Ada Adverse was brought up in a deeply puritanical household where looking at a cake or using words containing more than one vowel were considered decadences punishable by a night in the coal cellar. But at fifteen she ran away from home and is now the world’s leading authority on Having Fun, which is definitely an actual job, she has ‘Fungineer’ printed on her business cards to prove it, though in retrospect she should have been more clear that this does not mean she specialises in mushrooms. Ada’s hobbies include topiary, mazes, homing pigeons, flea circuses, forming imaginary bands in her head, embalming things, tattoos, pylons, and the films of Billy Wilder. Ada’s dislikes include predatory mcaws, getting out the wrong side of the bed, collections of masks, and porcelain dolls with realistic teeth.

Betty Shine is known worldwide for her powers as a medium and healer. She is the author of a number of bestselling books, including Mind Magic which was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. A former opera singer, she has been a therapist for 40 years and a healer and medium for over 20 years. She is a Daily Mail columnist and well-known television and radio personality and has been invited to lecture all over the world.

Noel Malcolm is one of Britain’s most original scholar-journalists. He is the chief non-fiction reviewer for the Sunday Telegraph and writes widely on both literary and political matters. He is the editor of Hobbes’s correspondence and author of the best-selling Bosnia: A Short History. He briefs governments all over the world on Bosnia and Balkan matters and speaks most western and eastern European languages, both ancient and modern. He is now writing a biography of Hobbes.

This book is dedicated to all those who have written for or otherwise contributed to the activities of the Institute of Contemporary British History in its first ten years (1986–96). In particular, I would like to dedicate it to the two principal ‘founding fathers’, David Butler and Sir Frank Cooper, who along with David Severn and Lady (Olive) Wood helped Peter Hennessy and me establish the ICBH.

MORE YEARS have passed since 1945 than from the beginning of the century to that date. The major issues and questions in British history from 1900–45 are now fairly well established and there have been

Betty Shine was known worldwide for her powers as a medium and healer. She was the author of 11 bestselling books, including Mind Magic which was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. A former opera singer, she was a therapist for over 40 years and a healer and medium for 25 years. Her untimely death has left many fans bereft, and this book is a fitting tribute.

Owning a dog is a huge responsibility but extremely rewarding. When you decide to welcome a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel into your home, you have to consider not only how he will fit into your lifestyle but also what you can offer him in return. He will need regular exercise, feeding, games and companionship as well as daily care.As a good owner, it is your responsibility to keep your Cavalier King Charles Spaniel fit and healthy. If you follow the basic guidelines in this book and socialize him, feed a nutritious diet, exercise him adequately, groom and play with him, you can prevent many common health problems. However, it is important that you learn to recognize the warning signs of problems and diseases so that you can treat them yourself or seek professional help from your vet before they get worse. Prevention is always preferable to cure, and a healthy, contented dog will become your trusted companion for many years.

Ian Botham was the most thrilling sight in sport for nearly two decades at the top of international cricket. He retired from the game in 1993 and has since acted as coaching advisor to the England team on the 1997/98 Zimbabwe and New Zealand tour, a commentator for Sky TV, and he has a newspaper column in the Daily Mirror. He continues to be a keen analyser of the game.

In The Importance of Being Earnest what Lady Bracknell said of Ernest’s loss of both his parents could also be said about the losing of elections. If the loss of one election is unfortunate, and two careless, then three is reckless, four criminal, and to lose five in succession might well prove fatal. This chapter looks at the reasons for Labour’s losing streak. It considers whether the Party is now so enfeebled that it will be unable to win again, unless it offers an electoral reform which will ensure that it is unlikely ever to form a one-party government again. The promise of electoral reform must be accompanied by the most fundamental changes in the Party’s constitution if Labour is to continue to be a serious political force.

Horrified when her beloved dog, Rufus, is caught in a cruel snare while out walking in the estate of Arrow Castle, local Parson’s daughter Shenda is at first relieved when a handsome stranger comes to poor Rufus’s rescue and then at once she is abashed and confused when he claims a kiss – Shenda’s very first – as his reward. But then she is told that her father has been killed by a savage bull and that she must leave the family’s Vicarage forthwith. Penniless Shenda is obliged to take a job at Arrow Castle as a seamstress, where she stumbles across a letter from one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s spies to Society beauty Lucille Gratton, ‘the most beautiful Lady in England’, who is staying at The Castle. Reporting the discovery to the Earl, she finds that he is no other than her ‘gentleman stranger’ and just as she realises that she is falling in love with the heroic Earl of Arrow, she is embroiled in a counter-espionage plot that puts her young life – and her love for the Earl – in deadly peril.

