We look at how to set up your spreadsheet, getting data into Excel, formatting your spreadsheet, a bit of display management and how to print and share your spreadsheets. Learn Excel Visually The idea of these short handy bite-size books is to provide you with what I have found to be most useful elements of Excel within my day-to-day work and life. I don’t tell you about all the bells and whistles – just what you need on a daily basis. These eBooks are suitable for anyone who is looking to learn Excel and wants to increase their productivity and efficiency, both at work and home. Please bear in mind I don’t cover all functionality of all areas, the point is that I strip out anything that’s not useful and only highlight the functionality that I believe is useful on a daily basis. Don’t buy a huge textbook which you’ll never fully read, pick an eBook which is most relevant to your current learning, read it, apply it and then get on with your day.

    Fortunately, there s a solution: Erik T. Ray s Learning XML, Second Edition. This book presents an outstanding birds-eye view of the XML landscape. It s definitely not a programming book (though it does introduce some key XML programming issues). Rather, it s focused on key ideas you need to understand whatever you want to do with XML. That could be document management, web or print content delivery, application integration, B2B commerce, data storage, internationalization -- you name it.Ray s day job is software developer and XML specialist at O Reilly. There, he s helped to implement a complete publishing solution, using DocBook-XML and Perl to produce books in print, on CD-ROM, and for online delivery. So he understands XML from the real-world point of view of someone with a job to do. His first goal is to take on the big questions. First, What is XML? Ray attacks this question from multiple angles, introducing XML as a general-purpose information storage system, a markup language toolkit, and an open standard (or, increasingly, a collection of standards). What can (and can t) you do with XML? What s the history that led us here? And what tools do you need to get started? Next, he introduces the basic building blocks of XML markup and all XML-derived languages: stuff you ll need to know regardless of your goals. Through easy examples, you ll understand elements, attributes, entities, and processing instructions -- and how they fit together in a well-formed XML document. Then, it s on to representing information with XML -- in other words, understanding the nature and planning the structure of the documents you ll be using. Ray starts simply, then builds on his basic examples to discuss narrative documents with text flows, block and inline elements, and titled sections. Once you can handle those, he discusses more complex information modeling, as used in specialized markup languages such as VML. This edition contains an entirely new chapter on XML Schemas -- what he calls the shepherds that keep documents from straying outside of the herd and causing trouble. Schemas, of course, have become hugely important. This is one of the best plain-English introductions to the topic we ve seen. Ray then turns to presentation, introducing CSS stylesheets, basic usage, rule matching, properties, and more. A little later on, he returns to the subject -- this time with a complete introduction to XSL-FO that illuminates two powerful examples. The first is TEI-XML, a markup language for scholarly documents (Ray presents a Shakespearean sonnet, appropriately coded). The second is the immensely powerful DocBook -- which, as we ve observed, Ray knows inside and out. Learning XML is superbly written. Clear explanations. Simple examples. Great metaphors and analogies. And excellent introductions to nearly every topic that matters, from links to presentation, transformation to internationalization. If you re just starting out with XML, you re lucky to have it. Bill CamardaBill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

    With it has come vast amounts of data in a variety of fields such as medicine, biology, finance, and marketing. The challenge of understanding these data has led to the development of new tools in the field of statistics, and spawned new areas such as data mining, machine learning, and bioinformatics. Many of these tools have common underpinnings but are often expressed with different terminology. This book describes the important ideas in these areas in a common conceptual framework. While the approach is statistical, the emphasis is on concepts rather than mathematics. Many examples are given, with a liberal use of color graphics. It should be a valuable resource for statisticians and anyone interested in data mining in science or industry. The book's coverage is broad, from supervised learning (prediction) to unsupervised learning. The many topics include neural networks, support vector machines, classification trees and boosting—the first comprehensive treatment of this topic in any book. Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman are professors of statistics at Stanford University. They are prominent researchers in this area: Hastie and Tibshirani developed generalized additive models and wrote a popular book of that title. Hastie wrote much of the statistical modeling software in S-PLUS and invented principal curves and surfaces. Tibshirani proposed the Lasso and is co-author of the very successful An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Friedman is the co-inventor of many data-mining tools including CART, MARS, and projection pursuit.

