Book Name: Windows 7 For Dummies
Author: Andy Rathbone
ISBN 10: 0470497432
ISBN 13: 9780470497432
Pages: 432
Publisher: For Dummies
Price: $24.99
Publication Date: 2009-09-08

See larger image Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms (Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science) (Paperback) By (author) Maurizio Gabbrielli, Simone Martini List Price: $49.95 USD New From: $31.91 In Stock Used from: $41.64 In Stock

This self-contained textbook assumes that the reader has some familiarity with one programming language, and adopts a simple yet rigorous approach.

The author explains the main programming paradigms (imperative, object-oriented, functional, and logic), and makes clear separation between the design, implementation and pragmatic aspects of programming languages.

As well as an excellent guide for undergraduates the content will also be useful for software practitioners who want to consolidate and update their knowledge of programming languages.

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See larger image Mahara 1.2 E-Portfolios: Beginner's Guide (Paperback) By (author) Derrin Michael Kent, Glenys Gillian Bradbury, Margaret Anne Kent, Richard William Hand List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $33.91 In Stock Used from: $19.99 In Stock Release date February 9, 2010.

Create and host educational and professional e-portfolios and personalized learning communities

Create, customize, and maintain an impressive personal digital portfolio with a simple point-and-click interface Set customized access to share your text files, images, and videos with your family, friends, and others Create online learning communities and social networks through groups, blogs, and forums A step-by-step approach that takes you through examples with ample screenshots and clear explanations

In Detail

Mahara is a user-centred environment with a permissions framework that enables different views of an e-portfolio to be easily managed. These views helps you display your artefacts – text files, spreadsheets, images, and videos – in a way you choose and to the people you want. You can also create online communities and social networks through groups, blogs, and forums.

Being a novice, you will need a quick and easy implementation guide to set up your feature-rich digital portfolio.

This book is your step-by-step guide to building an impressive professional e-portfolio using Mahara. It covers the key features of Mahara that will help you set up your customized digital portfolio and display the artefacts in your preferred way allowing contribution from selected users only.

This book will introduce to the exciting features of Mahara framework and help you develop a feature-rich e-portfolio for yourself. You will see how easily you can create folders, upload multiple files like journals, project documents, pictures, and videos and share them with your friends. You will learn to set up views of these files, making these visible to your chosen friends only. And then, you will allow people to give their inputs.

You will learn to create blogs and forums and get connected to the rest of the world. Customization and administration of your Mahara site will become easy after you have gone through this book. Imagine how good you will feel when you will see your knowledge, success, and ideas going live and available to your chosen audiences for their inputs.

What you will learn from this book

You will learn to: Create folders in Mahara – just like on your own computer – with an easy file search facility Upload multiple files – journals, reports, presentations, videos, and sound clips – easily and set permissions for your group to view, edit, and delete them Create a blog in Mahara and get connected to the rest of the world Make an impressive profile using Mahara profile fields and tailor your own profile view Create a new web page entirely from scratch and customize it to allow much more flexibility and control over who sees what and when Set an environment to receive public or private feedback on your pictures, videos, and articles Connect with other Mahara users and get social: discuss topics of common interest in forums and share views with each other Customize and administer your Mahara site to our own preferences using a number of configuration settings for easy administration

Approach

This book will provide you with step-by-step instructions to get started with Mahara and create an impressive electronic portfolio. The book is packed with many useful examples and screenshots for easy and quick learning.

Who this book is written for

Pick this book up if you want to get started with Mahara. This book is for you if:

You are a student/learner wanting to maintain online documentation of your projects and share it with a particular teacher/trainer for feedback You are a teacher wanting to set up an e-portfolio for your students in order to encourage and advance personalized and reflective learning You are a professional wanting to share your journals and project documents with your team by sharing your existing knowledge and creating new knowledge in communities of professional practice No previous experience of Mahara is required.

