Whether they're landscape or portrait photographers, illustrators or fine artists, masking and compositing are essential skills to master for combining images to the extent that it is impossible to tell where one image stops and the other one begins. Photoshop artist and educator Katrin Eismann takes readers through numerous step-by-step examples, highlighting the tools and techniques used for masking and combining images. Featuring work by leading artists and photographers, this book focuses on the techniques used to create compelling compositions, including making fast and accurate selections, mastering Photoshop's masking tools, and implementing the concept and photography from start to finish. The book addresses working with Photoshop's selection tools; selecting and maintaining fine details and edges; working with difficult image elements, such as cloth, hair, or translucent objects; and green-screen techniques. Katrin also addresses the creative aspects of image compositing, including how to start with a concept, plan and execute the photography, and seamlessly assemble the image. Combining technical direction and inspiration, this book will expand readers' imaginations, so they can fluidly and professionally create images with Photoshop.

    However, large-scale agile development is difficult, and publicly available case studies have been scarce. Now, three agile pioneers at Hewlett-Packard present a candid, start-to-finish insider's look at how they've succeeded with agile in one of the company's most mission-critical software environments: firmware for HP LaserJet printers.This book tells the story of an extraordinary experiment and journey. Could agile principles be applied to re-architect an enormous legacy code base? Could agile enable both timely delivery and ongoing innovation? Could it really be applied to 400+ developers distributed across four states, three continents, and four business units? Could it go beyond delivering incremental gains, to meet the stretch goal of 10x developer productivity improvements?It could, and it did--but getting there was not easy.Writing for both managers and technologists, the authors candidly discuss both their successes and failures, presenting actionable lessons for other development organizations, as well as approaches that have proven themselves repeatedly in HP's challenging environment. They not only illuminate the potential benefits of agile in large-scale development, they also systematically show how these benefits can actually be achieved.Coverage includes: - Tightly linking agile methods and enterprise architecture with business objectives- Focusing agile practices on your worst development pain points to get the most bang for your buck- Abandoning classic agile methods that don't work at the largest scale- Employing agile methods to establish a new architecture- Using metrics as a "conversation starter" around agile process improvements- Leveraging continuous integration and quality systems to reduce costs, accelerate schedules, and automate the delivery pipeline- Taming the planning beast with "light-touch" agile planning and lightweight long-range forecasting- Implementing effective project management and ensuring accountability in large agile projects- Managing tradeoffs associated with key decisions about organizational structure- Overcoming U.S./India cultural differences that can complicate offshore development- Selecting tools to support quantum leaps in productivity in your organization- Using change management disciplines to support greater enterprise agility

    Written for both experienced and new programmers alike, Learning Ruby is a just-get-in-and-drive book -- a hands-on tutorial that offers lots of Ruby programs and lets you know how and why they work, just enough to get you rolling down the road. Interest in Ruby stems from the popularity of Rails, the web development framework that's attracting new devotees and refugees from Java and PHP. But there are plenty of other uses for this versatile language. The best way to learn is to just try the code! You'll find examples on nearly every page of this book that you can imitate and hack. Briefly, this book:Outlines many of the most important features of Ruby Demonstrates how to use conditionals, and how to manipulate strings in Ruby. Includes a section on regular expressions Describes how to use operators, basic math, functions from the Math module, rational numbers, etc. Talks you through Ruby arrays, and demonstrates hashes in detail Explains how to process files with Ruby Discusses Ruby classes and modules (mixins) in detail, including a brief introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) Introduces processing XML, the Tk toolkit, RubyGems, reflection, RDoc, embedded Ruby, metaprogramming, exception handling, and other topics Acquaints you with some of the essentials of Rails, and includes a short Rails tutorial. Each chapter concludes with a set of review questions, and appendices provide you with a glossary of terms related to Ruby programming, plus reference material from the book in one convenient location. If you want to take Ruby out for a drive, Learning Ruby holds the keys.

    Like earlier editions of the book, physical concepts are highlighted while also giving necessary attention to math-ematical techniques. Both theory and modeling are developed from simple beginnings so that they can be readily extended to new and complex situations. Beginning in Ch. 3, students are introduced to new concepts critical to analyzing power systems, including coverage of both balanced and unbalanced operating conditions. The authors incorporate new tools and material to aid students with design issues and reflect recent trends in the field. Each book now contains a CD with Power World software. This package is commonly used in industry and will enable students to analyze and simulate power systems. The authors use the software to extend, rather than replace, the fully worked examples provided in previous editions. In the new edition, each Power World Simulator example includes a fully worked hand solution of the problem along with a Power World Simulator case (except when the problem size makes it impractical). The new edition also contains updated case studies on recent trends in the Power Systems field, including coverage of deregulation, increased power demand, economics, and alternative sources of energy. These case studies are derived from real life situations.

    How easy is easy? It's not like an instant cake mix: just add water and stir. Dynamic web design is--well-- dynamic. Every website is different, so it's impossible to grab a script, paste it into a web page, and expect it to work. Building dynamic sites involves diving into the code and adju- ing it to your own requirements. If that thought makes you break out in a cold sweat, just relax for a moment. PHP is not difficult, and I've written this book very much with the n- programmer in mind. I've done so because I don't come from a computing background myself. In fact, I went to school in the days before pocket calculators were invented, never mind personal computers. As a result, I don't assume that you drank in knowledge of arrays, loops, and conditional statements with your mother's milk. Everything is explained in plain, straightforward l- guage, and I've highlighted points where things may go wrong, with advice on how to solve the problem. At the same time, if you're working with computers and websites, you're bound to have a certain level of technical knowledge and skill. So I don't talk down to you either.

