Learning the bash Shell


Cameron Newham - 1995
    This book will teach you how to use bash's advanced command-line features, such as command history, command-line editing, and command completion.This book also introduces shell programming,a skill no UNIX or Linus user should be without. The book demonstrates what you can do with bash's programming features. You'll learn about flow control, signal handling, and command-line processing and I/O. There is also a chapter on debugging your bash programs.Finally, Learning the bash Shell, Third Edition, shows you how to acquire, install, configure, and customize bash, and gives advice to system administrators managing bash for their user communities.This Third Edition covers all of the features of bash Version 3.0, while still applying to Versions 1.x and 2.x. It includes a debugger for the bash shell, both as an extended example and as a useful piece of working code. Since shell scripts are a significant part of many software projects, the book also discusses how to write maintainable shell scripts. And, of course, it discusses the many features that have been introduced to bash over the years: one-dimensional arrays, parameter expansion, pattern-matching operations, new commands, and security improvements.Unfailingly practical and packed with examples and questions for future study, Learning the bash Shell Third Edition is a valuable asset for Linux and other UNIX users.--back cover

Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value Through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams


James Kalbach - 2015
    But it's worse when people inside these companies can't pinpoint the problem because they're too focused on business processes. This practical book shows your company how to use alignment diagrams to turn valuable customer observations into actionable insight. With this unique tool, you can visually map your existing customer experience and envision future solutions.Product and brand managers, marketing specialists, and business owners will learn how experience diagramming can help determine where business goals and customer perspectives intersect. Once you're armed with this data, you can provide users with real value.Mapping Experiences is divided into three parts:Understand the underlying principles of diagramming, and discover how these diagrams can inform strategyLearn how to create diagrams with the four iterative modes in the mapping process: setting up a mapping initiative, investigating the evidence, visualizing the process, and using diagrams in workshops and experimentsSee key diagrams in action, including service blueprints, customer journey maps, experience maps, mental models, and spatial maps and ecosystem models

Fractured Light


Nick Cook - 2018
    THEY UNCOVERED A THREAT TO EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET. NOW AN INVISIBLE ENEMY IS HUNTING THEM DOWN. What would you do if you started to see something lurking in the shadows of our everyday world? That's the reality that Jake Stevens has been pitched into and now he’s questioning his sanity.Jake’s been an outsider in his hometown Stoneham, England, ever since his life was shattered when his father's experiment into dark energy exploded, killing himself and many others.When Jake witnesses a satellite crash-landing, and starts to receive garbled messages that hint at a conspiracy, a chain of events is unleashed that will threaten the very existence of all life on Earth in a dystopian nightmare.Can Jake, and the best friend that he froze out of his life, Chloe Haze, a coding genius who’s heavily entrenched with the underground hacking network, figure out the connections of the mystery that link all the events before it’s too late?Fractured Light is the first volume in the Fractured Light trilogy, and is also part of the Multiverse Chronicles, an epic series of interlinked stories that follows the struggle of humanity to survive across parallel universes. If you love books by Michael Grant and Robert J Crane, or adore series like Stranger Things and Fringe, then this page-turning smart sci-fi thriller, is for you.

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction


Richard S. Sutton - 1998
    Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications.Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives when interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the key ideas and algorithms of reinforcement learning. Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications. The only necessary mathematical background is familiarity with elementary concepts of probability.The book is divided into three parts. Part I defines the reinforcement learning problem in terms of Markov decision processes. Part II provides basic solution methods: dynamic programming, Monte Carlo methods, and temporal-difference learning. Part III presents a unified view of the solution methods and incorporates artificial neural networks, eligibility traces, and planning; the two final chapters present case studies and consider the future of reinforcement learning.