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See larger image PHP 5 E-commerce Development (Paperback) By (author) Michael Peacock List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $35.99 In Stock Used from: $53.62 In Stock

Create a flexible framework in PHP for a powerful ecommerce solution Build a flexible e-commerce framework using PHP, which can be extended and modified for the purposes of any e-commerce site Enable customer retention and more business by creating rich user experiences Develop a suitable structure for your framework and create a registry to store core objects Promote your e-commerce site using techniques with APIs such as Google Products or Amazon web services, SEO, marketing, and customer satisfaction

In Detail

The popularity of online shopping has increased dramatically over the past few years. There are plenty of options available if you not are planning to build your own e-commerce solution but sometimes it’s better to use your own solutions. It may be easy to find an e-commerce system but when it comes to extending it or using it you might come across a lot of difficulties.

This book will show you how to create your own PHP framework that can be extended and used with ease, particularly for e-commerce sites. Using this framework you will be able to display and manage products, customize products, create wish-lists, make recommendations to customers based on previous purchases, send email notifications when certain products are in stock, rate the products online, and much more.

This book helps you build a Model-View-Controller style framework, which is then used to put together an e-commerce application. The framework contains template management, database management, and user authentication management. With core functionality in place, e-commerce-focused features are gradually added to the framework including products, categories, customizable products with different variations and customer input, wish-lists, recommendations, the shopping basket, and a complete order process.

At the end of the book, you will have an e-commerce architecture that will take you from viewing or searching for products, and adding them to your basket, through the checkout process and making payment for your order, to your order being dispatched. Focus is placed on flexibility, so that the framework can be extended as the needs of a particular store change, as illustrated by one of the appendices, which goes through the process of modifying the store to sell downloadable products, as well as physical ones.

Supplementary information, such as how to market and promote an online store, as well as take regular backups and perform maintenance is also covered, ensuring you have every chance of success with you own e-commerce framework backed store.

What you will learn from this book

Plan and develop a flexible, scalable PHP framework with emphasis on e-commerce Implement the Model-View-Controller architecture within the framework and learn how to use the registry design pattern to centralize core features Allow customers to customize their purchase by selecting product attributes, uploading files, and supplying custom text Offer attractive incentives to your customers in the form of discount codes Protect your e-commerce framework by keeping and maintaining regular backups Structure an extendable framework to build a custom e-commerce web site Add features such as product ratings and reviews from customers to enhance user experience Maintain your site using campaign monitor and CAPTCHA tools Create a shopping basket, manage its contents, structure the checkout and order process Filled with useful marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and customer retention tips Create a PHP framework to power your web site with a range of e-commerce features

Approach

This is a fast-paced tutorial focusing on creating a framework and using it to build an online store through an ongoing case study. Later chapters include examples to illustrate how easily the framework can be adapted for different situations. The framework and code are enhanced and built upon with each chapter, adding more and more functionality.

Who this book is written for

If you are a web developer, or anyone looking to increase your understanding of e-commerce site development, this book is for you. Primarily aimed at PHP developers, it is suitable for any web developer interested in enhancing their e-commerce knowledge, or developers looking to move towards PHP.

Intermediate knowledge of PHP development and object-oriented programming is assumed, and basic knowledge of e-commerce principles will be of benefit too.

See larger image The 3CX IP PBX Tutorial (Paperback) By (author) Matthew M. Landis, Robert Lloyd List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $34.81 In Stock Used from: $53.84 In Stock Release date February 5, 2010.

Develop a fully functional, low cost, professional PBX phone system using 3CX Implement a full-featured Windows-based phone system using 3CX Connect successfully to the outside world using VoIP and PSTN lines Configure, connect, and test extensions and master different ways of controlling calls in 3CX Written by experienced 3CX consultants and filled with Tips and Tricks, as well as real-world examples

In Detail

Traditional PBX systems have often been expensive and proprietary. With 3CX, you can now create an easy-to-use, complete, and cost-effective phone system on Microsoft Windows. This practical guide offers the insight that a reader needs to exploit the potential that 3CX has to offer.

This practical hands-on book covers everything you need to know about designing, installing and customizing 3CX to create an all-inclusive phone system. It takes a real-world approach that walks you through all aspects of 3CX and its features. From installing the software, to backing things up, to understanding what hardware you need – this book covers it all.

