Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness Reveal New Insights This groundbreaking book presents compelling narratives and innovative approaches for addressing the psychological traumas that can underlie homelessness and is the first to explore in-depth what the US and UK can learn from one another. Authors focus on understanding and applying the precepts of Pretreatment and "Psychologically Informed Environments," as well as effective ways to promote productive dialogue on all levels -- with clients, clinicians, advocates, policymakers, researchers, and others. Detailed case studies review and integrate "hands on" practice with Appreciative Inquiry, Open Dialogue, and Common Language Construction methods. "In Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness, Jay Levy and co-authors provide the conceptual tools, the hitherto 'missing language', needed by practitioners and policymakers working with excluded individuals. This book has been informed by the authors' practice and should come with a warning: it will revolutionise how you work -- irreversibly and, undoubtedly,for the better" -- Cliona Ni Cheallaigh, MB, MRCP, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Medical Gerontology, Trinity College (Dublin) "Jay distills many decades of his own street experience, and by cross comparing his brilliant schema of Pretreatment with the British model of Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE), he reveals the underlying common processes of effective street engagement. As a long-time practitioner of street medicine, I recommend this book to anyone who seeks that sacred place on the streets where healing begins." -- Jim Withers, MD, Founder and Medical Director and Operation Safety Net and the Street Medicine Institute (Pittsburgh) "Cross Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness is a timely and important collection of the latest thinking on how we should respond to the traumatic life experiences of so many homeless people. Levy and colleagues suggest a commitment to reflective dialogue will improve both the quality of frontline services and the way policy makers, managers and commissioners think about responding to the needs of people pushed to the margins of our societies." -- Alex Bax, Chief Executive, (London) Pathway - transforming health services for homeless people "This book is different because it is based on theory and practises, dialogue and the sharing of ideas - from both sides of the Atlantic. The human interest stories add great value to the book, which should be required reading for anyone interested in creating a better world for his/her fellow human beings. It should be read and debated by all with a vision for a better future for those who need services and those attempting to provide them." -- Alice Leahy, Director of Services Alice Leahy Trust (Dublin, Ireland) Learn more at www.JaySLevy.com From LHPress - www.LHPress.com

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,' Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, 'Evening in the Palace of Reason' is history of the best kind - intimate in scale and broad in its vision.

From the award-winning co-author of ‘I Am Malala’, this book asks just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and farmers? How did it go so wrong? Twenty-seven years ago, Christina Lamb left Britain to become a journalist in Pakistan. She crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country of pomegranates and war, a relationship which has dominated her adult life. Since 2001, Lamb has watched with incredulity as the West fought a war with its hands tied, committed too little too late, failed to understand local dynamics and turned a blind eye as their Taliban enemy was helped by their ally Pakistan. Farewell Kabul tells how success was turned into defeat in the longest war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan still one of the poorest nations on earth, the Taliban undefeated, and nuclear armed Pakistan perhaps the most dangerous place on earth. With unparalleled access to all key decision-makers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, London and Washington, from heads of state and generals as well as soldiers on the ground, Farewell Kabul tells how this happened. In Afghanistan, Lamb has travelled far beyond Helmand – from the caves of Tora Bora in the south to the mountainous bad lands of Kunar in the east; from Herat, city of poets and minarets in the west, to the very poorest province of Samangan in the north. She went to Guantánamo, met Taliban in Quetta, visited jihadi camps in Pakistan and saw bin Laden’s house just after he was killed. Saddest of all, she met women who had been made role models by the West and had then been shot, raped or forced to flee the country. This deeply personal book not only shows the human cost of political failure but explains how short-sighted encouragement of jihadis to fight the Russians, followed by prosecution of ill-thoughtout wars, has resulted in the spread of terrorism throughout the Islamic world

