How can you survive?The Official Combat Handbook will teach you everything you need to know to defend yourself from hostile monsters and enemy players. Learn how to build a fort, craftarmour and weapons, set mob traps, defeat your enemies in one-to-one combat, and battle your way out of the Nether and the End. With tips from many Minecraft experts, you’ll be a formidable Minecraft warrior in no time!

    794 full-color photographs depict all the important rocks, gems, and minerals -- in many variations of color and crystal form -- and the natural environments in which they occur; written descriptions provide information on field marks, similar rocks and minerals, environment, areas of occurrence, and derivation of names. Includes a guide to mineral collecting and a list of rock-forming minerals

    Times have changed. Today we have an overwhelming array of ingredients and a fraction of the cooking time, but Anderson believes the secret to getting dinner on the table lies in the past. After a long day, who has the energy to look up a recipe and search for the right ingredients before ever starting to cook? To make dinner night after night, Anderson believes the first two steps--looking for a recipe, then scrambling for the exact ingredients--must be eliminated.  Understanding that most recipes are simply "variations on a theme," she innovatively teaches technique, ultimately eliminating the need for recipes.Once the technique or formula is mastered, Anderson encourages inexperienced as well as veteran cooks to spread their culinary wings.  For example, after learning to sear a steak, it's understood that the same method works for scallops, tuna, hamburger, swordfish, salmon, pork tenderloin, and more. You never need to look at a recipe again. Vary the look and flavor of these dishes with interchangeable pan sauces, salsas, relishes, and butters.Best of all, these recipes rise above the mundane Monday-through-Friday fare.  Imagine homemade ravioli and lasagna for weeknight supper, or from-scratch tomato sauce before the pasta water has even boiled.  Last-minute guests? Dress up simple tomato sauce with capers and olives or shrimp and red pepper flakes. Drizzle sautéed chicken breasts with a balsamic vinegar pan sauce. Anderson teaches you how to do it--without a recipe. Don't buy exotic ingredients and follow tedious instructions for making hors d'oeuvres. Forage through the pantry and refrigerator for quick appetizers. The ingredients are all there; the method is in your head. Master four simple potato dishes--a bake, a cake, a mash, and a roast--compatible with many meals. Learn how to make the five-minute dinner salad, easily changing its look and flavor depending on the season and occasion. Tuck a few dessert techniques in your back pocket and effortlessly turn any meal into a special occasion.There's real rhyme and reason to Pam's method at the beginning of every chapter: To dress greens, "Drizzle salad with oil, salt, and pepper, then toss until just slick. Sprinkle in some vinegar to give it a little kick." To make a frittata, "Cook eggs without stirring until set around the edges. Bake until puffy, then cut it into wedges." Each chapter also contains a helpful at-a-glance chart that highlights the key points of every technique, and a master recipe with enough variations to keep you going until you've learned how to cook without a book.

    You have also created a website for your business that details the products or services that you offer, but it doesn't allow potential customers to purchase anything online. Don't risk losing business-learn to create a dynamic online environment using only three programs. PHP, MySQL and Apache are three popular open-source tools that can work together to help you create a dynamic website, such as an online shopping experience. Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One is a complete reference manual for all three development tools. You will learn how to install, configure and set up the PHP scripting language, use the MySQL database system, and work with the Apache Web server. Then you'll take it a step further and discover how they work together to create a dynamic website. Use the book and the included CD to create a simple website, as well as a mailing list, online address book, shopping cart and storefront. Updated to reflect the most recent developments in PHP and MySQL, including the final stable release of MySQL 5.0, you will open your website to limitless possibilities with Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One.

    The 378 dramatic photographs capture cloud types, precipitation, storms, twisters, and optical phenomena such as the Northern Lights. Essays with accompanying maps and illustrations discuss the earth's atmosphere, weather systems, cloud formation, and development of tornadoes and many other weather events.