The 3CX IP PBX Tutorial will take you from knowing very little about VoIP to almost expert level with detailed how-tos on every aspect of 3CX. Starting with the basics, and covering the free version of 3CX as well as the more advanced features of the Enterprise version, you will learn it all.

In other words, this book covers numerous topics such as installation and configuration of 3CX, choosing a VoIP Provider, integration of a trunk into 3CX, the commonly used 3CX hardware, and backing up your phone system.

What you will learn from this book Install and configure 3CX as per your hardware and operating system requirements Configure, connect, and test software and hardware extensions that will help your implementation go smoother Master various ways to control and handle calls in 3CX by setting up a ring group, digital receptionist, and call queues Learn the need for a trunk, PSTN line; choose a VoIP Provider, the equipment needed; and finally integrate a trunk into 3CX using the easy-to-use wizards Create custom music on hold, specific Outbound Rules, Promptsets, and Direct Dials, all of which give you more flexibility in professional and flexible phone systems Connect 3CX to Microsoft Outlook, integrate 3CX with a free instant message server, and link a legacy PBX with 3CX Get to grips with the commonly used 3CX hardware such as FXO gateway, a PRI gateway, and ATA gateway Back up your phone system, learn your disaster recovery options, and plan in advance how to tackle failed phone lines

Approach

A hands-on and practical tutorial that shows administrators how to implement and use 3CX and its range of functionality. Using real world experiences from the authors, you will learn tricks and tips that will help you develop and optimize your 3CX system.

Who this book is written for

This book is for beginners who know nothing about 3CX or VoIP. It will guide them to set up a complete system. Advanced users will also gain insight from information on real-world hardware and software tips and tricks.

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See larger image TYPO3 4.3 Multimedia Cookbook (Paperback) By (author) Dan Osipov List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $34.81 In Stock Used from: $19.99 In Stock Release date February 1, 2010.

Over 50 great recipes for effectively managing multimedia content to create an organized web site in TYPO3

Create impressive web sites by adding image, video, and audio files to a TYPO3-driven web site and customizing their display Organize you web site by effectively managing your multimedia content in your TYPO3 site Enhance your CMS by adding different processing capabilities such as parsing metadata and converting files to your site Part of Packt’s Cookbook series: Each recipe is a carefully organized sequence of instructions to complete the task as efficiently as possible

In Detail

TYPO3 is one of the world’s leading open source content management systems, written in PHP, which can be used to create and customize your web site. Along with text content, you can display high quality images, audio, and video to your site’s visitors by using TYPO3. It is essential to manage various types of multimedia files in content management systems for both editors and the users on the frontend of the site.

The book gives you a step-by-step process for organizing an effective multimedia system. It also gives solutions to commonly encountered problems, and offers a variety of tools for dealing with multimedia content. The author’s experience in large-scale systems enables him to share his effective solutions to these problems.

If you choose to work through all the recipes from the beginning, you will start by setting up a basic web site set up, aimed at future expansion and scalability. Next, you will cover the basics of digital asset management–a major topic important in all enterprises. You can organize user groups because next you will be creating accounts for users and assigning permissions. Then you will jump into metadata–text information describing the multimedia objects–and learn how it can be manipulated in TYPO3. You will embed multimedia on your site when you have read the various methods for embedding mentioned in this book. Before you finish the book you will learn about some advanced topics, such as external API integrations and process automation.

What you will learn from this book

Create impressive web sites by embedding images and manipulating them within Rich Text Editors by using content elements Render videos and customize their display with the options in the content media object Render your audio and video on several pages by administering it just in a single location using a TypoScript object Create services that will automatically update Digital Asset Management records when an audio file is uploaded to your site Allow web users to upload files into the system by creating an extension in TYPO3 Extract different formats of metadata and classify files using file metadata Expand the system by leveraging services, specifically Amazon S3, Flickr, and YouTube and achieve limitless storage using Amazon S3 Enhance your CMS by adding different processing capabilities such as parsing metadata and converting files to your site Automate workflows and processes in TYPO3

Approach

The TYPO3 Multimedia Cookbook presents over 50 effective recipes for managing multimedia in your TYPO3 site. Each recipe comprises step-by-step instructions followed by the analysis of what was done in each task and any relevant information. The book is designed so that you can refer to it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and read them in no particular order.