Professor Tudor Parfitt, a real-life British Indiana Jones, has made the biggest discovery of the last 3,000 years – the secret location of the fabled Ark of the Covenant. In 2006, he made an incredible journey to its final resting place and in February 2008 he will reveal this to the world. This is the amazing story of his quest. This is the real-life account of Professor Tudor Parfitt's remarkable discovery – of the lost Ark of the Covenant that disappeared from the Temple of Jerusalem centuries ago. The holiest object in the world, the Ark of the Old Testament contains the tablets of law sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Scholar, orientalist and adventurer, Parfitt embarked on an incredible journey to discover where the Ark is hidden, and when he reveals his discovery history books will be rewritten forever. Parfitt's quest took him on an incredible detective trail across the Middle East and Africa. His search led him to ancient documents and codes in Oxford and Jerusalem, and even to discoveries in modern genetic science, for clues to take him closer to the Ark. But some people didn't want the Ark to be found. In the wilder reaches of the Yemen he narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Islamist fugitives. In Africa he was shot at, ambushed and arrested. Amongst crossing paths with a motley crowd of mystics, holy men, charlatans and politicians, he encountered a strange tribe in the mysterious lands of the Limpopo River who claimed that they knew the Ark's final resting place. When Parfitt finally set eyes on the Ark, it wasn't at all where he expected. His revelation of its whereabouts will cause an international story with an effect on Judaism, Islam and Christianity that may be the most controversial in history.

As in ‘Britain B.C.’ and ‘Britain A.D.’ (also accompanied by Channel 4 series), eminent archaeologist Francis Pryor challenges familiar historical views of the Middle Ages by examining fresh evidence from the ground. The term 'Middle Ages' suggests a time between two other ages: a period when nothing much happened. In his radical reassessment, Francis Pryor shows that this is very far from the truth, and that the Middle Ages (approximately 800-1550) were actually the time when the modern world was born. This was when Britain moved from Late Antiquity into a world we can recognize as more or less familiar: roads and parishes became fixed; familiar institutions, such as the church and local government, came into being; industry became truly industrial; and international trade was now a routine process. Archaeology shows that the Middle Ages were far from static. Based on everyday, often humdrum evidence, it demonstrates that the later agricultural and industrial revolutions were not that unexpected, given what we now know of the later medieval period. Similarly, the explosion of British maritime power in the late 1700s had roots in the 15th century. The book stresses continuous development at the expense of ‘revolution', though the Black Death (1348), which killed a third of the population, did have a profound effect in loosening the grip of the feudal system. Labour became scarce and workers gained power; land became more available and the move to modern farming began. The Middle Ages can now be seen in a fresh light as an era of great inventiveness, as the author examines such topics as 'upward mobility'; the power of the Church; the role of the Guilds as precursors of trade unions; the transport infrastructure of roads, bridges and shipbuilders; and the increase in iron production.

Please note that some images were unavailable for the electronic edition. The highly praised biography of an archetypal great house and the family who lived there for over 250 years. ‘The Big House’ is the biography of a great country house and the lives of the Sykes family who lived there, with varying fates, for the next two hundred and fifty years. It is a fascinating social history set against the backdrop of a changing England, with a highly individual, pugnacious and self-determining cast, including: ‘Old Tat’ Sykes, said to be one of the great sights of Yorkshire (the author’s great-great-great-grandfather), who wore 18th-century dress to the day of his death at ninety-one in 1861. His son was similarly eccentric, wearing eight coats that he discarded gradually throughout the day in order to keep his body temperature at a constant. He was forced to marry, aged forty-eight, eighteen-year-old Jessica Cavendish-Bentick – a lively and highly intelligent woman who relieved the boredom of her marriage by acquiring a string of lovers, writing novels and throwing extravagant parties (her nickname became ‘Lady Satin Tights’), all the while accumulating debts that ended in a scandalous court case. Their son, Mark, died suddenly whilst brokering the peace settlement at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I; Sledmere was destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. But the rebuilt Sledmere rose from the flames to resound again with colourful, brilliant characters in the 1920s and 1930s including the author’s grandmother, Lily, who had been a celebrated bohemian in Paris. ‘The Big House’ is vividly written and meticulously researched using the Sykes’ own family’s papers and photographs. In this splendid biography of place and time, Christopher Simon Sykes has resuscitated the lives of his ancestors and their glorious home from the 18th- through to the 20th-century.

