues and problems.

Make sense of your data and predict the unpredictable About This Book ? A unique book that centers around develop six key practical skills needed to develop and implement predictive analytics ? Apply the principles and techniques of predictive analytics to effectively interpret big data ? Solve real-world analytical problems with the help of practical case studies and real-world scenarios taken from the world of healthcare, marketing, and other business domains Who This Book Is For This book is for those with a mathematical/statistics background who wish to understand the concepts, techniques, and implementation of predictive analytics to resolve complex analytical issues. Basic familiarity with a programming language of R is expected. What You Will Learn ? Master the core predictive analytics algorithm which are used today in business ? Learn to implement the six steps for a successful analytics project ? Classify the right algorithm for your requirements ? Use and apply predictive analytics to research problems in healthcare ? Implement predictive analytics to retain and acquire your customers ? Use text mining to understand unstructured data ? Develop models on your own PC or in Spark/Hadoop environments ? Implement predictive analytics products for customers In Detail This is the go-to book for anyone interested in the steps needed to develop predictive analytics solutions with examples from the world of marketing, healthcare, and retail. We'll get started with a brief history of predictive analytics and learn about different roles and functions people play within a predictive analytics project. Then, we will learn about various ways of installing R along with their pros and cons, combined with a step-by-step installation of RStudio, and a de*ion of the best practices for organizing your projects. On completing the installation, we will begin to acquire the skills necessary to input, clean, and prepare your data for modeling. We will learn the six specific steps needed to implement and successfully deploy a predictive model starting from asking the right questions through model development and ending with deploying your predictive model into production. We will learn why collaboration is important and how agile iterative modeling cycles can increase your chances of developing and deploying the best successful model. We will continue your journey in the cloud by extending your skill set by learning about Databricks and SparkR, which allow you to develop predictive models on vast gigabytes of data. Style and Approach This book takes a practical hands-on approach wherein the algorithms will be explained with the help of real-world use cases. It is written in a well-researched academic style which is a great mix of theoretical and practical information. Code examples are supplied for both theoretical concepts as well as for the case studies. Key references and summaries will be provided at the end of each chapter so that you can explore those topics on their own.

Gain a thorough understanding of operating in a Python development environment, and some of the most important advanced topics with Daniel Arbuckle. This dynamic, concise book is full of real-world solutions for Python 3.6 problems, and advanced-level concepts such as reactive programming, microservices, ctypes and Cython. About This Book ? Covers the latest and advanced concepts of Python such as parallel processing with Python 3.6 ? Explore the Python language from its basic installation and setup to concepts such as reactive programming and microservices ? Get introduced to the mechanism for rewriting code in a compiled language along with ctypes and Cython tools Who This Book Is For If you are a programmer and are familiar with the basics of Python, and you want to broaden your knowledge base to develop projects better and faster, this book is for you. Even if you are not familiar with Python, Daniel Arbuckle's Mastering Python starts with the basics and takes you on a journey to become an expert in the technology. What You Will Learn ? Get to grips with the basics of operating in a Python development environment ? Build Python packages to efficiently create reusable code ? Become proficient at creating tools and utility programs in Python ? Use the Git version control system to protect your development environment from unwanted changes ? Harness the power of Python to automate other software ? Distribute computational tasks across multiple processors ? Handle high I/O loads with asynchronous I/O to get a smoother performance ? Take advantage of Python's metaprogramming and programmable syntax features ? Get acquainted with the concepts behind reactive programming and RxPy In Detail Daniel Arbuckle's Mastering Python covers the basics of operating in a Python development environment, before moving on to more advanced topics. Daniel presents you with real-world solutions to Python 3.6 and advanced-level concepts, such as reactive programming, microservices, ctypes, and Cython tools. You don't need to be familiar with the Python language to use this book, as Daniel starts with a Python primer. Throughout, Daniel highlights the major aspects of managing your Python development environment, shows you how to handle parallel computation, and helps you to master asynchronous I/O with Python 3.6 to improve performance. Finally, Daniel will teach you the secrets of metaprogramming and unit testing in Python, helping you acquire the perfect skillset to be a Python expert. Daniel will get you up to speed on everything from basic programming practices to high-end tools and techniques, things that will help set you apart as a successful Python programmer. Style and Approach Daniel Arbuckle's Mastering Python covers basic to advanced-level concepts in computer science. If you are a beginner, then Daniel will help you get started. If you are experienced, he will expand your knowledge base.

