Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology -- web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices -- may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well.UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.Designing Interfaces captures those best practices as design patterns -- solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You'll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.Each chapter's introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.A book can't design an interface for you -- no foolproof design process is given here -- but Designing Interfaces does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.

    It is offered for sale in print format as a convenience.Get a head start evaluating Windows 8.1 - with early technical insights from award-winning journalist and Windows expert Ed Bott. Based on the Windows 8.1 Preview release, this guide introduces new features and capabilities, with scenario-based advice on how Windows 8.1 can meet the needs of your business. Get the high-level overview you need to begin preparing your deployment now.Preview new features and enhancements, including:How features compare to Windows 7 and Windows XP The Windows 8.1 user experience Deployment Security features Internet Explorer 11 Delivering Windows apps Recovery options Networking and remote access Managing mobile devices Virtualization Windows RT 8.1

    As they helped grow Google from a young start-up to a global icon, they relearned everything they knew about management. How Google Works is the sum of those experiences distilled into a fun, easy-to-read primer on corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption.The authors explain how the confluence of three seismic changes - the internet, mobile, and cloud computing - has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers. The companies that will thrive in this ever-changing landscape will be the ones that create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom the authors dub 'smart creatives'. The management maxims ('Consensus requires dissension', 'Exile knaves but fight for divas', 'Think 10X, not 10%') are illustrated with previously unreported anecdotes from Google's corporate history.'Back in 2010, Eric and I created an internal class for Google managers,' says Rosenberg. 'The class slides all read 'Google confidential' until an employee suggested we uphold the spirit of openness and share them with the world. This book codifies the recipe for our secret sauce: how Google innovates and how it empowers employees to succeed.'

    This book serves as the first guide to focus on combining the benefits of balanced scorecards, operational dashboards, performance managements, and data visualization and then implement them in Microsoft Excel.

    "More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems."

    Just set aside one hour a day—lunchtime would be perfect—for a month, and you'll be automating Windows tasks faster than you ever thought possible. You'll start with the basics—what is PowerShell and what can you do with it. Then, you'll move systematically through the techniques and features you'll use to make your job easier and your day shorter. This totally revised second edition covers new PowerShell 3 features designed for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.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.What's InsideLearn PowerShell from the beginning—no experience required! Covers PowerShell 3, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 Each lesson should take you one hour or lessAbout the TechnologyPowerShell is both a language and an administrative shell with which you can control and automate nearly every aspect of Windows. It accepts and executes commands immediately, and you can write scripts to manage most Windows servers like Exchange, IIS, and SharePoint.Experience with Windows administration is helpful. No programming experience is assumed.Table of ContentsBefore you begin Meet PowerShell Using the help system Running commands Working with providers The pipeline: connecting commands Adding commands Objects: data by another name The pipeline, deeper Formatting—and why it's done on the right Filtering and comparisons A practical interlude Remote control: one to one, and one to many Using Windows Management Instrumentation Multitasking with background jobs Working with many objects, one at a time Security alert! Variables: a place to store your stuff Input and output Sessions: remote control with less work You call this scripting? Improving your parameterized script Advanced remoting configuration Using regular expressions to parse text files Additional random tips, tricks, and techniques Using someone else's script Never the end PowerShell cheat sheet

    How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.

    The book will teach you about the most important services on AWS. You will also learn about best practices regarding automation, security, high availability, and scalability.Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.About the TechnologyPhysical data centers require lots of equipment and take time and resources to manage. If you need a data center, but don't want to build your own, Amazon Web Services may be your solution. Whether you're analyzing real-time data, building software as a service, or running an e-commerce site, AWS offers you a reliable cloud-based platform with services that scale. All services are controllable via an API which allows you to automate your infrastructure.About the BookAmazon Web Services in Action introduces you to computing, storing, and networking in the AWS cloud. The book will teach you about the most important services on AWS. You will also learn about best practices regarding security, high availability and scalability.You'll start with a broad overview of cloud computing and AWS and learn how to spin-up servers manually and from the command line. You'll learn how to automate your infrastructure by programmatically calling the AWS API to control every part of AWS. You will be introduced to the concept of Infrastructure as Code with the help of AWS CloudFormation.You will learn about different approaches to deploy applications on AWS. You'll also learn how to secure your infrastructure by isolating networks, controlling traffic and managing access to AWS resources. Next, you'll learn options and techniques for storing your data. You will experience how to integrate AWS services into your own applications by the use of SDKs. Finally, this book teaches you how to design for high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability.What's InsideOverview of cloud concepts and patternsManage servers on EC2 for cost-effectivenessInfrastructure automation with Infrastructure as Code (AWS CloudFormation)Deploy applications on AWSStore data on AWS: SQL, NoSQL, object storage and block storageIntegrate Amazon's pre-built servicesArchitect highly available and fault tolerant systemsAbout the ReaderWritten for developers and DevOps engineers moving distributed applications to the AWS platform.About the AuthorsAndreas Wittig and Michael Wittig are software engineers and consultants focused on AWS and web development.Table of ContentsPART 1 GETTING STARTEDWhat is Amazon Web Services?A simple example: WordPress in five minutesPART 2 BUILDING VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE WITH SERVERS AND NETWORKINGUsing virtual servers: EC2Programming your infrastructure: the command line, SDKs, and CloudFormationAutomating deployment: CloudFormation, Elastic Beanstalk, and OpsWorksSecuring your system: IAM, security groups, and VPCPART 3 STORING DATA IN THE CLOUDStoring your objects: S3 and GlacierStoring your data on hard drives: EBS and instance storeUsing a relational database service: RDSProgramming for the NoSQL database service: DynamoDBPART 4 ARCHITECTING ON AWSAchieving high availability: availability zones, auto-scaling, and CloudWatchDecoupling your infrastructure: ELB and SQSDesigning for fault-toleranceScaling up and down: auto-scaling and CloudWatch