Understanding Context
To make sense of the world, we're always trying to place things in context, whether our environment is physical, cultural, or something else altogether. Now that we live among digital, always-networked products, apps, and places, context is more complicated than ever-starting with "where" and "who" we are. This practical, insightful book provides a powerful toolset to help information architects, UX professionals, and web and app designers understand and solve the many challenges of contextual ambiguity in the products and services they create. You'll discover not only how to design for a given context, but also how design participates in making context. ...
To make sense of the world, we're always trying to place things in context, whether our environment is physical, cultural, or something else altogether. Now that we live among digital, always-networked products, apps, and places, context is more complicated than ever-starting with "where" and "who" we are. This practical, insightful book provides a powerful toolset to help information architects, UX professionals, and web and app designers understand and solve the many challenges of contextual ambiguity in the products and services they create. You'll discover not only how to design for a given context, but also how design participates in making context. ...
Customizing Chef
Take advantage of Chef's highly customizable design to tackle specific automation issues that you can't solve by simply using Chef's tools, resources, and services out of the box. With this practical guide, you'll examine the internal structure of this configuration management technology and learn where, how, and why to add custom code. Author Jon Cowie not only provides code snippets and practical advice for customizing Chef, but also helps you determine case by case whether it's in your best interests to customize at all. If you have intermediate-to-advanced Chef experience, this book is indispensable. ...
Take advantage of Chef's highly customizable design to tackle specific automation issues that you can't solve by simply using Chef's tools, resources, and services out of the box. With this practical guide, you'll examine the internal structure of this configuration management technology and learn where, how, and why to add custom code. Author Jon Cowie not only provides code snippets and practical advice for customizing Chef, but also helps you determine case by case whether it's in your best interests to customize at all. If you have intermediate-to-advanced Chef experience, this book is indispensable. ...
Swift Pocket Reference
Get quick answers for developing and debugging applications with Swift, Apple's multi-paradigm programming language. This pocket reference is the perfect on-the-job tool for learning Swift's modern language features, including type safety, generics, type inference, closures, tuples, automatic memory management, and support for Unicode. Designed to work with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, Swift can be used in tandem with Objective-C, and either of these languages can call APIs implemented in the other. Swift is still evolving, but it's clear that Apple sees it as the future language of choice for iOS and OS X software development. ...
Get quick answers for developing and debugging applications with Swift, Apple's multi-paradigm programming language. This pocket reference is the perfect on-the-job tool for learning Swift's modern language features, including type safety, generics, type inference, closures, tuples, automatic memory management, and support for Unicode. Designed to work with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, Swift can be used in tandem with Objective-C, and either of these languages can call APIs implemented in the other. Swift is still evolving, but it's clear that Apple sees it as the future language of choice for iOS and OS X software development. ...
Hadoop MapReduce v2 Cookbook, 2nd Edition
Starting with installing Hadoop YARN, MapReduce, HDFS, and other Hadoop ecosystem components, with this book, you will soon learn about many exciting topics such as MapReduce patterns, using Hadoop to solve analytics, classifications, online marketing, recommendations, and data indexing and searching. You will learn how to take advantage of Hadoop ecosystem projects including Hive, HBase, Pig, Mahout, Nutch, and Giraph and be introduced to deploying in cloud environments. Finally, you will be able to apply the knowledge you have gained to your own real-world scenarios to achieve the best-possible results. ...
Starting with installing Hadoop YARN, MapReduce, HDFS, and other Hadoop ecosystem components, with this book, you will soon learn about many exciting topics such as MapReduce patterns, using Hadoop to solve analytics, classifications, online marketing, recommendations, and data indexing and searching. You will learn how to take advantage of Hadoop ecosystem projects including Hive, HBase, Pig, Mahout, Nutch, and Giraph and be introduced to deploying in cloud environments. Finally, you will be able to apply the knowledge you have gained to your own real-world scenarios to achieve the best-possible results. ...