A fascinating journey into the extraordinary world of the king of fish: the salmon. This beautiful book explores the natural history of this most mysterious of fishes. Michael Wigan explores the life cycle of the salmon, weaving his own experiences and stories of salmon fishing and spotting into an evocative narrative. Crucially, he addresses the pressing matter of conservation issues and human management, which in the past has led to fast decreasing populations. History suggests it is the pressure of human development which has narrowed down the survival zone of the salmon, and the author questions whether we can go on altering natural systems and freshwater rivers in order to make space for human populations, and do so in sync with fish needs. In his unique and passionate voice, the author transports us to another world – his writing is beautifully evocative and his excitement for the salmon palpable throughout.

An exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of sixteen ‘warriors’ from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience by the eminent military historian, author and ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings. Over the course of forty years of writing about war, Max Hastings has grown fascinated by outstanding deeds of derring-do on the battlefield (land, sea or air) – and by their practitioners. He takes as his examples sixteen people from different nationalities in modern history – including Napoleon’s ‘blessed fool’ Baron Marcellin de Marbot (the model for Conan Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard); Sir Harry Smith, whose Spanish wife Juana became his military companion on many a campaign in the early 19th-century; Lieutenant John Chard, an unassuming engineer who became the hero of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu wars; and Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, the ‘dam buster’ whose heroism in the skies of World War II earned him the nation's admiration, but few friends. Every army, in order to prevail on the battlefield, needs a certain number of people capable of courage beyond the norm. In this book Max Hastings investigates what this norm might be – and how it has changed over the centuries. While celebrating feats of outstanding valour, he also throws a beady eye over the awarding of medals for gallantry – and why it is that so often the most successful warriors rarely make the grade as leaders of men.

The dramatic untold story of the three tragic Grey sisters, all heirs to the Tudor throne, all victims to their royal blood. Lady Jane Grey is an icon of innocence abused. Remembered as the ‘Nine Days Queen’, she has been mythologized as a child-woman sacrificed to political expedience. But behind the legend lay a rebellious adolescent who became a leader, and no mere victim. Growing up in her shadow, Jane’s sisters Katherine and Mary would have to tread carefully to survive. The dramatic lives of the younger Grey sisters remain little known, but both women became heirs and rivals to the Tudor monarchs, Mary and Elizabeth I. To gain Queen Mary’s trust, teenaged Katherine ignored Jane’s final request not to change her religion, only to risk her life with a marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne. While Katherine’s friends fought to save her, the youngest Grey sister, Mary, stayed at court. Though too poor and plain to be significant, she looked set to escape the burden of her royal blood. But then she too fell in love and incurred the Queen’s fury. Exploding the many myths of Lady Jane’s life, and casting fresh light onto Elizabeth’s reign, acclaimed historian Leanda de Lisle brings the Grey sisters’ tumultuous world to life: at a time when a royal marriage could gain you a kingdom, or cost you everything.

One small East African country embodies the battered history of the continent: patronised by colonialists, riven by civil war, confused by Cold War manoeuvring, proud, colorful, with Africa's best espresso and worst rail service. Michela Wrong brilliantly reveals the contradictions and comedy, past and present, of Eritrea. Just as the beat of a butterfly’s wings is said to cause hurricanes on the other side of the world, so the affairs of tiny Eritrea reverberate onto the agenda of superpower strategists. This new book on Africa is from the author of the critically acclaimed In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. Eritrea is a little-known country scarred by decades of conflict and occupation. It has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war, and the dogged determination that secured victory against Ethiopia, its giant neighbour, is woven into the national psyche. Fascist Italy wanted Eritrea as the springboard for a new, racially-pure Roman empire, Britain sold off its industry for scrap, the US needed headquarters for its state-of-the-art spy station and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in a proxy war. Michela Wrong reveals the breathtaking abuses this tiny nation has suffered and, with the sharp eye for detail that was the hallmark of her account of Mobutu's Congo, she tells the story of colonialism itself. Along the way, we meet a formidable Emperor, a guerrilla fighter who taught himself French cuisine in the bush, and a chemist who arranged the heist of his own laboratory. An arresting blend of travelogue and history, ‘I Didn't Do It For You’ pierces the dark heart of our colonial history.