    This reassuring book debunks the generally-accepted claims about necessary savings rates, which can cause paranoia among those beginning to contemplate retirement. The authors offer greater insight into planning approaches that are not widely understood, demystifies retirement targets (age, savings, income), and outlines concrete approaches to maximizing retirement savings.Offers practical advice for dealing with the changes to Canada's retirement system Includes advice for calculating your Neutral Retirement Income Target Contains solid financial advice in accessible language Written by the Executive Chairman and Chief Actuary of Morneau Shepell Canada's national actuarial consulting firm The Real Retirement offers a down-to-earth guide for preparing for comfortable retirement and shows what it takes to achieve it.

    It's a beautifully written tutorial that begins with the basic steps to get your first Ruby program up and running and goes on to explore sophisticated topics like callable objects, reflection, and threading. Whether the topic is simple or tough, the book's easy-to-follow examples and explanations will give you immediate confidence as you build your Ruby programming skills.The Well-Grounded Rubyist is a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the best-selling Ruby for Rails. In this new book, expert author David A. Black moves beyond Rails and presents a broader view of Ruby. It covers Ruby 1.9, and keeps the same sharp focus and clear writing that made Ruby for Rails stand out.Starting with the basics, The Well-Grounded Rubyist explains Ruby objects and their interactions from the ground up. In the middle chapters, the book turns to an examination of Ruby's built-in, core classes, showing the reader how to manipulate strings, numbers, arrays, ranges, hashes, sets, and more. Regular expressions get attention, as do file and other I/O operations.Along the way, the reader is introduced to numerous tools included in the standard Ruby distribution--tools like the task manager Rake and the interactive Ruby console-based interpreter Irb--that facilitate Ruby development and make it an integrated and pleasant experience.The book encompasses advanced topics, like the design of Ruby's class and module system, and the use of Ruby threads, taking even the new Rubyist deep into the language and giving every reader the foundations necessary to use, explore, and enjoy this unusually popular and versatile language.It's no wonder one reader commented: "The technical depth is just right to not distract beginners, yet detailed enough for more advanced readers."Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

    Until now. This practical guide provides the first comprehensive overview of software architecture's many aspects. You'll examine architectural characteristics, architectural patterns, component determination, diagramming and presenting architecture, evolutionary architecture, and many other topics.Authors Neal Ford and Mark Richards help you learn through examples in a variety of popular programming languages, such as Java, C#, JavaScript, and others. You'll focus on architecture principles with examples that apply across all technology stacks.

    But the state-of-the-art has moved forward dramatically since Meyers last updated this book in 1997. (For instance, there s now STL. Design patterns. Even new functionality being added through TR1 and Boost.) So Meyers has done a top-to-bottom rewrite, identifying the 55 most valuable techniques you need now to be exceptionally effective with C++. Over half of this edition s content is new. Templates broadly impact C++ development, and you ll find them everywhere. There s extensive coverage of multithreaded systems. There s an entirely new chapter on resource management. You ll find substantial new coverage of exceptions. Much is gained, but nothing s lost: You ll find the same depth of practical insight that first made Effective C++ a classic all those years ago. Bill Camarda, from the July 2005 href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/newslet... Only

    But it can be even trickier to use than either Unix or Linux, and harder still to master.Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition is your complete guide to FreeBSD, written by FreeBSD committer Michael W. Lucas. Lucas considers this completely revised and rewritten second edition of his landmark work to be his best work ever; a true product of his love for FreeBSD and the support of the FreeBSD community. Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition covers installation, networking, security, network services, system performance, kernel tweaking, filesystems, SMP, upgrading, crash debugging, and much more, including coverage of how to:Use advanced security features like packet filtering, virtual machines, and host-based intrusion detection Build custom live FreeBSD CDs and bootable flash Manage network services and filesystems Use DNS and set up email, IMAP, web, and FTP services for both servers and clients Monitor your system with performance-testing and troubleshooting tools Run diskless systems Manage schedulers, remap shared libraries, and optimize your system for your hardware and your workload Build custom network appliances with embedded FreeBSD Implement redundant disks, even without special hardware Integrate FreeBSD-specific SNMP into your network management system. Whether you're just getting started with FreeBSD or you've been using it for years, you'll find this book to be the definitive guide to FreeBSD that you've been waiting for.