Arduino Android Blueprints
Arduino is an open source microcontroller built on a single-circuit board that is capable of receiving sensory input from the environment and controlling interactive physical objects. The first few projects of this book will focus on displaying tweets within your app by connecting to Twitter, controlling basic functions of the Arduino board, and connecting an Arduino-powered weather station to an Android phone via Bluetooth. Next, you will learn how to use the Arduino Yún board to connect a standard USB camera to a local Wi-Fi network. At the end of the book, you will build a simple mobile robot, connect it to an Arduino board and a Bluetooth module, then control the robot from an Android phone using Bluetooth. Each project is explained in a step-by-step fashion, always starting with the choice of components and the assembly of the hardware. ...
Arduino is an open source microcontroller built on a single-circuit board that is capable of receiving sensory input from the environment and controlling interactive physical objects. The first few projects of this book will focus on displaying tweets within your app by connecting to Twitter, controlling basic functions of the Arduino board, and connecting an Arduino-powered weather station to an Android phone via Bluetooth. Next, you will learn how to use the Arduino Yún board to connect a standard USB camera to a local Wi-Fi network. At the end of the book, you will build a simple mobile robot, connect it to an Arduino board and a Bluetooth module, then control the robot from an Android phone using Bluetooth. Each project is explained in a step-by-step fashion, always starting with the choice of components and the assembly of the hardware. ...
Android for the BeagleBone Black
This book explores using the Android OS on the BeagleBone Black hardware platform and provides an introduction to Android's unique approach to hardware interfacing. You'll be walked through the process of installing and configuring Android on your BeagleBone Black, as well as preparing your PC development environment to create Android applications that directly interface with hardware devices. Several example projects within this book introduce you to using the GPIO, SPI, and I2C hardware interfaces of the BeagleBone Black. You'll create Android apps that communicate directly with actual hardware components such as sensors, memory chips, switches, and LEDs. Step-by-step guidance through both the software and hardware portions of these projects is provided. Combining all of the previous projects into a single project that uses GPIO, SPI, and I2C together, you will explore the details of creating an advanced hardware interfacing app. Finally, you'll be provided with information on tra ...
This book explores using the Android OS on the BeagleBone Black hardware platform and provides an introduction to Android's unique approach to hardware interfacing. You'll be walked through the process of installing and configuring Android on your BeagleBone Black, as well as preparing your PC development environment to create Android applications that directly interface with hardware devices. Several example projects within this book introduce you to using the GPIO, SPI, and I2C hardware interfaces of the BeagleBone Black. You'll create Android apps that communicate directly with actual hardware components such as sensors, memory chips, switches, and LEDs. Step-by-step guidance through both the software and hardware portions of these projects is provided. Combining all of the previous projects into a single project that uses GPIO, SPI, and I2C together, you will explore the details of creating an advanced hardware interfacing app. Finally, you'll be provided with information on tra ...
Mastering Hyper-V
Hyper-V is essentially a hypervisor technology, enabling a single physical machine to operate multiple operating systems simultaneously. Mastering Hyper-V is a practical, hands-on guide that will provide you with a number of clear, step-by-step exercises that help you understand how the products work and how you should go about them in your own deployment. More significantly, you will learn how to build your own high available Hyper-V cluster, while managing and troubleshooting your Hyper-V cluster environment. By the end of the book, you will integrate System Center Virtual Machine Manager in your VMware environment, build blocks to create a true private cloud, operate your private cloud by using App Controller, and understand the features of Microsoft's public cloud offering, known as Microsoft Azure. ...
Hyper-V is essentially a hypervisor technology, enabling a single physical machine to operate multiple operating systems simultaneously. Mastering Hyper-V is a practical, hands-on guide that will provide you with a number of clear, step-by-step exercises that help you understand how the products work and how you should go about them in your own deployment. More significantly, you will learn how to build your own high available Hyper-V cluster, while managing and troubleshooting your Hyper-V cluster environment. By the end of the book, you will integrate System Center Virtual Machine Manager in your VMware environment, build blocks to create a true private cloud, operate your private cloud by using App Controller, and understand the features of Microsoft's public cloud offering, known as Microsoft Azure. ...
