Pro Android with Kotlin
Develop Android apps with Kotlin to create more elegant programs than the Java equivalent. This book covers the various aspects of a modern Android app that professionals are expected to encounter. There are chapters dealing with all the important aspects of the Android platform, including GUI design, file- and data-handling, coping with phone calls, multimedia apps, interaction with location and mapping services, monetizing apps, and much more. Pro Android with Kotlin is an invaluable source for developers wanting to build real-world state-of-the-art apps for modern Android devices. Integrate activities, such as intents, services, toasts and more, into your Android apps; Build UIs in Android using layouts, widgets, lists, menus, and action bars; Deal with data in your Android apps using data persistence and cloud access; Design for different Android devices; Create multimedia apps in Android; Secure, deploy, and monetize your Android apps. ...
Develop Android apps with Kotlin to create more elegant programs than the Java equivalent. This book covers the various aspects of a modern Android app that professionals are expected to encounter. There are chapters dealing with all the important aspects of the Android platform, including GUI design, file- and data-handling, coping with phone calls, multimedia apps, interaction with location and mapping services, monetizing apps, and much more. Pro Android with Kotlin is an invaluable source for developers wanting to build real-world state-of-the-art apps for modern Android devices. Integrate activities, such as intents, services, toasts and more, into your Android apps; Build UIs in Android using layouts, widgets, lists, menus, and action bars; Deal with data in your Android apps using data persistence and cloud access; Design for different Android devices; Create multimedia apps in Android; Secure, deploy, and monetize your Android apps. ...
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons
Rely on this practical, end-to-end guide on cyber safety and online security written expressly for a non-technical audience. You will have just what you need to protect yourself - step by step, without judgment, and with as little jargon as possible. Just how secure is your computer right now? You probably don't really know. Computers and the Internet have revolutionized the modern world, but if you're like most people, you have no clue how these things work and don't know the real threats. Protecting your computer is like defending a medieval castle. While moats, walls, drawbridges, and castle guards can be effective, you'd go broke trying to build something dragon-proof. This book is not about protecting yourself from a targeted attack by the NSA; it's about armoring yourself against common hackers and mass surveillance. There are dozens of no-brainer things we all should be doing to protect our computers and safeguard our data - just like wearing a seat belt, installing smoke ala ...
Rely on this practical, end-to-end guide on cyber safety and online security written expressly for a non-technical audience. You will have just what you need to protect yourself - step by step, without judgment, and with as little jargon as possible. Just how secure is your computer right now? You probably don't really know. Computers and the Internet have revolutionized the modern world, but if you're like most people, you have no clue how these things work and don't know the real threats. Protecting your computer is like defending a medieval castle. While moats, walls, drawbridges, and castle guards can be effective, you'd go broke trying to build something dragon-proof. This book is not about protecting yourself from a targeted attack by the NSA; it's about armoring yourself against common hackers and mass surveillance. There are dozens of no-brainer things we all should be doing to protect our computers and safeguard our data - just like wearing a seat belt, installing smoke ala ...
MicroStrategy Quick Start Guide
MicroStrategy is an enterprise business intelligence application. It turns data into reports for making and executing key organization decisions. This book shows you how to implement Business Intelligence (BI) with MicroStrategy. It takes you from setting up and configuring MicroStrategy to security and administration. The book starts by detailing the different components of the MicroStrategy platform, and the key concepts of Metadata and Project Source. You will then install and configure MicroStrategy and lay down the foundations for building MicroStrategy BI solutions. By learning about objects and different object types, you will develop a strong understanding of the MicroStrategy Schema and Public Objects. With these MicroStrategy objects, you will enhance and scale your BI and Analytics solutions. Finally, you will learn about the administration, security, and monitoring of your BI solution. ...
MicroStrategy is an enterprise business intelligence application. It turns data into reports for making and executing key organization decisions. This book shows you how to implement Business Intelligence (BI) with MicroStrategy. It takes you from setting up and configuring MicroStrategy to security and administration. The book starts by detailing the different components of the MicroStrategy platform, and the key concepts of Metadata and Project Source. You will then install and configure MicroStrategy and lay down the foundations for building MicroStrategy BI solutions. By learning about objects and different object types, you will develop a strong understanding of the MicroStrategy Schema and Public Objects. With these MicroStrategy objects, you will enhance and scale your BI and Analytics solutions. Finally, you will learn about the administration, security, and monitoring of your BI solution. ...
Swift Game Development, 3rd Edition
Swift is the perfect choice for game development. Developers are intrigued by Swift and want to make use of new features to develop their best games yet. Packed with best practices and easy-to-use examples, this book leads you step by step through the development of your first Swift game. The book starts by introducing Swift's best features - including its new ones for game development. Using SpriteKit, you will learn how to animate sprites and textures. Along the way, you will master physics, animations, and collision effects and how to build the UI aspects of a game. You will then work on creating a 3D game using the SceneKit framework. Further, we will look at how to add monetization and integrate Game Center. With iOS 12, we see the introduction of ARKit 2.0. This new version allows us to integrate shared experiences such as multiplayer augmented reality and persistent AR that is tied to a specific location so that the same information can be replicated on all connected devices. ...