The beautiful Ariana Dancer is orphaned and has led a cheerless life in London with her disagreeable Guardian, Uncle Konstantin Bardici. He has shown little interest in his niece and she has been left very much to her own devices. One day Uncle Konstantin suggests that Ariana marry an Albanian Prince – one who is seeking an English wife and who claims to have fallen in love with her portrait – and it does not take much to persuade her to agree. Even before she sets out for Albania, she begins to dream of romance and her lonely heart ensures that she quickly fancies herself in love with a man she has never seen. She is sure in her heart that she will find everlasting happiness with Prince Stefan of Dukka in the depths of Albania.! But the journey she must take to fulfil her dreams is longer and more treacherous than she could ever have imagined. When she and her hapless maid are kidnapped en route to Castle Dukka by brigands, the rosy future she dreamed of becomes bitterly compromised. Soon life in the wild mountains begins to exert an unexpected pull, while the King of the Brigands turns out to possess an irresistible charm. Ariana discovers that love can have a double meaning and that image is not all that it seems. Forced to choose between honour and passion and faced with the responsibility of deciding life or death for the man she loves, she bravely makes the ultimate sacrifice. Even then Ariana’s torment is not over – Find out how Ariana unexpectedly finds all that she has been seeking, and more, in this exciting and unusual romantic tale by BARBARA CARTLAND

The handsome Viscount Trent finally makes up his mind to accede to the pleadings of his family and get married. He is twenty-seven and for a long time they have been begging him to take a wife and produce an heir to his illustrious title, his famous stately home and his vast estate. On the whole he finds debutantes extremely boring and has enjoyed a number of affaires-de-coeur with older married women. However there is one girl, Marigold Marlow, he considers outstanding and she is the acknowledged great beauty of the Season. As she is so beautiful, the Viscount is convinced that Marigold will make him a perfect wife, but he is astonished when, having proposed to her, she tells him that she has not quite made up her mind. She will let him know on Wednesday if she accepts his proposal of marriage. As the Viscount expects her to fall immediately into his arms, he is surprised, but content to wait until Wednesday for her answer, which he is certain will be ‘yes’. As he drives away from Marigold’s house, a young girl holding a white Pekingese in her arms begs him to give her a lift to London. He sees no reason to refuse and finds as they drive off that she is Salvia, a cousin of the beautiful Marigold. He then learns that Marigold has her eyes on the son of the Duke of Northerncliff, who is seriously ill. In fact if he dies as expected, she intends to marry his heir as one day soon he will be a Duke. Feeling surprised and angry, he is even more astonished to learn that Marigold is cruel to animals and that Salvia is running away because she is so unkind to her dog as well as to her. How the Viscount dreams up a way to avenge himself on Marigold and, if the Duke does recover, how he can escape marrying her as he has now changed his mind. How the Viscount’s plan succeeds. And how Salvia takes London by storm, faces appalling danger and finally finds the love of her life is all told in this unusual story by BARBARA CARTLAND.

Successfully scrape data from any website with the power of PythonAbout This BookA hands-on guide to web scraping with real-life problems and solutionsTechniques to download and extract data from complex websitesCreate a number of different web scrapers to extract information Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at developers who want to use web scraping for legitimate purposes. Prior programming experience with Python would be useful but not essential. Anyone with general knowledge of programming languages should be able to pick up the book and understand the principals involved.What You Will LearnExtract data from web pages with simple Python programmingBuild a threaded crawler to process web pages in parallelFollow links to crawl a websiteDownload cache to reduce bandwidthUse multiple threads and processes to scrape fasterLearn how to parse JavaScript-dependent websitesInteract with forms and sessionsSolve CAPTCHAs on protected web pagesDiscover how to track the state of a crawl In Detail The Internet contains the most useful set of data ever assembled, largely publicly accessible for free. However, this data is not easily reusable. It is embedded within the structure and style of websites and needs to be carefully extracted to be useful. Web scraping is becoming increasingly useful as a means to easily gather and make sense of the plethora of information available online. Using a simple language like Python, you can crawl the information out of complex websites using simple programming. This book is the ultimate guide to using Python to scrape data from websites. In the early chapters it covers how to extract data from static web pages and how to use caching to manage the load on servers. After the basics we'll get our hands dirty with building a more sophisticated crawler with threads and more advanced topics. Learn step-by-step how to use Ajax URLs, employ the Firebug extension for monitoring, and indirectly scrape data. Discover more scraping nitty-gritties such as using the browser renderer, managing cookies, how to submit forms to extract data from complex websites protected by CAPTCHA, and so on. The book wraps up with how to create high-level scrapers with Scrapy libraries and implement what has been learned to real websites.Style and approach This book is a hands-on guide with real-life examples and solutions starting simple and then progressively becoming more complex. Each chapter in this book introduces a problem and then provides one or more possible solutions.

