150 of the World's Funniest and Most Delightful Christmas CardsKaren Robert has spent the last several years tracking down the wonderful and wacky Christmas cards represented in this book the best out of tens of thousands she has reviewed. Featuring everything from young couples in love, classic kids-'n'-dogs, and quirky workplace situations to every incarnation of Santa fat, thin, young, old, canine these cards will surprise you with their irrepressible creativity. Some are heartwarming, some are hilarious, some are simply strange but every single one was actually sent out as a Christmas card. So whether you're one of the millions of people who love all things Christmas, looking for inspiration for your own holiday card, or just a desperate Scrooge on the hunt for the perfect stocking stuffer, pick up Merry Christmas from . . . for a holiday pick-me-up.

One Person Can Make a Difference In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children's Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal. Conor was initially reluctant to volunteer, unsure whether he had the proper skill, or enough passion, to get involved in a developing country in the middle of a civil war. But he was soon overcome by the herd of rambunctious, resilient children who would challenge and reward him in a way that he had never imagined. When Conor learned the unthinkable truth about their situation, he was stunned: The children were not orphans at all. Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war for a huge fee by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war and a debilitating injury. Waiting for Conor back in Kathmandu, and hopeful he would make it out before being trapped in by snow, was the woman who would eventually become his wife and share his life's work. Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.

The first easy, and fun guide to the Enneagram, the fascinating and revealing method of understanding personality types, for the beginner, the expert, and everyone in between. This witty and informative guide demystifies the ancient Enneagram system with cartoons, exercises, and personality tests that reveal our motivations and desires and show how to put that knowledge to use in our everyday lives. The 9 types of people: The Perfectionist motivated by the need to live life the right way, improve oneself and others, and avoid anger. The Helper motivated by the need to be loved and appreciated and to express your positive feelings towards others. The Achiever motivated by the need to be productive, to achieve success, and to avoid failure. The Romantic motivated by the need to understand your feelings and to be understood to search for the meaning of life, and to avoid being ordinary. The Observer motivated by the need to know everything and understand the universe, to be self sufficient and left alone, and to avoid not having the answer or looking foolish. The Questioner motivated by the need for security, to feel taken care of, or to confront your fears. The Adventurer motivated by the need to be happy and plan fun things, to contribute to the world, and to avoid suffering and pain. The Asserter motivated by the need to be self reliant and strong, to make an impact on the world, and to avoid being weak. The Peacemaker motivated by the need to keep the peace, merge with others, and avoid conflict.

Uniquely fusing practical advice on writing with his own insights into the craft, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes constructs beautiful prose about the issues would-be writers are most afraid to articulate: How do I dare writeWhere do I beginWhat do I do with this story I have to tell that fills and breaks my heartRich with personal vignettes about Rhode's sources of inspiration, How to Write is also a memoir of one of the most original and celebrated writers of our day.

It's not a question. It is a philosophy to live by. It's Donny Deutsch's motto. And it is the secret possessed by every person with the right stuff the one-in-a-hundred who gets to the top of their team, their company, their business, their industry.If there is an assignment or a promotion up for grabs, a client or account looking for new answers, do you know how to go for itDonny Deutsch built a billion-dollar media business asking himself the basic question, "Why Not Me?" Once the reader asks and answers that question, a world of opportunity opens up. It is a tool to motivate people, build a business, and create a business culture.Often Wrong, Never in Doubt is an inspirational book from one of America's most colorful and exciting entrepreneurs. It's Donny's story. In a fun conversation with the reader, Donny lays out the core principles that propelled him to create tremendous wealth, build a huge and influential business, and become a national personality. Using inside stories of the media, the advertising industry, and a youth spent growing up on the streets of New York, Donny gives the commonsense bottom line that he has learned along the way, broken down into real, relevant, and inspiring lessons that will be useful to everyone from the front-line salesperson to the middle manager to the successful corporate executive. (It's also a useful guide for dating.)