Microsoft Hyper-V PowerShell Automation
Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. Hyper-V is Microsoft's hypervisor that creates and runs virtual machines. Hyper-V for Windows PowerShell provides IT pros with an easy way to enable automation of management tasks within Windows Server. The Hyper-V PowerShell module includes several significant features that extend its use, improve its usability, and allow you to control and manage your Hyper-V environment with more granular control. This book explores the new features made available with Hyper-V version 3, and breaks down the mystery and confusion that surrounds which feature to use and when. It also teaches you the PowerShell way to automate the usage of these features. It will take you through a number of practical examples that will help you take advantage of the Hyper-V version 3 cmdlets efficiently. You will also learn how to use Hyper-V version 3 PowerShell cmdlets to install and configu ...
Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. Hyper-V is Microsoft's hypervisor that creates and runs virtual machines. Hyper-V for Windows PowerShell provides IT pros with an easy way to enable automation of management tasks within Windows Server. The Hyper-V PowerShell module includes several significant features that extend its use, improve its usability, and allow you to control and manage your Hyper-V environment with more granular control. This book explores the new features made available with Hyper-V version 3, and breaks down the mystery and confusion that surrounds which feature to use and when. It also teaches you the PowerShell way to automate the usage of these features. It will take you through a number of practical examples that will help you take advantage of the Hyper-V version 3 cmdlets efficiently. You will also learn how to use Hyper-V version 3 PowerShell cmdlets to install and configu ...
Xamarin Cross-platform Application Development, 2nd Edition
Developing a mobile application for just one platform is becoming a thing of the past. Companies expect their apps to be supported on both iOS and Android, while leveraging the best native features on both. Xamarin's tools help ease this problem by giving developers a single toolset to target both platforms. This book is a step-by-step guide to building real-world applications for iOS and Android. The book walks you through building a chat application, complete with a backend web service and native features such as GPS location, camera, and push notifications. Additionally, you'll learn how to use external libraries with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms to create shared user interfaces and make app-store-ready applications. This second edition has been updated with new screenshots and detailed steps to provide you with a holistic overview of the new features incorporated in Xamarin 3. By the end of the book, you will have gained expertise to build on the concepts learned and effectively de ...
Developing a mobile application for just one platform is becoming a thing of the past. Companies expect their apps to be supported on both iOS and Android, while leveraging the best native features on both. Xamarin's tools help ease this problem by giving developers a single toolset to target both platforms. This book is a step-by-step guide to building real-world applications for iOS and Android. The book walks you through building a chat application, complete with a backend web service and native features such as GPS location, camera, and push notifications. Additionally, you'll learn how to use external libraries with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms to create shared user interfaces and make app-store-ready applications. This second edition has been updated with new screenshots and detailed steps to provide you with a holistic overview of the new features incorporated in Xamarin 3. By the end of the book, you will have gained expertise to build on the concepts learned and effectively de ...
Mastering Unity Scripting
This book is an easy-to-follow guide that introduces you to advanced tips and techniques to code Unity games in C#. Using practical and hands-on examples across ten comprehensive chapters, you'll learn how C# can be applied creatively to build professional-grade games that sell. You will be able to create impressive Artificial Intelligence for enemy characters, customize camera rendering for postprocess effects, and improve scene management by understanding component-based architecture. In addition, you will have an in-depth look at the .NET classes used to increase program reliability, see how to process datasets such as CSV files, and understand how to run advanced queries on data. By the end of this book, you'll become a powerful Unity developer, equipped with plenty of tools and techniques to quickly and effectively develop merchantable games. ...
This book is an easy-to-follow guide that introduces you to advanced tips and techniques to code Unity games in C#. Using practical and hands-on examples across ten comprehensive chapters, you'll learn how C# can be applied creatively to build professional-grade games that sell. You will be able to create impressive Artificial Intelligence for enemy characters, customize camera rendering for postprocess effects, and improve scene management by understanding component-based architecture. In addition, you will have an in-depth look at the .NET classes used to increase program reliability, see how to process datasets such as CSV files, and understand how to run advanced queries on data. By the end of this book, you'll become a powerful Unity developer, equipped with plenty of tools and techniques to quickly and effectively develop merchantable games. ...