Learning the vi and Vim Editors


Arnold Robbins - 1987
    Editors are the subject of adoration and worship, or of scorn and ridicule, depending upon whether the topic of discussion is your editor or someone else's.vi has been the standard editor for close to 30 years. Popular on Unix and Linux, it has a growing following on Windows systems, too. Most experienced system administrators cite vi as their tool of choice. And since 1986, this book has been the guide for vi. However, Unix systems are not what they were 30 years ago, and neither is this book. While retaining all the valuable features of previous editions, the 7th edition of Learning the vi and vim Editors has been expanded to include detailed information on vim, the leading vi clone. vim is the default version of vi on most Linux systems and on Mac OS X, and is available for many other operating systems too. With this guide, you learn text editing basics and advanced tools for both editors, such as multi-window editing, how to write both interactive macros and scripts to extend the editor, and power tools for programmers -- all in the easy-to-follow style that has made this book a classic.Learning the vi and vim Editors includes:A complete introduction to text editing with vi:How to move around vi in a hurry Beyond the basics, such as using buffers vi's global search and replacement Advanced editing, including customizing vi and executing Unix commandsHow to make full use of vim: Extended text objects and more powerful regular expressions Multi-window editing and powerful vim scripts How to make full use of the GUI version of vim, called gvim vim's enhancements for programmers, such as syntax highlighting, folding and extended tags Coverage of three other popular vi clones -- nvi, elvis, and vile -- is also included. You'll find several valuable appendixes, including an alphabetical quick reference to both vi and ex mode commands for regular vi and for vim, plus an updated appendix on vi and the Internet. Learning either vi or vim is required knowledge if you use Linux or Unix, and in either case, reading this book is essential. After reading this book, the choice of editor will be obvious for you too.

The Art of Agile Development


James Shore - 2007
    Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly. This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers. The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as:How can we adopt agile development? Do we really need to pair program? What metrics should we report? What if I can't get my customer to participate? How much documentation should we write? When do we design and architect? As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team? Where is my product roadmap? How does QA fit in? The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members. Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development. "Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications - ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer. --Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring "I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit." --Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting

Leadership That Gets Results


Daniel Goleman - 2001
    This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. A leader's singular job is to get results. But even with all the leadership training programs and "expert" advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. One reason, says Daniel Goleman, is that such experts offer advice based on inference, experience, and instinct, not on quantitative data. Now, drawing on research of more than 3,000 executives, Goleman explores which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. He outlines six distinct leadership styles, each one springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Each style has a distinct effect on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and, in turn, on its financial performance. The styles, by name and brief description alone, will resonate with anyone who leads, is led, or, as is the case with most of us, does both. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction. And coaching leaders develop people for the future. The research indicates that leaders who get the best results don't rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week. Goleman details the types of business situations each style is best suitedfor, and he explains how leaders who lack one or more of these styles can expand their repertories. He maintains that with practice leaders can switch among leadership styles to produce powerful results, thus turning the art of leadership into a science.

Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win


Michael Useem - 2001
    Through vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. For example, U.S. Marine Corps General Peter Pace reconciled the conflicting priorities of six bosses by keeping them well informed and challenging their instructions when necessary. Useem also explores what happens when those who should step forward fail to do so--Mount Everest mountaineers might have saved themselves from disaster during a fateful ascent if only they had questioned their guides' flawed decisions.Leading Up is a call to action. It asks us to get results by helping our superiors lead and by building on the best in everybody's nature, and it offers a pragmatic blueprint for doing so.

Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster


Alistair Croll - 2013
    Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction.This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without.Understand Lean Startup, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindsetLook at six sample business models and how they map to new ventures of all sizesFind the One Metric That Matters to youLearn how to draw a line in the sand, so you’ll know it’s time to move forwardApply Lean Analytics principles to large enterprises and established products

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit


Mary Poppendieck - 2003
    Along the way, they introduce 22 thinking tools that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment.Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three-if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development.Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery Managing uncertainty: decide as late as possible by building change into the system. Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability How to see the whole-even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people-so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business


Patrick Lencioni - 2012
    Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides. Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent and complete, when its management, operations and culture are unified. Healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave. Lencioni's first non-fiction book provides leaders with a groundbreaking, approachable model for achieving organizational health--complete with stories, tips and anecdotes from his experiences consulting to some of the nation's leading organizations. In this age of informational ubiquity and nano-second change, it is no longer enough to build a competitive advantage based on intelligence alone. The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way--one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.