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the British Topography Prize and the WH Heinemann Award. He lives on a farm in Sussex. This is his fith book for HarperCollins – his previous four being ‘Men of Honour’, ‘Sea Room’, ‘Power and Glory’ and ‘Seamanship’.

Use PyCharm with fluid efficiency to write idiomatic python codeAbout This BookUnderstand how PyCharm works and how you can leverage its strength to develop applications quicklyMaster PyCharm’s editor to get a fast workflowFull of examples and illustrations that focus on the practical aspects of using PyCharm Who This Book Is For If you know PyCharm but want to understand it better and leverage its more powerful but less obvious tool set, this is the book for you. Serving as a launch pad for those who want to master PyCharm and completely harness its best features, it would be helpful if you were familiar with some of Python’s most prominent tools such as virtualenv and Python’s popular docstring formats such as reStructuredText and EpyType.What You Will LearnUnderstand the internal workings of the IntelliJ PlatformLeverage PyCharm’s powerful search tools, and learn which ones are the best for you and your workflowCustomize PyCharm’s enhanced Python interpreter and its inbuilt terminalDevelop web applications quickly and easily with different frameworks such as Flask and DjangoUnderstand how code completion works in PyCharm for Python and JavaScript In Detail PyCharm is addictive, with powerful and configurable code completion, superb editing tools, top-notch support, diverse plugins, and a vibrant ecosystem to boot. Learning how PyCharm works and maximising the synergy of its powerful tools will help you to rapidly develop applications. From leveraging the power of the editor to understanding PyCharm's internals, this book will give you a comprehensive view of PyCharm and allow you to make your own choices about which workflow and tools are best for you. You will start by getting comfortable with PyCharm and making it look exactly like you want. You can customize the tools and taskbars to suit individual developers' coding styles. You also learn how to assign keyboard shortcuts. You will master debugging by inserting breakpoints, collecting runtime data, and debugging from the console. You will understand how PyCharm works underneath and how plugins such as Codemap, Vim, Bitbucket, Assets compressor, markdown, bash file, shortcut translator, and .gitignore leverage the power of the IntelliJ platform. You will become comfortable using the VCS interface in PyCharm and see the benefits of using it for some simple tasks as well as some more complex tasks such as partial commits using changelists. You will take an in-depth look at the various tools in PyCharm, improving your workflow drastically. Finally, you will deploy powerful PyCharm tools for Django, Flask, GAE, and Pyramid Development, becoming well acquainted with PyCharm’s toolset for web development with popular platforms. Packed with insider tricks, this book will help you boost productivity with PyCharm.Style and approach An easy-to-follow guide with plenty of examples and screenshots. Each topic starts off with the goal of enhancing or changing a part of PyCharm to make it suit your needs.