    An effective testing strategy will deliver new functionality more aggressively, accelerate user feedback, and improve quality. However, for many developers, creating effective automated tests is a unique and unfamiliar challenge. xUnit Test Patterns is the definitive guide to writing automated tests using xUnit, the most popular unit testing framework in use today. Agile coach and test automation expert Gerard Meszaros describes 68 proven patterns for making tests easier to write, understand, and maintain. He then shows you how to make them more robust and repeatable--and far more cost-effective. Loaded with information, this book feels like three books in one. The first part is a detailed tutorial on test automation that covers everything from test strategy to in-depth test coding. The second part, a catalog of 18 frequently encountered "test smells," provides trouble-shooting guidelines to help you determine the root cause of problems and the most applicable patterns. The third part contains detailed descriptions of each pattern, including refactoring instructions illustrated by extensive code samples in multiple programming languages. Topics covered includeWriting better tests--and writing them faster The four phases of automated tests: fixture setup, exercising the system under test, result verification, and fixture teardown Improving test coverage by isolating software from its environment using Test Stubs and Mock Objects Designing software for greater testability Using test "smells" (including code smells, behavior smells, and project smells) to spot problems and know when and how to eliminate them Refactoring tests for greater simplicity, robustness, and execution speed This book will benefit developers, managers, and testers working with any agile or conventional development process, whether doing test-driven development or writing the tests last. While the patterns and smells are especially applicable to all members of the xUnit family, they also apply to next-generation behavior-driven development frameworks such as RSpec and JBehave and to other kinds of test automation tools, including recorded test tools and data-driven test tools such as Fit and FitNesse.Visual Summary of the Pattern Language Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Refactoring a Test PART I: The Narratives Chapter 1 A Brief Tour Chapter 2 Test Smells Chapter 3 Goals of Test Automation Chapter 4 Philosophy of Test Automation Chapter 5 Principles of Test Automation Chapter 6 Test Automation Strategy Chapter 7 xUnit Basics Chapter 8 Transient Fixture Management Chapter 9 Persistent Fixture Management Chapter 10 Result Verification Chapter 11 Using Test Doubles Chapter 12 Organizing Our Tests Chapter 13 Testing with Databases Chapter 14 A Roadmap to Effective Test Automation PART II: The Test Smells Chapter 15 Code Smells Chapter 16 Behavior Smells Chapter 17 Project Smells PART III: The Patterns Chapter 18 Test Strategy Patterns Chapter 19 xUnit Basics Patterns Chapter 20 Fixture Setup Patterns Chapter 21 Result Verification Patterns Chapter 22 Fixture Teardown Patterns Chapter 23 Test Double Patterns Chapter 24 Test Organization Patterns Chapter 25 Database Patterns Chapter 26 Design-for-Testability Patterns Chapter 27 Value Patterns PART IV: Appendixes Appendix A Test Refactorings Appendix B xUnit Terminology Appendix C xUnit Family Members Appendix D Tools Appendix E Goals and Principles Appendix F Smells, Aliases, and Causes Appendix G Patterns, Aliases, and Variations Glossary References Index "

    Building these systems is complicated and, because few formally established patterns are available for designing them, most of these systems end up looking very unique. This practical guide shows you how to use existing software design patterns for designing and building reliable distributed applications.Although patterns such as those developed more than 20 years ago by the Gang of Four were largely restricted to running on single machines, author Brendan Burns--a Partner Architect in Microsoft Azure--demonstrates how you can reuse several of them in modern distributed applications.Systems engineers and application developers will learn how these patterns provide a common language and framework for dramatically increasing the quality of your system.