Swift is the perfect choice for game development. Developers are intrigued by Swift and want to make use of new features to develop their best games yet. Packed with best practices and easy-to-use examples, this book leads you step by step through the development of your first Swift game. The book starts by introducing Swift's best features - including its new ones for game development. Using SpriteKit, you will learn how to animate sprites and textures. Along the way, you will master physics, animations, and collision effects and how to build the UI aspects of a game. You will then work on creating a 3D game using the SceneKit framework. Further, we will look at how to add monetization and integrate Game Center. With iOS 12, we see the introduction of ARKit 2.0. This new version allows us to integrate shared experiences such as multiplayer augmented reality and persistent AR that is tied to a specific location so that the same information can be replicated on all connected devices. ...
Mastering Game Development with Unreal Engine 4, 2nd Edition
To make a basic combat game from scratch, you will quickly override existing UE4 classes, and add and implement simple C++ functions while running and building them. These are all discussed as a short summary for new developers and as a quick refresher for experienced developers. Next, you will build a combat player character with expanded controls, create logic for a character, swap weapons, attack and move, bridge over scene changes and transitions, retain data between scenes, and manage the scene-change process. You will then build an intelligent enemy AI and add physics based particles for weapon impacts. You will also get acquainted with cutting-edge features such as Volumetric Lightmaps for precomputed lighting, and Atmospheric and Volumetric Fog, to build advanced visuals in our ongoing GitHub project. Moving on, you will explore the tools required to build an in-game cut-scene for a more professional gameplay experience and story direction. Along the way, you will impl ...
To make a basic combat game from scratch, you will quickly override existing UE4 classes, and add and implement simple C++ functions while running and building them. These are all discussed as a short summary for new developers and as a quick refresher for experienced developers. Next, you will build a combat player character with expanded controls, create logic for a character, swap weapons, attack and move, bridge over scene changes and transitions, retain data between scenes, and manage the scene-change process. You will then build an intelligent enemy AI and add physics based particles for weapon impacts. You will also get acquainted with cutting-edge features such as Volumetric Lightmaps for precomputed lighting, and Atmospheric and Volumetric Fog, to build advanced visuals in our ongoing GitHub project. Moving on, you will explore the tools required to build an in-game cut-scene for a more professional gameplay experience and story direction. Along the way, you will impl ...
DevOps for Serverless Applications
Serverless applications are becoming very popular among developers and are generating a buzz in the tech market. Many organizations struggle with the effective implementation of DevOps with serverless applications. DevOps for Serverless Applications takes you through different DevOps-related scenarios to give you a solid foundation in serverless deployment. You will start by understanding the concepts of serverless architecture and development, and why they are important. Then, you will get to grips with the DevOps ideology and gain an understanding of how it fits into the Serverless Framework. You'll cover deployment framework building and deployment with CI and CD pipelines for serverless applications. You will also explore log management and issue reporting in the serverless environment. In the concluding chapters, you will learn important security tips and best practices for secure pipeline management. By the end of this book, you will be in a position to effectively build a ...
Serverless applications are becoming very popular among developers and are generating a buzz in the tech market. Many organizations struggle with the effective implementation of DevOps with serverless applications. DevOps for Serverless Applications takes you through different DevOps-related scenarios to give you a solid foundation in serverless deployment. You will start by understanding the concepts of serverless architecture and development, and why they are important. Then, you will get to grips with the DevOps ideology and gain an understanding of how it fits into the Serverless Framework. You'll cover deployment framework building and deployment with CI and CD pipelines for serverless applications. You will also explore log management and issue reporting in the serverless environment. In the concluding chapters, you will learn important security tips and best practices for secure pipeline management. By the end of this book, you will be in a position to effectively build a ...
Building Enterprise JavaScript Applications
With the over-abundance of tools in the JavaScript ecosystem, it's easy to feel lost. Build tools, package managers, loaders, bundlers, linters, compilers, transpilers, typecheckers - how do you make sense of it all? In this book, we will build a simple API and React application from scratch. We begin by setting up our development environment using Git, yarn, Babel, and ESLint. Then, we will use Express, Elasticsearch and JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) to build a stateless API service. For the front-end, we will use React, Redux, and Webpack. A central theme in the book is maintaining code quality. As such, we will enforce a Test-Driven Development (TDD) process using Selenium, Cucumber, Mocha, Sinon, and Istanbul. As we progress through the book, the focus will shift towards automation and infrastructure. You will learn to work with Continuous Integration (CI) servers like Jenkins, deploying services inside Docker containers, and run them on Kubernetes. By following this book, you wo ...