Get up and running with reactive programming paradigms to build fast, concurrent, and powerful applications About This Book . Get to grips with the core design principles of reactive programming . Learn about Reactive Extensions for .NET through real-world examples . Improve your problem-solving ability by applying functional programming Who This Book Is For If you are a .NET developer who wants to implement all the reactive programming paradigm techniques to create better and more efficient code, then this is the book for you. No prior knowledge of reactive programming is expected. What You Will Learn . Create, manipulate, and aggregate sequences in a functional-way . Query observable data streams using standard LINQ query operators . Program reactive observers and observable collections with C# . Write concurrent programs with ease, scheduling actions on various workers . Debug, analyze, and instrument Rx functions . Integrate Rx with CLR events and custom scheduling . Learn Functional Reactive Programming with F# In Detail Reactive programming is an innovative programming paradigm focused on time-based problem solving. It makes your programs better-performing, easier to scale, and more reliable. Want to create fast-running applications to handle complex logics and huge datasets for financial and big-data challengesThen you have picked up the right book! Starting with the principles of reactive programming and unveiling the power of the pull-programming world, this book is your one-stop solution to get a deep practical understanding of reactive programming techniques. You will gradually learn all about reactive extensions, programming, testing, and debugging observable sequence, and integrating events from CLR data-at-rest or events. Finally, you will dive into advanced techniques such as manipulating time in data-flow, customizing operators and providers, and exploring functional reactive programming. By the end of the book, you'll know how to apply reactive programming to solve complex problems and build efficient programs with reactive user interfaces. Style and approach This is a concise reference manual for reactive programming with Rx for C# and F# using real-world, practical examples.

Use Qt5 to design and build a graphical user interface that is functional, appealing, and user-friendly for your software application About This Book Learn to make use of Qt5 to design and customize the look-and-feel of your application Improve the visual quality of your application by utilizing the graphic rendering system and animation system provided by Qt5 A good balance of visual presentation and its contents will make an application appealing yet functional Who This Book Is For This book intended for those who want to develop software using Qt5. If you want to improve the visual quality and content presentation of your software application, this book is best suited to you. What You Will Learn Customize the look and feel of your application using the widget editor provided by Qt5 Change the states of the GUI elements to make them appear in a different form Animating the GUI elements using the built-in animation system provided by Qt5 Draw shapes and 2D images in your application using Qt5’s powerful rendering system Draw 3D graphics in your application by implementing OpenGL, an industry-standard graphical library to your project Build a mobile app that supports touch events and export it to your device Parse and extract data from an XML file, then present it on your software’s GUI Display web content on your program and interact with it by calling JavaScript functions from C++, or calling C++ functions from the web content Access to MySQL and SQLite databases to retrieve data and display it on your software’s GUI In Detail With the advancement of computer technology, the software market is exploding with tons of software choices for the user, making their expectations higher in terms of functionality and the look and feel of the application. Therefore, improving the visual quality of your application is vital in order to overcome the market competition and stand out from the crowd. This book will teach you how to develop functional and appealing software using Qt5 through multiple projects that are interesting and fun. This book covers a variety of topics such as look-and-feel customization, GUI animation, graphics rendering, implementing Google Maps, and more. You will learn tons of useful information, and enjoy the process of working on the creative projects provided in this book. Style and approach This book focuses on customizing the look and feel and utilizing the graphical features provided by Qt5. It takes a step-by-step approach, providing tons of screenshots and sample code for you to follow and learn. Each topic is explained sequentially and placed in context.

Enter the world of Internet of Things with the power of data science with this highly practical, engaging book About This Book Explore real-world use cases from the Internet of Things (IoT) domain using decision science with this easy-to-follow, practical book Learn to make smarter decisions on top of your IoT solutions so that your IoT is smart in a real sense This highly practical, example-rich guide fills the gap between your knowledge of data science and IoT Who This Book Is For If you have a basic programming experience with R and want to solve business use cases in IoT using decision science then this book is for you. Even if your're a non-technical manager anchoring IoT projects, you can skip the code and still benefit from the book. What You Will Learn Explore decision science with respect to IoT Get to know the end to end analytics stack – De*ive + Inquisitive + Predictive + Pre*ive Solve problems in IoT connected assets and connected operations Design and solve real-life IoT business use cases using cutting edge machine learning techniques Synthesize and assimilate results to form the perfect story for a business Master the art of problem solving when IoT meets decision science using a variety of statistical and machine learning techniques along with hands on tasks in R In Detail With an increasing number of devices getting connected to the Internet, massive amounts of data are being generated that can be used for analysis. This book helps you to understand Internet of Things in depth and decision science, and solve business use cases. With IoT, the frequency and impact of the problem is huge. Addressing a problem with such a huge impact requires a very structured approach. The entire journey of addressing the problem by defining it, designing the solution, and executing it using decision science is articulated in this book through engaging and easy-to-understand business use cases. You will get a detailed understanding of IoT, decision science, and the art of solving a business problem in IoT through decision science. By the end of this book, you’ll have an understanding of the complex aspects of decision making in IoT and will be able to take that knowledge with you onto whatever project calls for it Style and approach This scenario-based tutorial approaches the topic systematically, allowing you to build upon what you learned in previous chapters.