Expert techniques for building fast servers and scalable, real-time network applications with minimal effort; rewritten for Node.js 8 and Node.js 9 About This Book ? Packed with practical examples and explanations, Mastering Node.js contains everything you need to take your applications to the next level. ? Unleash the full potential of Node.js 9 to build real-time and scalable applications. ? Gain in-depth knowledge of asynchronous programming, event loops, and parallel data processing. ? Explore Node's innovative event-non-blocking design, and build professional applications with the help of detailed examples. Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at JavaScript developers who want to take an in-depth look at the latest Node.js framework to create faster, scalable, real-time backend applications. Basic JavaScript programming knowledge—and also some previous Node.js development experience—are mandatory to get the best out of this book What You Will Learn ? Build an Electron desktop app using Node that manages a filesystem ? Explore Streams and understand how they apply to building networked services ? Develop and deploy an SMS-driven customer service application ? Use WebSockets for rapid bi-directional communication ? Construct serverless applications with Amazon Lambda ? Test and debug with headless browsers, CPU profiling, Mocha, Sinon, and more ? Scale applications vertically and horizontally across multiple cores and web services In Detail Node.js, a modern development environment that enables developers to write server- and client-side code with JavaScript, thus becoming a popular choice among developers. This book covers the features of Node that are especially helpful to developers creating highly concurrent real-time applications. It takes you on a tour of Node's innovative event non-blocking design, showing you how to build professional applications. This edition has been updated to cover the latest features of Node 9 and ES6. All code examples and demo applications have been completely rewritten using the latest techniques, introducing Promises, functional programming, async/await, and other cutting-edge patterns for writing JavaScript code. Learn how to use microservices to simplify the design and composition of distributed systems. From building serverless cloud functions to native C++ plugins, from chatbots to massively scalable SMS-driven applications, you'll be prepared for building the next generation of distributed software. By the end of this book, you'll be building better Node applications more quickly, with less code and more power, and know how to run them at scale in production environments. Style and approach Mastering Node.js contains all of the examples and explanations you'll need to build applications in a short amount of time and at a low cost, running rapidly and at scale.

Learn how to leverage the features of the new Entity Framework Core APIs and use them to build pure .NET Core applications. About This Book ? Learn how to effectively manage your database to make it more productive and maintainable. ? Write simplified queries using LINQ to acquire the desired data easily ? Raise the abstraction level from data to objects so teams can function independently, resulting in easily maintainable code Who This Book Is For This book is for .NET Core developers who would like to integrate EF Core in their application. Prior knowledge of .NET Core and C# is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Create databases and perform CRUD operations on them ? Understand and build relationships (related to entities, keys, and properties) ? Understand in-built, custom, and remote validation (both client and server side) ? You will learn to handle concurrency to build responsive applications ? You will handle transactions and multi-tenancy while also improving performance In Detail Being able to create and maintain data-oriented applications has become crucial in modern programming. This is why Microsoft came up with Entity Framework so architects can optimize storage requirements while also writing efficient and maintainable application code. This book is a comprehensive guide that will show how to utilize the power of the Entity Framework to build efficient .NET Core applications. It not only teaches all the fundamentals of Entity Framework Core but also demonstrates how to use it practically so you can implement it in your software development. The book is divided into three modules. The first module focuses on building entities and relationships. Here you will also learn about different mapping techniques, which will help you choose the one best suited to your application design. Once you have understood the fundamentals of the Entity Framework, you will move on to learn about validation and querying in the second module. It will also teach you how to execute raw SQL queries and extend the Entity Framework to leverage Query Objects using the Query Object Pattern. The final module of the book focuses on performance optimization and managing the security of your application. You will learn to implement failsafe mechanisms using concurrency tokens. The book also explores row-level security and multitenant databases in detail. By the end of the book, you will be proficient in implementing Entity Framework on your .NET Core applications. Style and approach This book is filled with various examples that will help you use Entity Framework Core 2.0 to write efficient software.