With the over-abundance of tools in the JavaScript ecosystem, it's easy to feel lost. Build tools, package managers, loaders, bundlers, linters, compilers, transpilers, typecheckers - how do you make sense of it all? In this book, we will build a simple API and React application from scratch. We begin by setting up our development environment using Git, yarn, Babel, and ESLint. Then, we will use Express, Elasticsearch and JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) to build a stateless API service. For the front-end, we will use React, Redux, and Webpack. A central theme in the book is maintaining code quality. As such, we will enforce a Test-Driven Development (TDD) process using Selenium, Cucumber, Mocha, Sinon, and Istanbul. As we progress through the book, the focus will shift towards automation and infrastructure. You will learn to work with Continuous Integration (CI) servers like Jenkins, deploying services inside Docker containers, and run them on Kubernetes. By following this book, you wo ...
Introducing InnoDB Cluster
Set up, manage, and configure the new InnoDB Cluster feature in MySQL from Oracle. If you are growing your MySQL installation and want to explore making your servers highly available, this book provides what you need to know about high availability and the new tools that are available in MySQL 8.0.11 and later. Introducing InnoDB Cluster teaches you about the building blocks that make up InnoDB Cluster such as MySQL Group Replication for storing data redundantly, MySQL Router for the routing of inbound connections, and MySQL Shell for simplified setup and configuration, status reporting, and even automatic failover. You will understand how it all works together to ensure that your data are available even when your primary database server goes down. Features described in this book are available in the Community Edition of MySQL, beginning with the version 8.0.11 GA release, making this book relevant for any MySQL users in need of redundancy against failure. Tutorials in the book s ...
Set up, manage, and configure the new InnoDB Cluster feature in MySQL from Oracle. If you are growing your MySQL installation and want to explore making your servers highly available, this book provides what you need to know about high availability and the new tools that are available in MySQL 8.0.11 and later. Introducing InnoDB Cluster teaches you about the building blocks that make up InnoDB Cluster such as MySQL Group Replication for storing data redundantly, MySQL Router for the routing of inbound connections, and MySQL Shell for simplified setup and configuration, status reporting, and even automatic failover. You will understand how it all works together to ensure that your data are available even when your primary database server goes down. Features described in this book are available in the Community Edition of MySQL, beginning with the version 8.0.11 GA release, making this book relevant for any MySQL users in need of redundancy against failure. Tutorials in the book s ...
UX Optimization
Combine two typically separate sources of data - behavioral quantitative data and usability testing qualitative data - into a powerful single tool that helps improve your organization's website by increasing conversion and ROI. The combination of the what is happening data of website activity, coupled with the why it's happening data of usability testing, provides a complete 360-degree view into what is causing poor performance, where your website can be optimized, and how it can be improved. There are plenty of books focusing on big data and using data analytics to improve websites, or on utilizing usability testing and UX research methods for improvement. This is the first book that combines both subjects into a methodology you can use over and over again to improve any website. UX Optimization is ideal for anyone who wants to combine the power of quantitative data with the insights provided by qualitative data to improve website results. The book uses step-by-step instructions ...
Combine two typically separate sources of data - behavioral quantitative data and usability testing qualitative data - into a powerful single tool that helps improve your organization's website by increasing conversion and ROI. The combination of the what is happening data of website activity, coupled with the why it's happening data of usability testing, provides a complete 360-degree view into what is causing poor performance, where your website can be optimized, and how it can be improved. There are plenty of books focusing on big data and using data analytics to improve websites, or on utilizing usability testing and UX research methods for improvement. This is the first book that combines both subjects into a methodology you can use over and over again to improve any website. UX Optimization is ideal for anyone who wants to combine the power of quantitative data with the insights provided by qualitative data to improve website results. The book uses step-by-step instructions ...
Applied Deep Learning
Work with advanced topics in deep learning, such as optimization algorithms, hyper-parameter tuning, dropout, and error analysis as well as strategies to address typical problems encountered when training deep neural networks. You'll begin by studying the activation functions mostly with a single neuron (ReLu, sigmoid, and Swish), seeing how to perform linear and logistic regression using TensorFlow, and choosing the right cost function. The next section talks about more complicated neural network architectures with several layers and neurons and explores the problem of random initialization of weights. An entire chapter is dedicated to a complete overview of neural network error analysis, giving examples of solving problems originating from variance, bias, overfitting, and datasets coming from different distributions. Applied Deep Learning also discusses how to implement logistic regression completely from scratch without using any Python library except NumPy, to let you appre ...
Work with advanced topics in deep learning, such as optimization algorithms, hyper-parameter tuning, dropout, and error analysis as well as strategies to address typical problems encountered when training deep neural networks. You'll begin by studying the activation functions mostly with a single neuron (ReLu, sigmoid, and Swish), seeing how to perform linear and logistic regression using TensorFlow, and choosing the right cost function. The next section talks about more complicated neural network architectures with several layers and neurons and explores the problem of random initialization of weights. An entire chapter is dedicated to a complete overview of neural network error analysis, giving examples of solving problems originating from variance, bias, overfitting, and datasets coming from different distributions. Applied Deep Learning also discusses how to implement logistic regression completely from scratch without using any Python library except NumPy, to let you appre ...