The book has recipes to tackle specific problems along with detailed explanations that will help you to customize the recipes as per your individual needs. Since learning comes from doing, the reader is encouraged to follow along with the examples using the book as a practical guide.

Who this book is written for

This book is for anyone who is looking for effective systems for managing multimedia content. You will find this book interesting if you are running, or starting, web sites rich in multimedia content. This book assumes some prior knowledge about TYPO3, which is available either from official documentation, or other books on this topic.

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See larger image Grok 1.0 Web Development (Paperback) By (author) Carlos de la Guardia List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $35.99 In Stock Used from: $54.16 In Stock

Create flexible, agile web applications using the power of Grok–a Python web framework

Develop efficient and powerful web applications and web sites from start to finish using Grok, which is based on Zope 3 Integrate your applications or web sites with relational databases easily Extend your applications using the power of the Zope Toolkit Easy-to-follow and packed with practical, working code with clear explanations

In Detail

Python is a very popular language for web application development. It’s easy to learn and powerful enough to program any kind of system. There are many options for Python web development frameworks, from lightweight packages to everything-and-the-kitchen sink solutions. However, Grok offers a solid foundation for developing powerful, extensible, and secure web applications without too much complexity. This is because it is based on a very advanced object-oriented web framework: Zope 3. Grok enables web developers to tap into the power of Zope 3, thus giving a range of useful features for our applications with very little code.

This book offers Python developers a comprehensive understanding of Grok and a look at its main features by way of developing and evolving a sample application from concept to deployment. You will learn how to use Grok to create web applications and how Grok offers you an agile and enjoyable development experience.

This book will introduce you to the Grok web development framework and show you how to create an application from start to finish. You will learn how to create an application using mostly page templates and then add features to it while reworking the code as it grows. You will learn how to use models to describe your application’s domain and how to connect those models to views for presenting information to your users. You will also learn how to automatically generate forms from the models and how to store the data and make it searchable. Due to the public nature of the Web, security is an important part of any web application and you will learn how Grok’s integrated security can be used to protect your application and grant access to specific users and roles when needed. Grok offers a powerful object database for storage, but can also interact nicely with any database directly or using an object-relational mapper. You will learn how to do both and when it’s advisable to use each. You will also learn how to extend a third-party Grok application, how to debug it, and how to deploy it. By the end of the book, you will be able to design and develop a complete web application using Grok.

What you will learn from this book

Basic concepts of the Zope Component Architecture Use Zope Page Templates to produce HTML pages Design efficient applications using models and views Use Grok’s automatic form generation mechanisms Add selectable themes or skins to your applications Index content from the models you defined and learn how to search this content by querying the catalog, including full text search Understand how the Zope Object Database works and how simple and useful it is Easily connect to other relational databases using SQLAlchemy Create extensions to your applications Understand the various options to deploy your Grok application, and use buildout–a Python-based build system for deploying applications–to create a repeatable deployment

Approach

The book takes a practical approach and dives into code right from the start. After learning how to install Grok, we create a simple application. We work on this application throughout the book, until its deployment in the last chapter.

In each chapter, some new features of Grok will be introduced and explained, then the application will be extended to use them, explaining step-by-step how each feature works.

Who this book is written for

This book is intended for Python developers who want to create web applications but have little or no experience in web development. If you have used other web frameworks but are looking for one that enables you to create more complex applications without losing agility, you will also benefit from this book.

The reader is expected to have some basic Python knowledge and at least a general idea of how a web application works.

User review
Great overview and introduction to Grok and Zope technologies
This is a good book. It’s not `OMG I need to drop all my TurboGears work right now and rewrite everything in Grok` good, but it gives you a good feel for the Grok framework and the Zope toolkit underneath it without being too overwhelming. If you want to learn Grok or Zope web development, or if you just want to see how someone else did it, I’d say this is a good book to read. If, however, you want an architectural description of Zope, or if you’re brand-new to Python, HTML, CSS, and Javascript, this probably isn’t the book for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and though it flowed well and the pacing was appropriate. Great job!

