That's where Major Donovan Stone and his elite team of Omega Sector operatives come in. Called upon by the American government to prevent a cataclysmic disaster threatening the entire world, Stone and his team are up against not just a geological deadline but formidable foes from within the American government and military itself. Using the mysterious Nostradamus Manuscript, Stone and his team will need to survive ancient traps, solve harrowing riddles and try not to die in the process. All before the start of the last Total Solar Eclipse of 2012. With time, an army of well-financed mercenaries, and thousand year-old booby traps around every corner, can Stone and his team find the ten relics before the prophesied deadline? Or, will they fall into enemy hands? And, if they do, what will become of the fate of the world? All these questions can be answered in The Nostradamus Revelation…

    This practical guide explains how to create and use personas to make your site more successful. The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas takes you through each step of persona creation, including tips for conducting qualitative user research, new ways to apply quantitative research (such as surveys) to persona creation, various methods for generating persona segmentation, and proven techniques for making personas realistic. You'll also learn how to use personas effectively, from directing overall business strategy and prioritizing features and content to making detailed decisions about information architecture, content, and design.

    Readers are shown how the interplay of complementary hues can trigger vibrations; how the push and pull of warm and cool colors can create a feeling of space; how to disguise one color in a scene to accent another; and many more tidbits of colorful advice.

    You'll learn how to: - Plan, organize, and maintain your stylesheets more effectively- Apply the secrets of liquid, elastic, and hybrid layouts- Create flickr-style image maps, remote rollovers, and other advanced CSS features- Lay out forms using pure CSS- Recognize common browser bugs, and how to fix themWhile CSS is a relatively simple technology to learn, it is a difficult one to master. When you first start developing sites using CSS, you will come across all kinds of infuriating browser bugs and inconsistencies. It sometimes feels like there are a million and one different techniques to master, spread across a bewildering array of websites. The range of possibilities seems endless and makes for a steep and daunting learning curve. By bringing all of the latest tips, tricks, and techniques together in one handy reference, this book demystifies the secrets of CSS and makes the journey to CSS mastery as simple and painless as possible. While most books concentrate on basic skills, this one is different, assuming that you already know the basics and why you should be using CSS in your work, and concentrating mainly on advanced techniques. It begins with a brief recap of CSS fundamentals such as the importance of meaningful markup, how to structure and maintain your code, and how the CSS layout model really works. With the basics out of the way, each subsequent chapter details a particular aspect of CSS-based design. Through a series of easy-to-follow tutorials, you will learn practical CSS techniques you can immediately start using in your daily work. Browser inconsistencies are the thorn in most CSS developers' sides, so we have dedicated two whole chapters to CSS hacks, filters, and bug fixing, as well as looking at image replacement; professional link, form, and list styling; pure CSS layouts; and much more. All of these techniques are then put into practice in two beautifully designed case studies, written by two of the world's best CSS designers, Simon Collison and Cameron Moll. Summary of Contents: - Chapter 1: Setting the Foundations- Chapter 2: Visual Formatting Model Recap- Chapter 3: Background Images and Image Replacement- Chapter 4: Styling Links- Chapter 5: Styling Lists and Creating Nav Bars- Chapter 6: Styling Forms and Data Tables- Chapter 7: Layout- Chapter 8: Hacks and Filters- Chapter 9: Bugs and Bug Fixing- Case Study 1: More Than Doodles- Case Study 2: Tuscany Luxury Resorts

    This jargon-free guide covers JavaScript basics and shows you how to save time and effort with the jQuery library of prewritten JavaScript code. You’ll soon be building web pages that feel and act like desktop programs, without having to do much programming.The important stuff you need to know:Make your pages interactive. Create JavaScript events that react to visitor actions.Use animations and effects. Build drop-down navigation menus, pop-ups, automated slideshows, and more.Improve your user interface. Learn how the pros make websites fun and easy to use.Collect data with web forms. Create easy-to-use forms that ensure more accurate visitor responses.Add a dash of Ajax. Enable your web pages to communicate with a web server without a page reload.Practice with living examples. Get step-by-step tutorials for web projects you can build yourself.

    This concise book provides a handy reference to 70 mobile app design patterns, illustrated by more than 400 screenshots from current iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian apps.User experience professional Theresa Neil (Designing Web Interfaces) walks you through design patterns in 10 separate categories, including anti-patterns. Whether you’re designing a simple iPhone application or one that’s meant to work for every popular mobile OS on the market, these patterns provide solutions to common design challenges. This print edition is in full color.Pattern categories include:Navigation: get patterns for primary and secondary navigation Forms: break the industry-wide habits of bad form design Tables and lists: display only the most important information Search, sort, and filter: make these functions easy to use Tools: create the illusion of direct interaction Charts: learn best practices for basic chart design Invitations: invite users to get started and discover featuresHelp: integrate help pages into a smaller form factor"It’s a super handy catalog that I can flip to for ideas."—Bill Scott, Senior Director of Web Development at PayPal "Looks fantastic."—Erin Malone, Partner at Tangible UX "Just a quick thanks to express my sheer gratitude for this pub, it has been a guide for me reworking a design for an app already in production!"—Agatha June, UX designer

    The Persona Lifecycle addresses the how of creating effective personas and using those personas to design products that people love. It doesn't just describe the value of personas; it offers detailed techniques and tools related to planning, creating, communicating, and using personas to create great product designs. Moreover, it provides rich examples, samples, and illustrations to imitate and model. Perhaps most importantly, it positions personas not as a panacea, but as a method used to complement other user-centered design (UCD) techniques including scenario-based design, cognitive walkthroughs and user testing. The authors developed the Persona Lifecycle model to communicate the value and practical application of personas to product design and development professionals.This book explores the complete lifecycle of personas, to guide the designer at each stage of product development. It includes a running case study with rich examples and samples that demonstrate how personas can be used in building a product end-to-end. It also presents recommended best practices in techniques, tools, and innovative methods and contains hundreds of relevant stories, commentary, opinions, and case studies from user experience professionals across a variety of domains and industries.This book will be a valuable resource for UCD professionals, including usability practitioners, interaction designers, technical writers, and program managers; programmers/developers who act as the interaction designers for software; and those professionals who work with developers and designers.