Utilize the powerful ingredients of Raspberry Pi to bring to life your amazing robots that can act, draw, and have fun with laser tagsAbout This BookLearn to implement a number of features offered by Raspberry Pi to build your own amazing robotsUnderstand how to add vision and voice to your robots.This fast-paced practical guide comprises a number of creative projects to take your Raspberry Pi knowledge to the next level Who This Book Is For This all-encompassing guide was created for anyone who is interested in expanding their knowledge in applying the peripherals of Raspberry Pi. If you have a fancy for building complex-looking robots with simple, inexpensive, and readily available hardware, then this book is ideal for you. Prior understanding of Raspberry Pi with simple mechanical systems is recommended.What You Will LearnAdd sensors to your robot so that it can sense the world around itKnow everything there is to know about accessing motors and servos to provide movement to the robotic platformExplore the feature of adding vision to your robot so it can “see” the world around itRefine your robot with the skill of speech recognition so that it can receive commandsPolish your robot by adding speech output so it can communicate with the world around itMaximize the use of servos in Raspberry Pi to create a drawing robotStrengthen your robot by adding wireless communication skills so you can see what the robot is seeing and control it from a distanceBuild an unbelievable autonomous hexcopter controlled by Raspberry Pi In Detail The Raspberry Pi is a series of credit card-sized single-board computers developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The Raspberry Pi is known as a tiny computer built on a single circuit board. It runs a Linux operating system, and has connection ports for various peripherals so that it can be hooked up to sensors, motors, cameras, and more. Raspberry Pi has been hugely popular among hardware hobbyists for various projects, including robotics. This book gives you an insight into implementing several creative projects using the peripherals provided by Raspberry Pi. To start, we’ll walk through the basic robotics concepts that the world of Raspberry Pi offers us, implementing wireless communication to control your robot from a distance. Next, we demonstrate how to build a sensible and a visionary robot, maximizing the use of sensors and step controllers. After that, we focus on building a wheeled robot that can draw and play hockey. To finish with a bang, we’ll build an autonomous hexcopter, that is, a flying robot controlled by Raspberry Pi. By the end of this book, you will be a maestro in applying an array of different technologies to create almost any imaginable robot.Style and approach This book is an easy-to-follow, project-based guide that throws you directly into the action of creating almost any imaginable robot through blueprints. It is full of step by step instructions and screenshots to help you build amazing robots in no time at all.

Embrace the new world of fiance by leveraging the power of crypto-currencies using Bitcoin and the BlockchainAbout This BookSet up your own wallet, buy and sell Bitcoin, and execute custom transactions on the BlockchainLeverage the power of Bitcoin to reduce transaction costs and eliminate fraudA practical step-by-step guide to break down the Bitcoin technology to ensure safe transactions Who This Book Is For If you are familiar with online banking and want to expand your finances into a resilient and transparent currency, this book is ideal for you. A basic understanding of online wallets and financial systems will be highly beneficial to unravel the mysteries of Bitcoin.What You Will LearnSet up your wallet and buy a Bitcoin in a flash while understanding the basics of addresses and transactionsAcquire the knack of buying, selling, and trading Bitcoins with online marketplacesSecure and protect your Bitcoins from online theft using Brainwallets and cold storageUnderstand how Bitcoin’s underlying technology, the Blockchain, works with simple illustrations and explanationsConfigure your own Bitcoin node and execute common operations on the networkDiscover various aspects of mining Bitcoin and how to set up your own mining rigDive deeper into Bitcoin and write *s and multi-signature transactions on the networkExplore the various alt-coins and get to know how to compare them and their value In Detail The financial crisis of 2008 raised attention to the need for transparency and accountability in the financial world. As banks and governments were scrambling to stay solvent while seeking a sustainable plan, a powerfully new and resilient technology emerged. Bitcoin, built on a fundamentally new technology called “The Blockchain,” offered the promise of a new financial system where transactions are sent directly between two parties without the need for central control. Bitcoin exists as an open and transparent financial system without banks, governments, or corporate support. Simply put, Bitcoin is “programmable money” that has the potential to change the world on the same scale as the Internet itself. This book arms you with immense knowledge of Bitcoin and helps you implement the technology in your money matters, enabling secure transactions. We first walk through the fundamentals of Bitcoin, illustrate how the technology works, and exemplify how to interact with this powerful and new financial technology. You will learn how to set up your online Bitcoin wallet, indulge in buying and selling of bitcoins, and manage their storage. We then get to grips with the most powerful algorithm of all times: the Blockchain, and learn how crypto-currencies can reduce the risk of fraud for e-commerce merchants and consumers. With a solid base of Blockchain, you will write and execute your own custom transactions. Most importantly, you will be able to protect and secure your Bitcoin with the help of effective solutions provided in the book. Packed with plenty of screenshots, Learning Bitcoin is a simple and painless guide to working with Bitcoin.Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide to working with Bitcoin and the Blockchain technology. This book is ideal for anyone who wants to learn the basics of Bitcoin and explore how to set up their own transactions.

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.