Get your attractive type design up and running in the browser with real-world, responsive, and tailored tutorials About This Book No coding experience necessary - get started with responsive typography today! Find out how to customize your own typography designs to truly own your website's identity From the basics to cutting-edge design, this book is the perfect guide Who This Book Is For This book is for web developers familiar with the basics of HTML5 and CSS3 who want to learn how to implement responsive typography. No coding experience is required, so dive in and get started! What You Will Learn Customize and personalize fonts on a responsive website Learn how to write CSS3 rules for viewports Define media queries and write them using CSS3 and HTML5 Implement SASS typography techniques to minimize the CSS output and manage the font variables Get to grips with dropcaps and learn how to use them effectively on the web In Detail Typography is an essential part of any website’s design. It can help you stand out from the crowd, communicate with clarity, and cultivate a distinctive identity. Practical Responsive Typography demonstrates how to use typography to greatest effect. With this book you won't underestimate it's importance - you'll be in complete control over this crucial component of web design. From scaling and optimizing screen spaces to using a range of different web fonts, you'll quickly get up to speed with the practical considerations behind successful typography. But more than the fundamentals, you'll also find out how to go further by customizing typography designs to suit your identity. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide full of real-world examples and tutorials. Each typography style and rule is clearly explained and placed in context.

Explore the web and make smarter predictions using Python About This Book Targets two big and prominent markets where sophisticated web apps are of need and importance. Practical examples of building machine learning web application, which are easy to follow and replicate. A comprehensive tutorial on Python libraries and frameworks to get you up and started. Who This Book Is For The book is aimed at upcoming and new data scientists who have little experience with machine learning or users who are interested in and are working on developing smart (predictive) web applications. Knowledge of Django would be beneficial. The reader is expected to have a background in Python programming and good knowledge of statistics. What You Will Learn Get familiar with the fundamental concepts and some of the jargons used in the machine learning community Use tools and techniques to mine data from websites Grasp the core concepts of Django framework Get to know the most useful clustering and classification techniques and implement them in Python Acquire all the necessary knowledge to build a web application with Django Successfully build and deploy a movie recommendation system application using the Django framework in Python In Detail Python is a general purpose and also a comparatively easy to learn programming language. Hence it is the language of choice for data scientists to prototype, visualize, and run data analyses on small and medium-sized data sets. This is a unique book that helps bridge the gap between machine learning and web development. It focuses on the difficulties of implementing predictive analytics in web applications. We focus on the Python language, frameworks, tools, and libraries, showing you how to build a machine learning system. You will explore the core machine learning concepts and then develop and deploy the data into a web application using the Django framework. You will also learn to carry out web, document, and server mining tasks, and build recommendation engines. Later, you will explore Python’s impressive Django framework and will find out how to build a modern simple web app with machine learning features. Style and approach Instead of being overwhelmed with multiple concepts at once, this book provides a step-by-step approach that will guide you through one topic at a time. An intuitive step-by step guide that will focus on one key topic at a time. Building upon the acquired knowledge in each chapter, we will connect the fundamental theory and practical tips by illustrative visualizations and hands-on code examples.