Gain expertise in troubleshooting most common issues to implement vSphere environments with easeAbout This BookPlan, analyze, and design effective solutions for your vSphere environmentTroubleshoot problems related to vSphere performanceFamiliarize yourself with the advanced troubleshooting conceptsand become an xpert level administrator Who This Book Is For The books is intended for mid-level System Engineers and System Integrators who want to learn VMware power tools to troubleshoot and manage the vSphere infrastructure. Good knowledge level and understanding of virtualization is expected.What You Will LearnConfigure vSphere management assistant and troubleshooting toolsUse troubleshooting tools to monitor performance and troubleshoot different issuesLearn how to troubleshoot High Availability and other commonly known problems with clusters such as insufficient resources, failing heartbeatsUse Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) to verify configurationDiagnose storage issues including iSCSI, NFS and VMFS problemsManage vSphere Network Virtual and Distributed Switches, Trunks, VLANSMonitor and shape network traffic, configure routes and DNSQuickly resolve common day-to-day problems by analysing logs of VMware vSphere hosts and VMware vCenter ServerDebug and resolve commonly known vSphere Cluster problems In Detail VMware vSphere is the leading server virtualization platform with consistent management for virtual data centers. It enhances troubleshooting skills to diagnose and resolve day to day problems in your VMware vSphere infrastructure environment. This book will provide you practical hands-on knowledge of using different performance monitoring and troubleshooting tools to manage and troubleshoot the vSphere infrastructure. It begins by introducing systematic approach for troubleshooting different problems and show casing the troubleshooting techniques. You will be able to use the troubleshooting tools to monitor performance, and troubleshoot issues related to Hosts and Virtual Machines. Moving on, you will troubleshoot High Availability, storage I/O control problems, virtual LANS, and iSCSI, NFS, VMFS issues. By the end of this book, you will be able to analyze and solve advanced issues related to vShpere environment such as vcenter certificates, database problems, and different failed state errors.Style and approach A step-by-step guide full of real world scenarios that will enhance advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the VMware vSphere environment. Basic concepts of vSphere and the most common vSphere infrastructure problems are explained with practical solutions to resolve it.

Build real-world hybrid mobile applications using the robust PhoneGap development platformAbout This BookGet to grips with the usage of PhoneGap and its command-line interfaceLearn to use numerous plugins to access several hardware capabilitiesStep-by-step instructions on creating captivating mobile applications using popular frameworks Who This Book Is For If you are a developer who wants to get started with mobile application development using PhoneGap, then this book is for you. Previous experience with data mining libraries will help, but is not mandatory. A basic understanding of web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a must.What You Will LearnSet up a development environment to develop PhoneGap applicationsGenerate, build, and run applications using the PhoneGap command-line interfaceInstall plugins from the command line to add native capabilities to your applicationCall the JavaScript API of plugins and hook into native eventsManipulate DOM using zepto and xuijsDevelop a user interface using jQuery Mobile and the Ionic frameworkGet accustomed to using the PhoneGap Build service In Detail Developing mobile applications often feels intimidating. Especially when building cross-platform application. We have to learn a specific programming language to build an application for each platform. PhoneGap makes cross-platform mobile application development faster and easier by using web technologies such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. This book gives you practical lessons on how to build a world class mobile application using PhoneGap. Whether you are a brand new to mobile application development, a web developer expert, or a seasoned mobile application developer, this book will guide you through creating hybrid mobile applications. Starting with setting up a development environment, the book moves on to utilizing a new PhoneGap command-line tool, installing plugins, and designing your application. It then moves on to concepts such as file system, storage, and local database, the book effectively lays a solid base for advanced topics. By working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly master the features of PhoneGap. By the end of the book, you will be able to successfully build a highly functional, real-world hybrid mobile application using PhoneGap.Style and approach And easy-to-follow guide full of practical examples of real-world mobile application. Each topic is explained step by step with detailed explanations on each concept.