A complete guide to dominating search engines with your WordPress siteAbout This BookEverything you need to get your WordPress site to the top of search engines and bring thousands of new customers to your blog or businessLearn everything from keyword research and link building to customer conversions, in this complete guidePacked with real-word examples to help get your site noticed on Google, Yahoo, and Bing Who This Book Is For This book is for anyone who runs any of the over 90,000,000 WordPress installations throughout the world. If you can login to your WordPress website, you can implement most of the tips in this book without any coding experience.What You Will LearnThe elements that search engines use to rank websites—and how to optimize your site for premium placementHarness social media sites to extend the reach of your site and gain more visitorsDiscover the high-volume, high-value search phrases that customers use when searching for your products or servicesAvoid dangerous black-hat optimization techniques and the people who advocate and purvey themBuild high-quality, high-value links from other websites to raise your rankings in search enginesCreate optimized and engaging content that both search engines and readers will loveAvoid common SEO mistakes that can get your site penalized by search engines In Detail WordPress is a powerful platform for creating feature-rich and attractive websites but, with a little extra tweaking and effort, your WordPress site can dominate search engines and bring thousands of new customers to your business. WordPress Search Engine Optimization will show you the secrets that professional SEO companies use to take websites to the top of search results. You'll take your WordPress site to the next level; you'll brush aside even the stiffest competition with the advanced tutorials in this book.Style and approach This is a practical, hands-on book based around sound SEO techniques specifically applied to WordPress. 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.

Sharpen your skills in Swift by designing and deploying seven fully functional applicationsAbout This BookDevelop a variety of iOS-compatible applications that range from health and fitness to utilities using this project-based handbookDiscover ways to make the best use of the latest features in Swift to build on a wide array of applicationsFollow step-by-step instructions to create Swift apps oriented for the real world Who This Book Is For If you are a competent iOS developer who wants to develop stunning applications with Swift, then this book is for you. Familiarity with Swift programming is assumed.What You Will LearnGet to grips with the basics of Xcode and Swift for application developmentCreate a Photo Sharing application to capture an image, edit it using different features and share it via social media.Develop applications using the WatchKit and exchange data between iPhone and the WatchUse advanced features such as SpriteKit to build a gameInstall third-party Swift frameworks to improvise on your application developmentDiscover how to simulate home automation with HomeKitBuild an application to monitor the user's weight, heart rate and the number of steps for Health Historic AnalysisManipulate media using AVFoundation framework to merge audio and video. In Detail In this book, you will work through seven different projects to get you hands-on with developing amazing applications for iOS devices. We start off with a project that teaches you how to build a utility app using Swift. Moving on, we cover the concepts behind developing an entertainment or social networking related application, for example, a small application that helps you to share images, audio, and video files from one device to another. You’ll also be guided through create a city information app with customized table views, a reminder app for the Apple Watch, and a game app using SpriteKit. By the end of this book, you will have the required skillset to develop various types of iOS applications with Swift that can run on different iOS devices. You will also be well versed with complex techniques that can be used to enhance the performance of your applications.Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step approach to help you build apps from scratch and learn the methodology to develop real-time applications using Swift.

