Written by a usability engineer with a long and successful paper prototyping history, this book is a practical, how-to guide that will prepare you to create and test paper prototypes of all kinds of user interfaces. You'll see how to simulate various kinds of interface elements and interactions. You'll learn about the practical aspects of paper prototyping, such as deciding when the technique is appropriate, scheduling the activities, and handling the skepticism of others in your organization. Numerous case studies and images throughout the book show you real world examples of paper prototyping at work.Learn how to use this powerful technique to develop products that are more useful, intuitive, efficient, and pleasing:* Save time and money - solve key problems before implementation begins * Get user feedback early - use it to focus the development process * Communicate better - involve development team members from a variety of disciplines * Be more creative - experiment with many ideas before committing to one

    Describes the five-year, 150 million dollar project Microsoft undertook to develop an advanced PC operating system.

    And they did it without fanfare or recognition from their employer. Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning provides a fascinating look at technohistory that sets the record straight. In Dealers of Lightning, Hiltzik describes the forces and faces behind the revolution that the Xerox PARC team single-handedly spawned. The Xerox PARC group was composed solely of top technical minds. The decision was made at Xerox headquarters to give the team complete freedom from deadlines and directives, in hopes of fostering a true creative environment. It worked — perhaps too well. The team responded with a steady output of amazing technology, including the first version of the Internet, the first personal computer, user-friendly word-processing programs, and pop-up menus. Xerox, far from ready for the explosion of innovation, failed to utilize the technology dreamed up by the group. Out of all the dazzling inventions born at Xerox PARC, only a handful were developed and marketed by Xerox. However, one of these inventions, the laser printer, proved successful enough to earn billions for the company, therefore justifying its investment in the research center. Most oftheteam's creations would go on to be developed and perfected by other companies, such as IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Drawing from interviews with the engineers, executives, and scientists involved in the Xerox PARC, Dealers of Lightning chronicles an amazing era of egos, ideas, and inventions at the dawn of the computer age.

    Algorithms in a Nutshell describes a large number of existing algorithms for solving a variety of problems, and helps you select and implement the right algorithm for your needs -- with just enough math to let you understand and analyze algorithm performance. With its focus on application, rather than theory, this book provides efficient code solutions in several programming languages that you can easily adapt to a specific project. Each major algorithm is presented in the style of a design pattern that includes information to help you understand why and when the algorithm is appropriate. With this book, you will:Solve a particular coding problem or improve on the performance of an existing solutionQuickly locate algorithms that relate to the problems you want to solve, and determine why a particular algorithm is the right one to useGet algorithmic solutions in C, C++, Java, and Ruby with implementation tipsLearn the expected performance of an algorithm, and the conditions it needs to perform at its bestDiscover the impact that similar design decisions have on different algorithmsLearn advanced data structures to improve the efficiency of algorithmsWith Algorithms in a Nutshell, you'll learn how to improve the performance of key algorithms essential for the success of your software applications.

    Minimalism can be a beautiful, enriching and life-transforming practice that, at its core, is all about re-establishing what holds value in your life and letting go of what does not. It's not about having your groceries displayed in glass jars or having chic, Scandinavian furniture - it's a way of life that allows us to strip away the clutter that stands in the way of us achieving our goals. Simplify Your Life is about exactly that: bringing simplicity back into your life, and with it, joy in the everyday. Dispelling the myths that minimalism is for either hardcore environmentalists or the privileged few, this book shows how minimalism is more relevant and necessary than ever, not least because it's the most accessible way to achieve a state of contentment in all aspects of life. Minimalism is for you if you want to:  •  stop mindlessly scrolling and start living with intention and purpose  •  spend more time on the things and people you love and less on what you "have to be/do"  •  take control of your finances and stop mindless spending  •  learn more about conscious consumption and reducing your waste  •  experience freedom and pride in your home instead of feeling trapped by your stuffAlthough minimalism is ostensibly about taking things away from our cluttered lives, it is really about adding richness, color, and meaning to our lives. It's about identifying the aspects of our life that we truly love and that nourish us. It's about trusting ourselves and leading the life we always wanted.

    Each short story is around 20-24 pages long. It includes the following books: *Mysterious Garden *Alien Invasion *Magellan Goes Missing *Ghost Hunting *Grown-Ups Out To Get Us?! *The Missing Gems *Swimming With Sharks?! *Magic Gone Wrong! Rebekah Daniels is just your ordinary spunky 9 year old girl living in the small town of Curtis Bay...EXCEPT she is determined NOT to be ordinary at all! Her small town is filled with mysteries and Rebekah is sure that she, along with her best friend Mouse, will be able to solve every last one of them.

    We start small and then build on what you learn to scale out to multi-site, multi-tier applications. The book is written for both developers and sysadmins. We focus on building monitored and measurable applications. We also use tools that are designed to handle the challenges of managing Cloud, containerised and distributed applications and infrastructure.In the book we'll deliver:* An introduction to monitoring, metrics and measurement.* A scalable framework for monitoring hosts (including Docker and containers), services and applications built on top of the Riemann event stream processor. * Graphing and metric storage using Graphite and Grafana.* Logging with Logstash.* A framework for high quality and useful notifications* Techniques for developing and building monitorable applications* A capstone that puts all the pieces together to monitor a multi-tier application.