Get started with Amazon S3 for virtually unlimited cloud and Internet storageAbout This BookFamiliarize yourself with the concepts of Amazon S3Understand basic operations of bucket, folders, and objects using Amazon S3 SDK JavaLeverage the power of Amazon S3 to effectively store and retrieve data Who This Book Is For This book is intended for System Engineers/ Developers, Software Architects, Project managers, and users who want to explore Amazon S3 SDK Java. If you want to learn about Amazon S3 quickly, then this book is for you. Basic knowledge of Java programming is expected.What You Will LearnStart with the basic concepts of Amazon S3 to get you goingUse Copy Object and Multipart Copy Object for objects of different sizesUnderstand how to use the amazon management console for Amazon S3Learn how to use the AWS SDK of Java and consume the Amazon S3Get to grips with managing the bucket life cycleConfigure CORS to share resources to a different domainDiscover how to develop and deploy the static website on Amazon S3 using different services of Amazon In Detail Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), provides developers and IT teams with secure, durable, and highly-scalable object storage. Amazon S3 is easy to use, with a simple web services interface to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. S3 is automatically web scalable and responds to the requirements of your application and traffic, and therefore offers a key element to help companies deal dynamically with any spike in traffic for their application (such as a free e-book offer). This book starts with the basics of the Amazon S3 and its features, and you will quickly get an understanding how to use the Amazon Management Console for Amazon S3 which is the simplest way to manage Amazon S3. Next, we will cover basic operations on bucket, folder, objects. Once the basic operations are understood, you will know how to use Amazon S3 using Java SDK. Following that, you will learn about Copy Objects and Multipart copy objects for large objects size. You will also learn to manage the life cycle of bucket and how to share resources to the different domain by configuring CORS. The book will then guide you through the development and deployment of a static website on Amazon S3 using different services of Amazon. By the end of the book, you will be able to create a scalable application using Amazon S3.Style and approach This fast-paced book is a pragmatic guide to writing Amazon S3 applications. Each chapter is blended beautifully with lucid concepts and pertinent examples.

Quickly get up to speed with MariaDB—the leading, drop-in replacement for MySQL, through this practical tutorialAbout This BookGet to know the basic SQL queries so you can quickly start using MariaDBTake control of your data through the advanced features of MariaDBExploit the full potential of MariaDB’s exclusive features through quick, practical examples Who This Book Is For If you don't know the SQL language, but you want to quickly jump into the SQL world and learn how to use MariaDB, or if you already know how to use MySQL but you want to go further, then this book is ideal for you.What You Will LearnInstall and configure MariaDBCreate databases, tables, and indexesImport and export data from and to external filesWork with views and virtual columnsCreate, read, update, and delete records in your databaseUse dynamic columnsSet up a powerful full-text search systemAccess your external data from MariaDB through the CONNECT engine In Detail This book will take you through all the nitty-gritty parts of MariaDB, right from the creation of your database all the way to using MariaDB’s advanced features. At the very beginning, we show you the basics, that is, how to install MariaDB. Then, we walk you through the databases and tables of MariaDB, and introduce SQL in MariaDB. You will learn about all the features that have been added in MariaDB but are absent in MySQL. Moving on, you’ll learn to import and export data, views, virtual columns, and dynamic columns in MariaDB. Then, you’ll get to grips with full-text searches and queries in MariaDb. You’ll also be familiarized with the CONNECT storage engine. At the end of the book, you’ll be introduced to the community of MariaDB.Style and approach This is a complete guide that uses concrete examples to help you understand and exploit the full potential of MariaDB.