Design and implement real-world web-based applications using the Spring Framework 4.x specification based on technical documentation About This Book . Learn all the details of implementing Spring 4.x MVC applications from basic core platform construction to advanced integration implementations. Gain a complete reference guide to implementing the controllers, models, views, view resolvers, and other service-related components to solve various real-world problems. Discover the possible optimal solutions for developers and experts to build enterprise and personal web-based applications. Create a Spring MVC application that has a validation process and exception handling with the HTTP status codes Who This Book Is For This book is for competent Spring developers who wish to understand how to develop complex yet flexible applications with Spring MVC. You must have a good knowledge of JAVA programming and be familiar with the basics of Spring. What You Will Learn . Set up and configure the Spring 4.x MVC platform from ground level up using the basic Spring Framework 4.x APIs. Study requirements and manage solutions on file uploading transactions in Spring 4.x applications Configure, , and test Spring integration to the Hibernate, MyBatis, and JPA frameworks for database transactions. Properly implement exception handlers and audit trails in Spring MVC applications. Generate reports using JFreeChart, Google Charts, JasperReports, DynamicReports, FreeMarker, Velocity, and Spring’s API known as ContentNegotiatingViewResolver. Configure security and flexibility by adding Captcha, Spring Security, Spring Flow, Spring Portlets, JTA to improve data management performance. Implement web services using Spring’s RESTful implementation and other service-oriented integration plugins. Design and implement a Spring 4.x application using AngularJS, ExtJs, Twitter Bootstrap, and Spring Mobile for responsive web design In Detail Spring MVC is the ideal tool to build modern web applications on the server side. With the arrival of Spring Boot, developers can really focus on the code and deliver great value, leveraging the rich Spring ecosystem with minimal configuration. Spring makes it simple to create RESTful applications, interact with social services, communicate with modern databases, secure your system, and make your code modular and easy to test. It is also easy to deploy the result on different cloud providers. This book starts all the necessary topics in starting a Spring MVC-based application. Moving ahead it explains how to design model objects to handle file objects. save files into a data store and how Spring MVC behaves when an application deals with uploading and downloading files. Further it highlights form transactions and the user of Validation Framework as the tool in validating data input. It shows how to create a customer feedback system which does not require a username or password to log in. It will show you the soft side of Spring MVC where layout and presentation are given importance. Later it will discuss how to use Spring Web Flow on top of Spring MVC to create better web applications. Moving ahead, it will teach you how create an Invoice Module that receives and transport data using Web Services By the end of the book you will be able to create efficient and flexible real-time web applications using all the frameworks in Spring MVC. Style and approach This book is a compendium of technical specification documents that will guide you through building an application using Spring 4.x MVC. Each chapter starts with a high-level wireframe design of the software followed by how to set up and configure different libraries and tools.

“My name is Harriet Manners, and I will always be a geek.” The fifth book in the bestselling, award-winning GEEK GIRL series. Harriet Manners knows almost every fact there is. She knows duck-billed platypuses don’t have stomachs. She knows that fourteen squirrels were once detained as spies. She knows that both chess and snakes and ladders were invented in the same country. And for once, Harriet knows exactly how her life should go. She’s got it ALL planned out. So her friends seem less than happy, Harriet is determined to Make Things Happen! If only everyone else would stick to the *… But is following the rules going to break hearts for GEEK GIRL?

Amber Green loves her job at Smith’s, the exclusive London boutique frequented by the rich, the famous and the stylish – and with stylist to the stars Mona Armstrong as a customer, there is never a dull moment. With the Oscars approaching and yet another assistant walking out on her, Mona needs help, and she needs it fast. Before she has time to say Rodeo Drive, Amber finds herself agreeing to get on a plane to LA as she is expected to work with the increasingly volatile stylist and dress some of Hollywood’s hottest (and craziest) starlets. Awards season turns her life upside down as designer gowns, and dazzling jewels are matched to a steady stream of A-list stars and are paraded on red carpets at the year’s most glittering events. Meanwhile Mona is unravelling faster than a hemline… And as Amber starts to enjoy rummaging through the ultimate dressing-up box, she finds herself in the limelight as she catches the attention of two very different suitors. How will she keep her head Which man will she choose And most importantly, what will everyone wear