    Chapters cover cancer, infection, immune disorders, genetics, and disorders of each body system, highlighting pathophysiologic processes, resulting signs and symptoms, diagnostic test findings, and current treatments. Reader-friendly features include illustrations, checklists, and full-color miniguides illustrating the pathophysiology of specific disorders.This edition has new full-color miniguides on cancer pathophysiology and neuropathology. A new Focus on Genetics feature identifies gene-related discoveries and their implications for treatment or diagnosis. Review questions and answers follow current NCLEX-RN® requirements and alternate-format questions are included.

    Get on the road to your best selfA meal planner companion to the New York Times bestselling The Skinnytaste Cookbook, this 52-week journal will help you take an organized, proactive approach toward the lifestyle you want.   • PLAN MEALS: look ahead and decide to eat healthy all week; choose snacks to pack for each day    • TRACK CALORIES OR POINTS: count what you take in so that you know what you’re really eating; compare tallies to your goals in ordeer to make progress    • LOG EXERCISE: pick an activity to do each day; note the calories you burned  With 20 Skinnytaste recipes, plus inspirational quotes and tips about superfoods, The Skinnytaste Meal Planner can guide you to becoming your best self.

    With a logical, body-systems organization and engaging terminology exercises throughout, it's your key to communicating confidently and effectively with other health care professionals.Systematic approach to terminology prepares you to recognize and define new words as you encounter them and build the medical vocabulary you'll need in the health care setting.Pronunciation key provides quick access to frequently referenced material.Complimentary and Alternative Medicine terms boxes highlight words and phrases associated with this increasingly popular discipline.Case studies encourage critical thinking and demonstrate how to apply the information you've learned.Terminology flash cards, included with every book, give you valuable review and self-assessment tools you can take anywhere for study on the go.Evolve resources enhance your learning and reinforcement opportunities with additional exercises, a Spanish/English glossary, and the Body Spectrum Electronic Anatomy Coloring Book.Medical Terminology Online, available at an additional charge, gives you access to a complete online course for the most advanced learning and understanding.New terms and abbreviations familiarize you with the latest terminology in use in health care.New images and illustrations visually acquaint you with pathologic information and procedures you'll encounter in the clinical setting.Enhanced chapter features highlight important concepts and provide guidance for more effective learning and study.CD references within the text direct you to expanded learning opportunities on the companion CD.More than 20 new medical records let you practice medical terminology using the forms you'll encounter in the clinical setting.New icons make it easy to distinguish a variety of helpful boxes and reference the material you need quickly.Answers to review exercises help you gauge your strengths and weaknesses and configure the most effective study plan for you.Website boxes refer you to valuable content you can access online for further learning.Revised pharmacy appendix helps you easily reference key pharmaceutical terms.The vastly updated companion CD provides fun alternatives for reinforcing what you've learned with new learning games, including Medical Millionaire and Termbusters.Enhanced audio companion, available on CD or as iTerms downloads for portable media players, helps you perfect your pronunciation skills and confidently use the terms you've learned in practice.

    The accompanying CD includes a practice exam with 200 original questions created by PMPINABOX.

    It describes how to index your data, including types you definitely need to know such as MS Word, PDF, HTML, and XML. It introduces you to searching, sorting, filtering, and highlighting search results.Lucene powers search in surprising placesWhat's Inside- How to integrate Lucene into your applications- Ready-to-use framework for rich document handling- Case studies including Nutch, TheServerSide, jGuru, etc.- Lucene ports to Perl, Python, C#/.Net, and C++- Sorting, filtering, term vectors, multiple, and remote index searching- The new SpanQuery family, extending query parser, hit collecting- Performance testing and tuning- Lucene add-ons (hit highlighting, synonym lookup, and others)

    Design patterns are time-tested solutions to recurring problems, letting the designer build programs on solutions that have already proved effective Provides developers with more than a dozen ASP.NET examples showing standard design patterns and how using them helpsbuild a richer understanding of ASP.NET architecture, as well as better ASP.NET applications Builds a solid understanding of ASP.NET architecture that can be used over and over again in many projects Covers ASP.NET code to implement many standard patterns including Model-View-Controller (MVC), ETL, Master-Master Snapshot, Master-Slave-Snapshot, Facade, Singleton, Factory, Single Access Point, Roles, Limited View, observer, page controller, common communication patterns, and more

    You could spend years discovering solutions to them all, step by step as you encounter them. Or you can just look in here. All successful database applications are destined to eventually run into issues scaling up their performance. Peek into the future of your PostgreSQL database's problems today. Know the warning signs to look for, and how to avoid the most common issues before they even happen. Surprisingly, most PostgreSQL database applications evolve in the same way: Choose the right hardware. Tune the operating system and server memory use. Optimize queries against the database, with the right indexes. Monitor every layer, from hardware to queries, using some tools that are inside PostgreSQL and others that are external. Using monitoring insight, continuously rework the design and configuration. On reaching the limits of a single server, break things up; connection pooling, caching, partitioning, and replication can all help handle increasing database workloads. The path to a high performance database system isn't always easy. But it doesn't have to be mysterious with the right guide. This book is a clear, step-by-step guide to optimizing and scaling up PostgreSQL database servers. - Publisher.

    And everything is based on the “science of investing” – evidenced with studies from peer-reviewed journals.Overall, this adds up to a complete retirement guide, packed with the latest and best knowledge. Don’t enter your retirement without it.

    It will keep you entertained for hours. It's the very unusual story of Paul Henry - from his eventful childhood to his adventurous career in journalism to his recent outrageous comments on television which divided the country.A natural-born story teller, Paul spins many great yarns in this book. It's fascinating insight into his complex character. He's surprising -- he doesn't adhere to any prescribed set of beliefs. He's bold -- he set himself up as an international news correspondent working out of his Masterton lounge. And he's versatile -- turning his hand to running a cafe, running for Parliament and running from terrorists.