User review
Excellent Introduction
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher, Packt Publishing.

Note that I haven’t dabbled with Grok nor Zope before. I have some experience in Django and web development in general, however.

Apparently the greatest strength of Grok lies in the way it has been designed. The book starts out with a simple and codewise ugly example that is transformed into a beautiful and extensible application. Through this process it gently explains the core concepts of Grok. I suppose even a caveman should grok it.

There is some technical complexity in the book. It’s probably recommended that the reader has some basic knowledge of web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and software architecture (mainly MVC pattern and perhaps adapter as well). This will definitely help a lot. If you already happen to be familiar with another MVC based web framework and wish to learn the basics of Grok, this is the book for you.

Some examples of the book depend on the code available from the publisher’s site. The code has been organized well but it has been documented inadequately. I haven’t managed to run the example code yet though I have some ideas how to proceed further. I would count that as the only downside of the book.

I enjoyed the writing and the structure of the book. There were a few minor typos but nothing really irritating. Overall the book surprised me positively. Now I have a couple of new tools, mainly Grok and ZODB, available at my toolkit.

User review
Very good
Full disclosure:

- I am Carlos’ friend and recent fellow author on a similar topic.

- I have only read less than half of this book so far (chapters 1-5).

- I have not worked through any code examples in the book.

- I have worked with the technologies underlying Grok for a long time; I am not a beginner.

As a result of the above circumstances, this review may be less useful and nonpartisan than another, but any opinions I state below really are truthful.

The good things

- This book is written extremely well. Everything is spelled correctly, individual sentences make sense, and sentences flow very naturally to form paragraphs, paragraphs flow to form sections, sections to chapters, and so on. There are no editorial distractions in this book that I’ve found so far.

- The first half of the book is ordered well and I think a reader will be able to follow along easily. The code examples are easy to understand.

- Carlos isn’t afraid to introduce other common technologies while describing Grok (such as JavaScript); therefore the code samples aren’t as contrived as those I’ve seen in other technical books.

The other things (not necessarily bad, just observations)

- This is not a book about the guts of Grok; you won’t learn how to change Grok by reading this book. It is a book which tells you how to write an application using the Grok API.

- This book is presented in a style where a very small application is progressively expanded to gain features chapter-by-chapter. Usually I’m not much of a fan of this style of tech writing, because it makes you keep a lot of state in your brain, and by the time you get to chapter 15, you’ve forgotten some of the basics you learned in chapter 2. But since the book is written very well, and since it doesn’t waste a lot of time on distractions, it actually seems fine here.

You should almost certainly buy this book if:

- You are someone thinking of writing a web application using Grok

- You don’t want to write a web app in Grok but you are curious about Zope or Grok technologies for comparative purposes (maybe you using a competing framework).

- You are an aspiring technical author and you want an example of how an introductory book should be written.

See larger image Drupal 6 Performance Tips (Paperback) By (author) Trevor James, T J Holowaychuk List Price: $39.99 USD New From: $34.72 In Stock Used from: $54.68 In Stock Release date February 12, 2010.

Learn how to maximize and optimize your Drupal framework using Drupal 6 best practice performance solutions and tools Monitor the performance of your Drupal website and improve it Configure a Drupal multisite environment for best performance Lot of examples with clear explanations Choose and use the best Drupal modules for improving your site’s performance

In Detail

Drupal is one of the most respected and widely used open source content management frameworks. Small, medium, and large-scale websites are built using Drupal and the framework supports ecommerce, CRM, multisite and web service integrations.

Once you get your Drupal site installed and up and running, you will be concerned with site performance and how fast you can make your Drupal site run. This book will focus on implementing performance modules and solutions to help speed up your Drupal website.

We will look at introductory topics such as upgrading your Drupal site, maintaining your site, and enabling core Drupal page compression and caching.