‘Tahir spins a captivating, heart-pounding fantasy’ Us Weekly Read the explosive New York Times bestselling debut that’s captivated readers worldwide. Set to be a major motion picture, An Ember in the Ashes is the book everyone is talking about. What if you were the spark that could ignite a revolution? For years Laia has lived in fear. Fear of the Empire, fear of the Martials, fear of truly living at all. Born as a Scholar, she’s never had much of a choice. For Elias it’s the opposite. He has seen too much on his path to becoming a Mask, one of the Empire’s elite soldiers. With the Masks’ help the Empire has conquered a continent and enslaved thousands of Scholars, all in the name of power. When Laia’s brother is taken she must force herself to help the Resistance, the only people who have a chance of saving him. She must spy on the Commandant, ruthless overseer of Blackcliff Academy. Blackcliff is the training ground for Masks and the very place that Elias is planning to escape. If he succeeds, he will be named deserter. If found, the punishment will be death. But once Laia and Elias meet, they find that their destinies are intertwined and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire. In the ashes of a broken world one person can make a difference. One voice in the dark can be heard. The price of freedom is always high and this time that price might demand everything, even life itself.

The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Years have passed since humanity’s destruction emerged from the Breach. Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape. As each day passes the world tumbles further into depravity, bent and twisted by the new order, corrupted by the Usurper, the enemy, and his infernal horde. His purpose is to reach the Shining City, last bastion of the human race, and deliver the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war. What little hope remains is dying. Abandoned by its leader, The Seven, and its heroes, The Seraph Knights, the last defences of a once great civilisation are crumbling into dust. But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place.

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

The classic bestseller – over a million copies sold worldwide High fashion, low cunning – and the boss from hell When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing. She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly – her new boss. A year later, she knows altogether too much: That it's a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work. That you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold. And that at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, when your boyfriend's dumping you because you're always at work, if Miranda phones, you jump. But this is Andrea’s big break – it's going to be worth it in the end. Isn't it?

15-20% of children are Highly Sensitive – and they are often labelled shy, introverted, fussy or faddy. The real story is very different though and this intelligent, practical book helps parents know what to do, when to back off, and how to ensure their child is given the right sort of treatment at school. This book is the follow up to the author’s internationally best-selling personal development guide The Highly Sensitive Person. It is the first and only book for parents of highly sensitive children. It provides parents with insights and information so they can understand High Sensitivity, and help their highly sensitive child thrive in the world. It is important for these children to be understood so they can be helped to avoid the common traps of shyness and withdrawal that many highly sensitive fall into as they develop. Contains questionnaire for parents to find out if their child has the traits common in highly sensitive children. Discusses HSC’s at different ages – infant, toddler, school-age and adolescent.…

One hundred classic stories from the celebrated author of Fahrenheit 451. In this, the first volume of Ray Bradbury's short stories, some of the author's finest works are published together, among them ‘Homecoming’, ‘Veldt’, ‘A Sound of Thunder’ and ‘The Long Rain’. Join an ill-fated crew of astronauts pushed to the brink of insanity by the incessant and highly corrosive rain on Venus, a high-tech virtual reality playroom that comes to life with terrible consequences, and a safari company offering tours for the wealthy back in time to the prehistoric era to stalk and kill dinosaurs, resulting in the present they return to being irrevocably altered. This collection is a rare treasure trove of wonder; as apprehensive about technology and the fate of humanity as it is elegiaic of its irrepressible progress. Each story presents an enlightening and poetic facet of Bradbury’s writing, every one as relevant now as when it was first written.

A new look for one of Diana Wynne Jones’ funniest and most popular novels.

What happens when the one that got away comes back? Find out in this sparkling comedy from #1 bestseller, Mhairi McFarlane. ‘Think of the great duos of history. We're just like them.’ ‘You mean like Kylie and Jason? Torvill and Dean? Sonny and Cher?’ ‘I think you’ve missed the point, Rachel.’ Rachel and Ben. Ben and Rachel. It was them against the world. Until it all fell apart. It’s been a decade since they last spoke, but when Rachel bumps into Ben one rainy day, the years melt away. They’d been partners in crime and the best of friends. But life has moved on: Ben is married. Rachel is not. Yet in that split second, Rachel feels the old friendship return. And along with it, the broken heart she’s never been able to mend. Hilarious, heartbreaking and everything in between, you’ll be hooked from their first ‘hello’.