Get a problem-solution approach enriched with code examples for practical and easy comprehension About This Book ? Explore the use of more than 40 best-of-breed plug-ins for improving efficiency ? Secure and maintain Jenkins 2.x by integrating it with LDAP and CAS, which is a Single Sign-on solution ? Efficiently build advanced pipelines with pipeline as code, thus increasing your team's productivity Who This Book Is For If you are a Java developer, a software architect, a technical project manager, a build manager, or a development or QA engineer, then this book is ideal for you. A basic understanding of the software development life cycle and Java development is needed, as well as a rudimentary understanding of Jenkins. What You Will Learn ? Install and Configure Jenkins 2.x on AWS and Azure ? Explore effective ways to manage and monitor Jenkins 2.x ? Secure Jenkins 2.x using Matrix-based Security ? Deploying a WAR file from Jenkins 2.x to Azure App Services and AWS Beanstalk ? Automate deployment of application on AWS and Azure PaaS ? Continuous Testing – Unit Test Execution, Functional Testing and Load Testing In Detail Jenkins 2.x is one of the most popular Continuous Integration servers in the market today. It was designed to maintain, secure, communicate, test, build, and improve the software development process. This book will begin by guiding you through steps for installing and configuring Jenkins 2.x on AWS and Azure. This is followed by steps that enable you to manage and monitor Jenkins 2.x. You will also explore the ways to enhance the overall security of Jenkins 2.x. You will then explore the steps involved in improving the code quality using SonarQube. Then, you will learn the ways to improve quality, followed by how to run performance and functional tests against a web application and web services. Finally, you will see what the available plugins are, concluding with best practices to improve quality. Style and approach This book provides a problem-solution approach to some common tasks and some uncommon tasks using Jenkins 2.x and is well-illustrated with practical code examples.

Switching to Angular, Third Edition is the go-to book to align and get started with the Angular JavaScript framework. Angular contributor and international speaker Minko Gechev will help you square up and start building Angular apps and provide you an insight to the Google’s vision for the framework. About This Book ? Get up to date with Google’s vision for Angular ? Align with Angular version 5 and beyond from any direction with confidence ? Start using TypeScript to supercharge your Angular applications ? Understand the new framework from AngularJS perspective using your prior experience ? Use Angular to quickly build fast and scalable enterprise applications Who This Book Is For This book is for software developers who want to align with a modern version of Angular that’s aligned with Google’s vision of Angular version 5 and beyond, using stable APIs that they can depend on today and in the future. Also for anyone assessing changes to Angular and squaring up for a strategic migration to Angular v5, and for AngularJS developers who want to transfer their mindset to modern Angular version 5 and beyond. What You Will Learn ? Align with Google’s vision for Angular version 5 and beyond ? Confidently move forwards with a long-term understanding of Angular ? Use stable APIs in Angular to build future-proof, blazingly fast, enterprise applications ? Work with TypeScript to supercharge your Angular applications ? Understand the core concepts of Angular, aligned with the vision from Google ? Be ready with Angular from any direction - whether you’re building new new apps with the Angular and ASP.NET stack or upgrading from AngularJS with ngUpgrade In Detail Align your work to stable APIs of Angular, version 5 and beyond, with Angular expert Minko Gechev. Angular is the modern Google framework for you to build high-performing, SEO-friendly, and robust web applications. Switching to Angular, Third Edition shows you how you can align your current and future development with Google’s long term vision for Angular. Gechev shares his expert knowledge and community involvement to give you the clarity you need to confidently switch into Angular and stable APIs. Minko Gechev helps you square up to Angular with an overview of the framework, and understand the long term building blocks of Google’s web framework. Gechev then gives you the lowdown on TypeScript, with a crash-course so you can take advantage of Angular in its native, statically-typed environment. You’ll next move on to see how you can line up with Angular dependency injection, plus how Angular router and forms, and Angular pipes, are designed to work for your projects today and in the future. You'll be squared up and aligned with the vision and techniques of the one Angular, and be ready to start building quick and efficient Angular applications. You’ll know how to take advantage of the latest Angular features, and the core, stable APIs that you can depend on. You’ll be ready to confidently plan your future with the Angular framework. Style and approach In this book, Minko Gechev continues his direct style of sharing knowledge about Angular that he's developed across more than 40 international presentations to Angular developers. First, Minko explains Google's vision of Angular to you, and then you dive into a clear tutorial to work with Angular that's aligned with Google's vision of Angular.