    This guide also teaches you safe and practical ways to scale applications through replication, load balancing, high availability, and failover. Updated to reflect recent advances in MySQL and InnoDB performance, features, and tools, this third edition not only offers specific examples of how MySQL works, it also teaches you why this system works as it does, with illustrative stories and case studies that demonstrate MySQL’s principles in action. With this book, you’ll learn how to think in MySQL. Learn the effects of new features in MySQL 5.5, including stored procedures, partitioned databases, triggers, and views Implement improvements in replication, high availability, and clustering Achieve high performance when running MySQL in the cloud Optimize advanced querying features, such as full-text searches Take advantage of modern multi-core CPUs and solid-state disks Explore backup and recovery strategies—including new tools for hot online backups

    

    A focus is placed on the principles and practices of decomposing a complex problem space as well as the implementation patterns and best practices for shaping a maintainable solution space.

    Git permits virtually an infinite variety of methods for development and collaboration. Created by Linus Torvalds to manage development of the Linux kernel, it's become the principal tool for distributed version control. But Git's flexibility also means that some users don't understand how to use it to their best advantage. Version Control with Git offers tutorials on the most effective ways to use it, as well as friendly yet rigorous advice to help you navigate Git's many functions. With this book, you will:Learn how to use Git in several real-world development environments Gain insight into Git's common-use cases, initial tasks, and basic functions Understand how to use Git for both centralized and distributed version control Use Git to manage patches, diffs, merges, and conflicts Acquire advanced techniques such as rebasing, hooks, and ways to handle submodules (subprojects) Learn how to use Git with Subversion Git has earned the respect of developers around the world. Find out how you can benefit from this amazing tool with Version Control with Git.

    With this practical guide, you'll learn how PHP has become a full-featured, mature language with object-orientation, namespaces, and a growing collection of reusable component libraries.Author Josh Lockhart--creator of PHP The Right Way, a popular initiative to encourage PHP best practices--reveals these new language features in action. You'll learn best practices for application architecture and planning, databases, security, testing, debugging, and deployment. If you have a basic understanding of PHP and want to bolster your skills, this is your book.Learn modern PHP features, such as namespaces, traits, generators, and closuresDiscover how to find, use, and create PHP componentsFollow best practices for application security, working with databases, errors and exceptions, and moreLearn tools and techniques for deploying, tuning, testing, and profiling your PHP applicationsExplore Facebook's HVVM and Hack language implementations--and how they affect modern PHPBuild a local development environment that closely matches your production server

    The RESTful approach to web services design is rapidly become the approach of choice. Unfortunately, too few people have truly solid REST API design skills, and discussions of REST can become bogged down in dry theory.The REST API Design Handbook is a simple, practical guide to aid software engineers and software architects create lasting, scalable APIs based on REST architectural principles. The book provides a sound foundation in discussing the constraints that define a REST API. It quickly goes beyond that into the practical aspects of implementing such an API in the real world.Written by cloud computing expert George Reese, The REST API Design Handbook reflects hands on work in consuming many different third party APIs as well the development of REST-based web services APIs. It addresses all of the debates the commonly arise while creating these APIs. Subjects covered include:* REST architectural constraints* Using HTTP methods and response codes in an API* Authenticating RESTful API calls* Versioning* Asynchronous Operations* Pagination and Streaming* Polling and Push Notifications* Rate Limiting

    I loved the tutorial-style game-like program development. This book rekindled my earliest joys of programming. Plus, JavaScript!" —Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScriptJavaScript is the language of the Web, and it's at the heart of every modern website from the lowliest personal blog to the mighty Google Apps. Though it's simple for beginners to pick up and play with, JavaScript is not a toy—it's a flexible and complex language, capable of much more than the showy tricks most programmers use it for.Eloquent JavaScript goes beyond the cut-and-paste scripts of the recipe books and teaches you to write code that's elegant and effective. You'll start with the basics of programming, and learn to use variables, control structures, functions, and data structures. Then you'll dive into the real JavaScript artistry: higher-order functions, closures, and object-oriented programming.Along the way you'll learn to:Master basic programming techniques and best practices Harness the power of functional and object-oriented programming Use regular expressions to quickly parse and manipulate strings Gracefully deal with errors and browser incompatibilities Handle browser events and alter the DOM structure Most importantly, Eloquent JavaScript will teach you to express yourself in code with precision and beauty. After all, great programming is an art, not a science—so why settle for a killer app when you can create a masterpiece?

    More than any other language, Python was created with the philosophy of simplicity and parsimony. Now 25 years old, Python has become the primary or secondary language (after SQL) for many business users. With popularity comes diversity--and possibly dilution.This guide, collaboratively written by over a hundred members of the Python community, describes best practices currently used by package and application developers. Unlike other books for this audience, The Hitchhiker's Guide is light on reusable code and heavier on design philosophy, directing the reader to excellent sources that already exist.