Utilize ServiceStack as the rock solid foundation of your distributed systemAbout This BookTake advantage of the various data providers to access authentication and authorization, sessions, cache, and databaseLeverage asynchronous processing for decoupling components to ease scalingMonitor and tune the performance of your distributed system Who This Book Is For Mastering ServiceStack is targeted at developers who have already implemented web services with ASMX, WCF, or ServiceStack and want to gain more insight into the possibilities ServiceStack has to offer to build distributed systems of all scales.What You Will LearnDesign a prudent and resilient API, following the RESTful designUnderstand the internal processing chain and utilize the provided hooksIncorporate ServiceStack as a full service provider to your existing distributed systemLeverage the power of asynchronous processing and add message queues to your architectureAnalyze and tune the performance of your service In Detail Mastering ServiceStack covers real-life problems that occur over the lifetime of a distributed system and how to solve them by deeply understanding the tools of ServiceStack. Distributed systems is the enterprise solution that provide flexibility, reliability, scaling, and performance. ServiceStack is an outstanding tool belt to create such a system in a frictionless manner, especially sophisticated designed and fun to use. The book starts with an introduction covering the essentials, but assumes you are just refreshing, are a very fast learner, or are an expert in building web services. Then, the book explains ServiceStack's data transfer object patterns and teach you how it differs from other methods of building web services with different protocols, such as SOAP and SOA. It also introduces more low-level details such as how to extend the User Auth, message queues and concepts on how the technology works. By the end of this book, you will understand the concepts, framework, issues, and resolutions related to ServiceStack.Style and approach A step-by-step approach that follows the natural requirements of a distributed system in a conversational style.

The Sciences of the Soul is the first attempt to explain the development of the disciplinary conception of psychology from its appearance in the late sixteenth century to its redefinition at the end of the seventeenth and its emergence as an institutionalized field in the eighteenth. Fernando Vidal traces this development through university courses and textbooks, encyclopedias, and nonacademic books, as well as through various histories of psychology.?Vidal reveals that psychology existed before the eighteenth century essentially as a "e;physics of the soul,"e; and it belonged as much to natural philosophy as to Christian anthropology. It remained so until the eighteenth century, when the "e;science of the soul"e; became the "e;science of the mind."e; Vidal demonstrates that this Enlightenment refashioning took place within a Christian framework, and he explores how the preservation of the Christian idea of the soul was essential to the development of the science. Not only were most psychologists convinced that an empirical science of the soul was compatible with Christian faith; their perception that psychology preserved the soul also helped to elevate its rank as an empirical science. Broad-ranging and impeccably researched, this book will be of wide importance in the history and philosophy of psychology, the history of the human sciences more generally, and in the social and intellectual history of eighteenth-century Europe.

As explorers and scientists have known for decades, the Neotropics harbor a fantastic array of our planet's mammalian diversity, from capybaras and capuchins to maned wolves and mouse opossums to sloths and sakis. This biological bounty can be attributed partly to the striking diversity of Neotropical landscapes and climates and partly to a series of continental connections that permitted intermittent faunal exchanges with Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and North America. Thus, to comprehend the development of modern Neotropical mammal faunas requires not only mastery of the Neotropics' substantial diversity, but also knowledge of mammalian lineages and landscapes dating back to the Mesozoic.Bones, Clones, and Biomes offers just that-an exploration of the development and relationships of the modern mammal fauna through a series of studies that encompass the last 100 million years and both Central and South America. This work serves as a complement to more taxonomically driven works, providing for readers the long geologic and biogeographic contexts that undergird the abundance and diversity of Neotropical mammals. Rather than documenting diversity or distribution, this collection traverses the patterns that the distributions and relationships across mammal species convey, bringing together for the first time geology, paleobiology, systematics, mammalogy, and biogeography. Of critical importance is the book's utility for current conservation and management programs, part of a rapidly rising conservation paleobiology initiative.

"e;American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis like American soldiers or not."e;?The U.S. military could certainly have used that bit of wisdom in 2003, as violence began to eclipse the Iraq War's early successes. Ironically, had the Army only looked in its own archives, they would have found it-that piece of advice is from a manual the U.S. War Department handed out to American servicemen posted in Iraq back in 1943.The advice in Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II,presented here in a new facsimile edition, retains a surprising, even haunting, relevance in light of today's muddled efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds. Designed to help American soldiers understand and cope with what was at the time an utterly unfamiliar culture-the manual explains how to pronounce the word Iraq, for instance-this brief, accessible handbookmixes do-and-don't-style tips ("e;Always respect the Moslem women."e; "e;Talk Arabic if you can to the people. No matter how badly you do it, they will like it."e;) with general observations on Iraqi history and society. The book's overall message still rings true-dramatically so-more than sixty years later: treat an Iraqi and his family with honor and respect, and you will have a strong ally; treat him with disrespect and you will create an unyielding enemy.With a foreword by Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl reflecting on the manual's continuing applicability-and lamenting that it was unknown at the start of the invasion-this new edition of Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of Iraq and the fate of the American soldiers serving there.