世界各地之有味笑話如恆河沙數，素來是廣受大眾歡迎的流行讀本。本書作者Mr. C特別編撰「小小笑話」系列，精選妙絕抵死的笑話匯集成篇，以輕巧且價錢相宜的迷你版本出版，為你帶來經濟實惠的閱讀樂趣和享受。除了豐富精選的笑話，書首更有得意有趣的遊戲，供大家互動玩耍一下，順便先來個大腦熱熱身，然後再放開懷抱笑個痛快。 《癲癲WORKING》及《公主病駕到》分別取材為Office笑話及男女關係笑話，詼諧抵死，適合成人閱讀。 《囧囧CLUB》及《女王捉字室》則取材為校園笑話(classroom jokes)，幽默搞笑，適合學生閱讀。

Rich Finelli's modern CSS training course, based on his bestselling Mastering CSS video, now available in a book. Master CSS from best practices to practical CSS coding. About This Book ? Learn CSS directly from Rich Finelli, author of the bestselling Mastering CSS training course ? From best practices to deep coding, Rich Finelli shares his CSS knowledge with you ? Rich Finelli covers the latest CSS updates with flexbox and works with retina devices Who This Book Is For This book is for web designers who wish to master the best practices of CSS in their web projects. You already know how to work with a web page, and want to use CSS to master website presentation. What You Will Learn ? Master fundamental CSS concepts like the anatomy of a rule set, the box model, and the differences between block and inline elements ? Employ flexbox to layout and align elements simply and cleanly ? Become proficient with CSS3 properties such as transitions, transforms, gradients, and animations ? Delve into modular, reusable, and scalable CSS for more organized and maintainable style sheets ? Understand media queries and other pillars of responsive web design ? Get creative with the @font-face property, Google Web Fonts, font services such as Typekit, as well as, icon fonts ? Understand the workflow for HiDPI (retina) devices using 2x images, SVG, and the srcset attribute In Detail Rich Finelli trains you in CSS deep learning and shows you the techniques you need to work in the world of responsive, feature-rich web applications. Based on his bestselling Mastering CSS training video, you can now learn with Rich in this book! Rich shares with you his skills in creating advanced layouts, and the critical CSS insights you need for responsive web designs, fonts, transitions, animations, and using flexbox. Rich begins your CSS training with a review of CSS best practices, such as using a good text editor to automate your authoring and setting up a CSS baseline. You then move on to create a responsive layout making use of floats and stylable drop-down menus, with Rich guiding you toward a modular-organized approach to CSS. Your training with Rich Finelli then dives into detail about working with CSS and the best solutions to make your websites work. You'll go with him into CSS3 properties, transforms, transitions, and animations. You’ll gain his understanding of responsive web designs, web fonts, icon fonts, and the techniques used to support retina devices. Rich expands your knowledge of CSS so you can master one of the most valuable tools in modern web design. Style and approach Let Rich Finelli train you in CSS! This book has a direct training style because it is based on Rich's bestselling Mastering CSS training course.