Writing Game Center Apps in iOS
Now that Apple has introduced the GameKit framework to its iOS SDK, you can integrate Game Center features directly into your iPhone and iPad apps. This concise cookbook shows you how it's done, with 18 targeted recipes for adding leaderboards, user authentication, achievements, multiplayer games, and many other features. How do you display players' scores and achievements? How do you create Game Center accounts and add friends? Each recipe in this book includes a simple code solution you can put to work immediately, along with a detailed discussion that offers insight into why and how the recipe works. ...
Now that Apple has introduced the GameKit framework to its iOS SDK, you can integrate Game Center features directly into your iPhone and iPad apps. This concise cookbook shows you how it's done, with 18 targeted recipes for adding leaderboards, user authentication, achievements, multiplayer games, and many other features. How do you display players' scores and achievements? How do you create Game Center accounts and add friends? Each recipe in this book includes a simple code solution you can put to work immediately, along with a detailed discussion that offers insight into why and how the recipe works. ...
Concurrent Programming in Mac OS X and iOS
Now that multicore processors are coming to mobile devices, wouldn't it be great to take advantage of all those cores without having to manage threads? This concise book shows you how to use Apple's Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) to simplify programming on multicore iOS devices and Mac OS X. Managing your application’s resources on more than one core isn't easy, but it's vital. Apps that use only one core in a multicore environment will slow to a crawl. If you know how to program with Cocoa or Cocoa Touch, this guide will get you started with GCD right away, with many examples to help you write high-performing multithreaded apps. ...
Now that multicore processors are coming to mobile devices, wouldn't it be great to take advantage of all those cores without having to manage threads? This concise book shows you how to use Apple's Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) to simplify programming on multicore iOS devices and Mac OS X. Managing your application’s resources on more than one core isn't easy, but it's vital. Apps that use only one core in a multicore environment will slow to a crawl. If you know how to program with Cocoa or Cocoa Touch, this guide will get you started with GCD right away, with many examples to help you write high-performing multithreaded apps. ...
Fragile networks
A unified treatment of the vulnerabilities that exist in real-world network systems-with tools to identify synergies for mergers and acquisitions Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World presents a comprehensive study of network systems and the roles these systems play in our everyday lives. This book successfully conceptualizes, defines, and constructs mathematically rigorous, computer-based tools for the assessment of network performance and efficiency, along with robustness and vulnerability analysis. The result is a thorough exploration that promotes an understanding of the critical infrastructure of today's network systems, from congested urban transportation networks and supply chain networks under disruption to financial networks and the Internet. ...
A unified treatment of the vulnerabilities that exist in real-world network systems-with tools to identify synergies for mergers and acquisitions Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World presents a comprehensive study of network systems and the roles these systems play in our everyday lives. This book successfully conceptualizes, defines, and constructs mathematically rigorous, computer-based tools for the assessment of network performance and efficiency, along with robustness and vulnerability analysis. The result is a thorough exploration that promotes an understanding of the critical infrastructure of today's network systems, from congested urban transportation networks and supply chain networks under disruption to financial networks and the Internet. ...
Gamification by Design
What do Foursquare, Zynga, Nike+, and Groupon have in common? These and many other brands use gamification to deliver a sticky, viral, and engaging experience to their customers. This book provides the design strategy and tactics you need to integrate game mechanics into any kind of consumer-facing website or mobile app. Learn how to use core game concepts, design patterns, and meaningful code samples to a create fun and captivating social environment. Whether you're an executive, developer, producer, or product specialist, Gamification by Design will show you how game mechanics can help you build customer loyalty. ...
What do Foursquare, Zynga, Nike+, and Groupon have in common? These and many other brands use gamification to deliver a sticky, viral, and engaging experience to their customers. This book provides the design strategy and tactics you need to integrate game mechanics into any kind of consumer-facing website or mobile app. Learn how to use core game concepts, design patterns, and meaningful code samples to a create fun and captivating social environment. Whether you're an executive, developer, producer, or product specialist, Gamification by Design will show you how game mechanics can help you build customer loyalty. ...
C++ Concurrency in Action
Without assuming you have a background in the subject, C++ Concurrency in Action gradually enables you to write robust and elegant multithreaded applications in C++11. You'll explore the threading memory model, the new multithreading support library, and basic thread launching and synchronization facilities. Along the way, you'll learn how to navigate the trickier bits of programming for concurrency. Written for C++ programmers who are new to concurrency and others who may have written multithreaded code using other languages, APIs, or platforms. ...
Without assuming you have a background in the subject, C++ Concurrency in Action gradually enables you to write robust and elegant multithreaded applications in C++11. You'll explore the threading memory model, the new multithreading support library, and basic thread launching and synchronization facilities. Along the way, you'll learn how to navigate the trickier bits of programming for concurrency. Written for C++ programmers who are new to concurrency and others who may have written multithreaded code using other languages, APIs, or platforms. ...