    Building on two widely acclaimed previous editions, Craig Larman has updated this book to fully reflect the new UML 2 standard, to help you master the art of object design, and to promote high-impact, iterative, and skillful agile modeling practices.Developers and students will learn object-oriented analysis and design (OOA/D) through three iterations of two cohesive, start-to-finish case studies. These case studies incrementally introduce key skills, essential OO principles and patterns, UML notation, and best practices. You won’t just learn UML diagrams - you’ll learn how to apply UML in the context of OO software development.Drawing on his unsurpassed experience as a mentor and consultant, Larman helps you understand evolutionary requirements and use cases, domain object modeling, responsibility-driven design, essential OO design, layered architectures, “Gang of Four” design patterns, GRASP, iterative methods, an agile approach to the Unified Process (UP), and much more. This edition’s extensive improvements include:- A stronger focus on helping you master OOA/D through case studies that demonstrate key OO principles and patterns, while also applying the UML- New coverage of UML 2, Agile Modeling, Test-Driven Development, and refactoring- Many new tips on combining iterative and evolutionary development with OOA/D- Updates for easier study, including new learning aids and graphics- New college educator teaching resources- Guidance on applying the UP in a light, agile spirit, complementary with other iterative methods such as XP and Scrum- Techniques for applying the UML to documenting architectures- A new chapter on evolutionary requirements, and much moreApplying UML and Patterns, Third Edition, is a lucid and practical introduction to thinking and designing with objects - and creating systems that are well crafted, robust, and maintainable.

    Beginning with an introduction to array formulas, this manual examines topics such as how they differ from ordinary formulas, the benefits and drawbacks of their use, functions that can and cannot handle array calculations, and array constants and functions. Among the practical applications surveyed include how to extract data from tables and unique lists, how to get results that match any criteria, and how to utilize various methods for unique counts. This book contains 529 screen shots.

    This book helps you use SQL and Excel to extract business information from relational databases and use that data to define business dimensions, store transactions about customers, produce results, and more. Each chapter explains when and why to perform a particular type of business analysis in order to obtain useful results, how to design and perform the analysis using SQL and Excel, and what the results should look like.

    "Peter Cooper, Editor of" Ruby Inside Using Rails, developers can build web applications of exceptional elegance and power. Although its remarkable capabilities have made Ruby on Rails one of the world s most popular web development frameworks, it can be challenging to learn and use. " Ruby on Rails Tutorial, Second Edition, " is the solution. Best-selling author and leading Rails developer Michael Hartl teaches Rails by guiding you through the development of your own complete sample application using the latest techniques in Rails web development. The updates to this edition include all-new site design using Twitter s Bootstrap; coverage of the new asset pipeline, including Sprockets and Sass; behavior-driven development (BDD) with Capybara and RSpec; better automated testing with Guard and Spork; roll your own authentication with has_secure_password; and an introduction to Gherkin and Cucumber. You ll find integrated tutorials not only for Rails, but also for the essential Ruby, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL skills you ll need when developing web applications. Hartl explains how each new technique solves a real-world problem, and he demonstrates this with bite-sized code that s simple enough to understand, yet novel enough to be useful. Whatever your previous web development experience, this book will guide you to true Rails mastery. This book will help you Install and set up your Rails development environment Go beyond generated code to truly understand how to build Rails applications from scratch Learn test-driven development (TDD) with RSpec Effectively use the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern Structure applications using the REST architecture Build static pages and transform them into dynamic ones Master the Ruby programming skills all Rails developers need Define high-quality site layouts and data models Implement registration and authentication systems, including validation and secure passwords Update, display, and delete users Add social features and microblogging, including an introduction to Ajax Record version changes with Git and share code at GitHub Simplify application deployment with Heroku