Over 90 practical and highly applicable recipes to successfully deploy various OpenStack configurations in productionAbout This BookGet a deep understanding of OpenStack’s internal structure and servicesLearn real-world examples on how to build and configure various production grade use cases for each of OpenStack's servicesUse a step-by-step approach to install and configure OpenStack’s services to provide Compute, Storage, and Networking as a services for cloud workloads Who This Book Is For If you have a basic understanding of Linux and Cloud computing and want to learn about configurations that OpenStack supports, this is the book for you. Knowledge of virtualization and managing Linux environments is expected. Prior knowledge or experience of OpenStack is not required, although beneficial.What You Will LearnPlan an installation of OpenStack with a basic configurationDeploy OpenStack in a highly available configurationConfigure Keystone Identity services with multiple types of identity backendsConfigure Glance Image Store with File, NFS, Swift, or Ceph image backends and use local image cachingDesign Cinder to use a single storage provider such as LVM, Ceph, and NFS backends, or to use multiple storage backends simultaneouslyManage and configure the OpenStack networking backendConfigure OpenStack's compute hypervisor and the instance scheduling mechanismBuild and customize the OpenStack dashboard In Detail OpenStack is the most popular open source cloud platform used by organizations building internal private clouds and by public cloud providers. OpenStack is designed in a fully distributed architecture to provide Infrastructure as a Service, allowing us to maintain a massively scalable cloud infrastructure. OpenStack is developed by a vibrant community of open source developers who come from the largest software companies in the world. The book provides a comprehensive and practical guide to the multiple uses cases and configurations that OpenStack supports. This book simplifies the learning process by guiding you through how to install OpenStack in a single controller configuration. The book goes deeper into deploying OpenStack in a highly available configuration. You’ll then configure Keystone Identity Services using LDAP, Active Directory, or the MySQL identity provider and configure a caching layer and SSL. After that, you will configure storage back-end providers for Glance and Cinder, which will include Ceph, NFS, Swift, and local storage. Then you will configure the Neutron networking service with provider network VLANs, and tenant network VXLAN and GRE. Also, you will configure Nova’s Hypervisor with KVM, and QEMU emulation, and you will configure Nova’s scheduler filters and weights. Finally, you will configure Horizon to use Apache HTTPD and SSL, and you will customize the dashboard’s appearance.Style and approach This book consists of clear, concise instructions coupled with practical and applicable recipes that will enable you to use and implement the latest features of OpenStack.

Make use of Node.js to learn the development of a simple yet scalable cross-platform mobile applicationAbout This BookUse Node.js to satisfy the core backend requirements of modern apps, including user management, security, data access, and real-time data communicationBuild practical real-world mobile applications, which will give you the necessary knowledge to build your very own mobile solutionsStep-by-step development of projects using Ionic Framework as the frontend and Node.js for the backend supported by a MongoDB database Who This Book Is For This book is intended for web developers of all levels of expertise who want to deep dive into cross-platform mobile application development without going through the pains of understanding the languages and native frameworks that form an integral part of developing for different mobile platforms. This book is also for you if you are a developer who wants to capitalize on the MobileFirst strategy and so are going to use JavaScript for your complete stack.What You Will LearnDevelop an API from scratchSet up a MongoDB Database as part of your mobile application backendDeploy a cross-platform mobile application from the command lineIncorporate features within your mobile application that use native phone features such as a gyroscope, GPS, and accelerometerImplement mobile applications that use web-enabled APIsBuild a mobile application with real-time chat messaging featuresDevelop a secure mobile application that is capable of functioning with real-time data In Detail Node.js is a massively popular JavaScript library that lets you use JavaScript to easily program scalable network applications and web services. People approaching Node.js for the first time are often attracted by its efficiency, scalability, and the fact that it's based on JavaScript, the language of the Web, which means that developers can use the same language to write backend code. Also, it’s increasingly being seen as a "modern" replacement for PHP in web development, which relies on fast-paced data exchange. The growing community and the large amount of available modules makes Node.js one of the most attractive development environments. This book takes a step-wise and incremental approach toward developing cross-platform mobile technologies using existing web technologies. This will allow you to truly understand and become proficient in developing cross-platform mobile applications with Node.js, Ionic Framework, and MongoDB. The book starts off by introducing all the necessary requirements and knowledge to build a mobile application with a companion web service. It covers the ability to create an API from scratch and implement a comprehensive user database that will give you the opportunity to offer a mobile application with a personalized experience. Midway through the book, you will learn the basic processes to create a successful mobile application. You will also gain higher-level knowledge, allowing you to develop a functional and secure mobile application to ensure a seamless user experience for end users. Finally, the book ends with more advanced projects, which will bring together all the knowledge and expertise developed in the previous chapters to create a practical and functional mobile-application that has useful real-world features.Style and approach This book is an easy-to-follow guide that takes a step-wise approach in giving expertise and knowledge to help you truly understand what is needed to create a memorable user experience for end users. Each topic is placed in the context of the bigger picture, that is, to create cross-platform mobile applications using existing technologies.