Machine Learning in Action
A machine is said to learn when its performance improves with experience. Learning requires algorithms and programs that capture data and ferret out the interesting or useful patterns. Once the specialized domain of analysts and mathematicians, machine learning is becoming a skill needed by many. Machine Learning in Action is a clearly written tutorial for developers. It avoids academic language and takes you straight to the techniques you'll use in your day-to-day work. Many (Python) examples present the core algorithms of statistical data processing, data analysis, and data visualization in code you can reuse. You'll understand the concepts and how they fit in with tactical tasks like classification, forecasting, recommendations, and higher-level features like summarization and simplification. ...
A machine is said to learn when its performance improves with experience. Learning requires algorithms and programs that capture data and ferret out the interesting or useful patterns. Once the specialized domain of analysts and mathematicians, machine learning is becoming a skill needed by many. Machine Learning in Action is a clearly written tutorial for developers. It avoids academic language and takes you straight to the techniques you'll use in your day-to-day work. Many (Python) examples present the core algorithms of statistical data processing, data analysis, and data visualization in code you can reuse. You'll understand the concepts and how they fit in with tactical tasks like classification, forecasting, recommendations, and higher-level features like summarization and simplification. ...
Professional Cross-Platform Mobile Development in C#
With employees, rather than the IT department, now driving the decision of which devices to use on the job, many companies are scrambling to integrate enterprise applications. Fortunately, enterprise developers can now create apps for all major mobile devices using C#/.NET and Mono, languages most already know. A team of authors draws on their vast experiences to teach you how to create cross-platform mobile applications, while delivering the same functionality to PC's, laptops and the web from a single technology platform and code-base. Rather than reinventing the wheel with each app, this book provides you with the tools you need for cross-platform development - no new languages needed! ...
With employees, rather than the IT department, now driving the decision of which devices to use on the job, many companies are scrambling to integrate enterprise applications. Fortunately, enterprise developers can now create apps for all major mobile devices using C#/.NET and Mono, languages most already know. A team of authors draws on their vast experiences to teach you how to create cross-platform mobile applications, while delivering the same functionality to PC's, laptops and the web from a single technology platform and code-base. Rather than reinventing the wheel with each app, this book provides you with the tools you need for cross-platform development - no new languages needed! ...
Windows PowerShell for Developers
The PowerShell platform gives developers seamless integration with legacy .Net code while adding a range previously not seen in a language. With this book you will quickly learn the fundamentals, and move on to writing rich, sophisticated scripts to manage key tasks and processes in your development activities. PowerShell .Net for Developers begins with a cheat sheet of language primitives to get you on your feet with the language. You'll see how to speed up nearly every aspect of the development process using PowerShell. ...
The PowerShell platform gives developers seamless integration with legacy .Net code while adding a range previously not seen in a language. With this book you will quickly learn the fundamentals, and move on to writing rich, sophisticated scripts to manage key tasks and processes in your development activities. PowerShell .Net for Developers begins with a cheat sheet of language primitives to get you on your feet with the language. You'll see how to speed up nearly every aspect of the development process using PowerShell. ...
HLSL and Pixel Shaders for XAML Developers
Graphic Shaders are used throughout the game and movie industry to improve onscreen graphics. They are versatile, doing important tasks like making computer rendered aliens look realistic, providing the ripples on a background lake or growing fur on the latest Pixar monster. In the PC world, programmers are often delighted to find that shaders are nothing more than a miniature program that is optimized to run on the computers GPU. This happiness fades when they start exploring the strange programming model underlying shaders however. Because shaders are strung together in an unusual fashion and run on a massive parallel processer developers shouldn’t use their traditional OO or procedural approach to writing code. Writing effective shaders requires a mind shift regarding how to craft a useful algorithm. To top it off, shaders are written in a unfamiliar C-like language. In the Microsoft DirectX world the dominant language is High Level Shader Language or HLSL. ...
Graphic Shaders are used throughout the game and movie industry to improve onscreen graphics. They are versatile, doing important tasks like making computer rendered aliens look realistic, providing the ripples on a background lake or growing fur on the latest Pixar monster. In the PC world, programmers are often delighted to find that shaders are nothing more than a miniature program that is optimized to run on the computers GPU. This happiness fades when they start exploring the strange programming model underlying shaders however. Because shaders are strung together in an unusual fashion and run on a massive parallel processer developers shouldn’t use their traditional OO or procedural approach to writing code. Writing effective shaders requires a mind shift regarding how to craft a useful algorithm. To top it off, shaders are written in a unfamiliar C-like language. In the Microsoft DirectX world the dominant language is High Level Shader Language or HLSL. ...
SQL Server DMVs in Action
SQL Server DMVs in Action shows you how to obtain, interpret, and act on the information captured by DMVs to keep your system in top shape. The over 100 code examples help you master DMVs and give you an instantly reusable SQL library. You'll also learn to use Dynamic Management Functions (DMFs), which provide further details that enable you to improve your system's performance and health. ...
SQL Server DMVs in Action shows you how to obtain, interpret, and act on the information captured by DMVs to keep your system in top shape. The over 100 code examples help you master DMVs and give you an instantly reusable SQL library. You'll also learn to use Dynamic Management Functions (DMFs), which provide further details that enable you to improve your system's performance and health. ...