Then we will turn to an advanced look at some contributed modules that help speed up performance, including Development, Boost, Authcache, Advanced Cache, and the Memcache API and Integration module.

Finally, we’ll look at how best to implement a Drupal multisite environment and run it with high-speed performance in mind.

This book is designed for Drupal developers and webmasters who want to increase their Drupal site’s speed and performance. You will take your Drupal site to the next level by not only displaying relevant and newsworthy content, but also running a powerful and high-speed website.

What you will learn from this book

Upgrade your Drupal 5 site to Drupal 6 using best practice upgrade paths Back up and maintain your Drupal 6 site using core and contributed modules and utilities Configure the Drupal core and contributed modules for high traffic Run core Drupal page compression, CSS and JS compression, and use Drupal page caching Run scheduled cron tasks to perform crucial garbage-collection processes Use the Development (Devel) module to monitor page loads and queries Use the Boost module for anonymous page caching, tweak Boost settings, and use Boost blocks and advanced Boost settings to monitor site performance Install and use Memcache API and Integration module, and Authcache and Advanced Cached modules to enhance and monitor site performance Configure a Drupal multisite environment for best performance

Approach

This is a practical and solution-based book designed to help you to quickly discover and learn about specific aspects of Drupal performance that you are interested in. In each chapter, Drupal-based modular performance tips and solutions are investigated and explained in detail.

Who this book is written for

This book is written for Drupal beginners, developers, designers, and webmasters who utilize the Drupal content management system to create robust websites. It provides crucial performance-related information for users of all experience levels, including Drupal module contributors, webmasters who simply configure and maintain Drupal websites, and even Drupal themers.

This book expects basic knowledge of Drupal operation, configuration and server technologies, and applications including MySQL and PHP.

See larger image Digital Image Processing: An Algorithmic Introduction using Java (Hardcover) By (author) Wilhelm Burger, Mark J. Burge List Price: $89.95 USD New From: $54.00 In Stock Used from: $53.97 In Stock

`This will be one of my continuing reference books for some time to come.`
Steve Cunningham, PhD, Past President of SIGGRAPH

`An excellent resource for the users of ImageJ.`
Wayne Rasband, author of ImageJ

This modern, self-contained, textbook explains the fundamental algorithms of digital image processing through practical examples and complete Java implementations.  Available for the first time in English, Digital Image Processing is the definitive textbook for students, researchers, and professionals in search of critical analysis and modern implementations of the most important algorithms in the field.

? Practical examples and carefully constructed chapter-ending exercises drawn from the authors’ years of experience teaching this material

? Real implementations, concise mathematical notation, and precise algorithmic descriptions designed for programmers and practitioners

? Easily adaptable Java code and completely worked out examples for easy inclusion in existing, and rapid prototyping of new, applications

? Self-contained chapters and additional online material suitable for a flexible one- or two- semester course

? Uses ImageJ, the image processing system developed, maintained, and freely distributed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

? A comprehensive Website (www.imagingbook.com) with complete Java source code, test images, and additional instructor materials

This comprehensive, reader-friendly introduction is ideal for foundation courses as well as eminently suitable for self-study.

Wilhelm Burger is the director of the Digital Media degree programs at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences at Hagenberg.

Mark J. Burge is a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a principal at Noblis (Mitretek) in Washington, D.C.

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See larger image C++ Programming for the Absolute Beginner (Paperback) By (author) Mark Lee List Price: $29.99 USD New From: $17.90 In Stock Used from: $17.00 In Stock

If you are new to programming with C and are looking for a solid introduction, this is the book for you. Developed by computer science instructors, books in the `For the Absolute Beginner`? series teach the principles of programming through simple game creation. You will acquire the skills that you need for more practical C programming applications and will learn how these skills can be put to use in real-world scenarios. Throughout the chapters, you will find code samples that illustrate concepts presented. At the end of each chapter, you will find a complete game that demonstrates the key ideas in the chapter, a summary of the chapter, and a set of challenges that tests your newfound knowledge. By the time you finish this book, you?ll be well versed in C and be able to apply the basic programming principles you?ve learned to the next programming language you tackle.