Navigate the world of data analysis, visualization, and machine learning with over 100 hands-on Scala recipesAbout This BookImplement Scala in your data analysis using features from Spark, Breeze, and ZeppelinScale up your data anlytics infrastructure with practical recipes for Scala machine learningRecipes for every stage of the data analysis process, from reading and collecting data to distributed analytics Who This Book Is For This book shows data scientists and analysts how to leverage their existing knowledge of Scala for quality and scalable data analysis.What You Will LearnFamiliarize and set up the Breeze and Spark libraries and use data structuresImport data from a host of possible sources and create dataframes from CSVClean, validate and transform data using Scala to pre-process numerical and string dataIntegrate quintessential machine learning algorithms using Scala stackBundle and scale up Spark jobs by deploying them into a variety of cluster managersRun streaming and graph analytics in Spark to visualize data, enabling exploratory analysis In Detail This book will introduce you to the most popular Scala tools, libraries, and frameworks through practical recipes around loading, manipulating, and preparing your data. It will also help you explore and make sense of your data using stunning and insightfulvisualizations, and machine learning toolkits. Starting with introductory recipes on utilizing the Breeze and Spark libraries, get to grips withhow to import data from a host of possible sources and how to pre-process numerical, string, and date data. Next, you’ll get an understanding of concepts that will help you visualize data using the Apache Zeppelin and Bokeh bindings in Scala, enabling exploratory data analysis. iscover how to program quintessential machine learning algorithms using Spark ML library. Work through steps to scale your machine learning models and deploy them into a standalone cluster, EC2, YARN, and Mesos. Finally dip into the powerful options presented by Spark Streaming, and machine learning for streaming data, as well as utilizing Spark GraphX.Style and approach This book contains a rich set of recipes that covers the full spectrum of interesting data analysis tasks and will help you revolutionize your data analysis skills using Scala and Spark.

Over 90 recipes to help you build and run automated tests for your web applications with Selenium WebDriverAbout This BookLearn to leverage the power of Selenium WebDriver with simple examples that illustrate real-world problems and their workaroundsExplains the testing of mobile applications with Appium for mobile platforms such as iOS and AndroidA pragmatic manual with engaging recipes and attractive screenshots to test your web applications efficiently Who This Book Is For This book is intended for software quality assurance/testing professionals, software project managers, or software developers with prior experience in using Selenium and Java to test web-based applications. This books also provides examples for C#, Python and Ruby users.What You Will LearnUnderstand how the locators work and use various locator methods to build reliable testsBuild reliable and maintainable tests with the Selenium WebDriver APIUse the PageFactory pattern to build a robust and easy to maintain test frameworkBuild data-driven tests and extend Selenium API to implement custom steps and checksIntegrate and use ATDD/BDD tools such as Cucumber, SpecFlow, Capybara, and Behave with the Selenium WebDriver APISet up iPhone/iPad and Android simulators and devices to test your mobile web application with AppiumSet up Selenium Grid for faster and parallel running of tests, increasing test coverage and reducing test execution time for cross-browser testingBuild extended Selenium WebDriver tests for additional coverage In Detail This book is an incremental guide that will help you learn and use the advanced features of the Selenium toolset including the WebDriver API in various situations to build a reliable test automation. You start off by setting up the test development environment and gain tips on the advanced locater strategy and the effective use of the Selenium WebDriver API. After that, the use of design patterns such as data - driven tests and PageFactory are demonstrated. You will then be familiarised with extending Selenium WebDriver API by implementing custom tasks and setting up your own distributed environment to run tests in parallel for cross-browser testing. Finally, we give you some tips on integrating Selenium WebDriver with other popular tools and testing mobile applications. By the end of this book, you will have learned enough to solve complex testing issues on your own.Style and approach This recipe-based guide covers real-life scenarios of testing your web apps with Selenium. Each recipe begins with a short introduction and key concepts along with illustrated examples of use cases, and ends with detailed but informative de*ions of the inner workings of the example.