The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources


John Allspaw - 2008
    Web-based companies live or die by the ability to scale their infrastructure to accommodate increasing demand. This book is a hands-on and practical guide to planning for such growth, with many techniques and considerations to help you plan, deploy, and manage web application infrastructure.The Art of Capacity Planning is written by the manager of data operations for the world-famous photo-sharing site Flickr.com, now owned by Yahoo! John Allspaw combines personal anecdotes from many phases of Flickr's growth with insights from his colleagues in many other industries to give you solid guidelines for measuring your growth, predicting trends, and making cost-effective preparations. Topics include:Evaluating tools for measurement and deployment Capacity analysis and prediction for storage, database, and application servers Designing architectures to easily add and measure capacity Handling sudden spikes Predicting exponential and explosive growth How cloud services such as EC2 can fit into a capacity strategy In this book, Allspaw draws on years of valuable experience, starting from the days when Flickr was relatively small and had to deal with the typical growth pains and cost/performance trade-offs of a typical company with a Web presence. The advice he offers in The Art of Capacity Planning will not only help you prepare for explosive growth, it will save you tons of grief.

ToGAF 9 Foundation Study Guide: Preparation for the TOGAF 9 Part 1 Examination


Rachel Harrison - 2009
    It gives an overview of every learning objective for the TOGAF 9 Foundation Syllabus and in-depth coverage on preparing and taking the TOGAF 9 Part 1 Examination. It is specifically designed to help individuals prepare for certification.This Study Guide is excellent material for:a) Individuals who require a basic understanding of TOGAF 9b) Professionals who are working in roles associated with an architecture project such as those responsible for planning, execution, development, delivery, and operationc) Architects who are looking for a first introduction to TOGAF 9d) Architects who want to achieve Level 2 certification in a stepwise manner and have not previously qualified as TOGAF 8 CertifiedA prior knowledge of enterprise architecture is advantageous but not required. While reading this Study Guide, the reader should also refer to the TOGAF Version 9.1 documentation available online at www.opengroup.org and also available as hard copy from www.vanharen.net and online booksellers

Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter


Pankaj Ghemawat - 2007
    Most economic activity—including direct investment, tourism, and communication—happens locally, not internationally.In this “semiglobalized” world, one-size-fits-all strategies don’t stand a chance. Companies must instead reckon with cross-border differences. Ghemawat shows you how—by providing tools for:· Assessing the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic differences between countries at the industry level and deciding which ones merit attention.· Tracking the implications of particular border-crossing moves for your company’s ability to create value.· Creating superior performance with strategies optimized for adaptation (adjusting to differences), aggregation (overcoming differences), and arbitrage (exploiting differences), and for compound objectives.In-depth examples reveal how companies such as Cemex, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Tata Consultancy Services, IBM, and GE Healthcare have adroitly managed cross-border differences—as well as how other well-known companies have failed at this challenge.Crucial for any business competing across borders, this book will transform the way you approach global strategy.

King: Black Cossacks MC


Evelyn Glass - 2016
     ABBIE I thought I knew what I was doing. But that before King claimed me. Under his chiseled, tattooed body lies ruthlessness I can’t even comprehend. But when he stares into my eyes… I can practically hear him snarl. Feel his rough hands on my curves. Scarred body pinned against mine... Hard voice echoing in my ears: “Never forget. You are MINE” I’M THE LAST THING SHE NEEDS. KING But I'm her only chance at getting out of this alive. I didn’t plan to bring Abbie into my life, but now that she’s here, I’m not letting go. She has no idea about the storm on the horizon. No idea how much danger she’s in. She can try to run. She can try to hide. But she needs to understand: I will find her and drag her back. Lash her to my bed. And make her MINE. KING is a full-length, standalone romance novel with steamy hot sex, NO CHEATING, strong language, a happily every after ending and NO CLIFFHANGERS. Contains dark and disturbing themes, and over the top sexiness that may be uncomfortable for some readers. Perfect for fans of Joanna Blake, Alexa Riley, Devon Hartford, Sabrina Paige, Winter Renshaw, Vanessa Waltz, Emilia Kincade and Melanie Harlow