    For decades your teachers, authority figures and textbooks have been lying to you. You do not have five senses. Your tongue doesn't have neatly segregated taste-bud zones. You don't know what the pyramids really looked like. You're even pooping wrong - Jesus, you're a wreck!But it's going to be okay. Because we're here to help. Packed with more sexy facts than the Encyclopedia Pornographica, the Cracked De-Textbook will teach you about the true stars of history, why you picture everything from Velociraptors to Ancient Rome incorrectly, and finally, at long last - how to pop a proper squat. This book was built from the ground up to systematically seek out, dismantle and destroy the many untruths that years of misguided education have left festering inside of you, and leave you a smarter person...whether you like it or not. The De-Textbook is a merciless, brutal learning machine. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are informed.

    Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."

    The new editionawith 340 projects, 3,500 color photographs, and more than 100 illustrations, charts, and graphsaoffers up-to-the-minute solutions for homeowners tackling home repair, maintenance, and improvement. Chapters cover painting, wallpaper, plumbing, electrical system, walls and ceilings, flooring, doors, windows, cabinets, shelves, countertops, insulation, weatherproofing, exterior maintenance, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. Clear, concise instructions accompanied by detailed how-to photographs ensure your success no matter what your skill level. Every project offers tips, shortcuts and advice on buying and using tools and materials, working safely, avoiding common mistakes, saving time and money, and developing skills. "Home Improvement 1-2-3" also reviews new tools, technology, materials, and installation techniques.

    Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts. After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy. Also available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

    But the CD-ROM in this new edition allows the reader to cast his or her chart in just a few minutes by inputting the date, time and place of birth into the computer, producing a personalized astrological chart in just a few minutes. In addition to revealing the planets' influence on romance, health, and career, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need takes a closer look at the inner life of each sign. Celebrated astrologer Joanna Martine Woolfolk offers abundant insights on the personal relationships and emotional needs that motivate an individual, on how others perceive astrological types, and on dealing with the negative aspects of signs. Readers will also welcome the inclusion of new discoveries in astronomy.

    An evolutionary perspective forms the foundation of the entire discussion. The book begins with the natural history of the planet, considers portions of the whole in the middle chapters, and ends with another perspective of the entire planet in the concluding chapter. Its unique organization of focusing only on several key concepts in each chapter sets it apart from the competition. .

    A photo accompanies each encyclopedia entry.100 page special design section helps homeowners translate basic information into specific solutions for the challenges in their own yard.Step-by-step illustrations show all the techniques critical to proper plant maintenance.Dozens of handy charts help readers at a glance learn which plants are best for which situations.Information provided for all regions of the country.

    Turn on a single lamp and read it while you're alone in an otherwise dark room or while someone sleeps next to you. Say it over to yourself in a place where silence reigns and the din of culture-the constant buzzing noise that surrounds you-has momentarily stopped. This poem has come from a great distance to find you." So begins this astonishing book by one of our leading poets and critics. In an unprecedented exploration of the genre, Hirsch writes about what poetry is, why it matters, and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message-which is of vital importance in day-to-day life-can reach us and make a difference. For Hirsch, poetry is not just a part of life, it is life, and expresses like no other art our most sublime emotions. In a marvelous reading of world poetry, including verse by such poets as Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda, William Wordsworth, Sylvia Plath, Charles Baudelaire, and many more, Hirsch discovers the meaning of their words and ideas and brings their sublime message home into our hearts. A masterful work by a master poet, this brilliant summation of poetry and human nature will speak to all readers who long to place poetry in their lives but don't know how to read it.

    The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.Praise for The Steampunk Bible:"The Steampunk Bible is an informed, informative and beautifully illustrated survey of the subject." -The Financial Times"The Steampunk Bible is far and away the most intriguing catalog of all things steam yet written." -The Austin Chronicle “It’s hard to imagine how VanderMeer and Chambers could have put together a stronger collection. Its publication marks a significant, self-conscious moment in the history of the movement.”—PopMatters.com

    A step-by-step guide to writing music, this book shows musicians how to compose simple chord progressions and melodies, and leads them through more advanced compositional techniques and musical forms. Designed for composers of all types of music, it includes instruction on composing stand-alone melodies, using different scales and modes, themes and variations, orchestration, and composing for film, theater, and videogames.-Perfect complement to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting-Includes a comprehensive glossary of musical terms, as well as an appendix of various computer-based composition tools-Easy-to-use oversize trim