    The blogosphere has become a huge platform for individuals and businesses alike. As well as being essential for creative trades of all kinds--carpenters, photographers, caterers, gardeners and graphic designers to name but a few--blogs can be inspirational and beautiful; becoming hubs for people with similar tastes and interests. Blogging for Creatives is the first approachable, non-techie guide to the blogosphere, complete with hundreds of tips, tricks and motivational stories from artistic bloggers who have started from scratch. It covers everything creatives need to know about how to design a beautiful, interesting blog that people will want to return to again and again--such as how to design, publish and host a blog, as well as keeping it fresh, staying motivated and forging connections with others in the field. Professional advice is highly illustrated with examples of successful blogs, broken down into succinct types that work, helping the reader to identify and develop the style of blog they want.Includes box-out tips, tricks and anecdotes from successful bloggersNon-techie approach that reflects the creative scope of the modern blogHighly illustrated with examples of blog types that work, with proven advice from the creators

    But how can you design a voice interface for your mobile app so that users can talk to it? And not just to facilitate question-and-answer sessions, but also provide an engaging, compelling experience?With this practical guide, you ll learn basic voice user interface (VUI) principles for designing mobile apps that makes speech an important tool for interaction. You ll learn how to choose the right speech recognition engine, use best methods for testing VUI on mobile, and dive into advanced VUI design topics to make your VUI not just functional but great.Ideal for product managers, UX designers, and VUI designers, this book explains basic VUI principles for mobile app design, and shows you how to measure the performance of your VUI app and improve upon it. You ll also learn how to determine whether using voice for your app is a good idea in the first placeVUI design is not just about making things cool it s about making a user s experience more natural, more powerful, and more human."

    If you aren't already using progressive enhancement to build websites, you soon will be." —Jeremy Keith, Author, HTML5 for Web Designers"Finally. Progressive enhancement explained with a perfect balance of theory and practice. Aaron's take-aways will have you progressively-enhancing your markup, style and behavior with ease." —Dan Cederholm, Author, CSS3 For Web Designers"With this forward-thinking book Aaron shows us that anyone can produce accessible, engaging web experiences without sacrificing their ambitions. Through progressive enhancement, he'll show you how to bring designs to life without compromising the integrity of content. I've been learning from Aaron for many years, and suggest you do the same." —Simon Collison, Co-author, CSS Mastery"You hear the term 'Progressive Enhancement' bandied about as a good thing, and it absolutely is. However, few resources cover the breadth of the topic as well as this book does. Adaptive Web Design includes some of the best and broadest coverage in an easy-to-read and well-structured book." —Jonathan Snook, Co-author, The Art and Science of CSS

    At under 200 pages it's quick reading too. Makes a great airplane book.

    You want to learn HTML so you can finally create those web pages you've always wanted, so you can communicate more effectively with friends, family, fans, and fanatic customers. You also want to do it right so you can actually maintain and expand your Web pages over time, and so your web pages work in all the browsers and mobile devices out there. Oh, and if you've never heard of CSS, that's okay - we won't tell anyone you're still partying like it's 1999 - but if you're going to create Web pages in the 21st century then you'll want to know and understand CSS.Learn the real secrets of creating Web pages, and why everything your boss told you about HTML tables is probably wrong (and what to do instead). Most importantly, hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions how his HTML is now strict, and his CSS is in an external style sheet.With Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking web-safe colors still matter, and the foolishness of slipping a font tag into your pages. Best of all, you'll learn HTML and CSS in a way that won't put you to sleep. If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect: a visually-rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, this book will load HTML, CSS, and XHTML into your brain in a way that sticks.So what are you waiting for? Leave those other dusty books behind and come join us in Webville. Your tour is about to begin."Elegant design is at the core of every chapter here, each concept conveyed with equal doses of pragmatism and wit." --Ken Goldstein, Executive Vice President, Disney Online"This book is a thoroughly modern introduction to forward-looking practices in web page markup and presentation." --Danny Goodman, author of Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Guide"What used to be a long trial and error learning process has now been reduced neatly into an engaging paperback." --Mike Davidson, CEO, Newsvine, Inc."I love Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML--it teaches you everything you need to learn in a 'fun coated' format!" --Sally Applin, UI Designer and Artist"I haven't had as much fun reading a book (other than Harry Potter) in years. And your book finally helped me break out of my hapless so-last-century way of creating web pages." --Professor David M. Arnow, Department of Computer and Information Science, Brooklyn College"If you've ever had a family member who wanted you to design a website for them, buy them Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML. If you've ever asked a family member to design you a web site, buy this book. If you've ever bought an HTML book and ended up using it to level your desk, or for kindling on a cold winter day, buy this book. This is the book you've been waiting for. This is the learning system you've been waiting for." --Warren Kelly, Blogcritics.org

    You'll learn how to create responsive, data-driven websites with PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript, regardless of whether you already know how to program. Discover how the powerful combination of PHP and MySQL provides an easy way to build modern websites complete with dynamic data and user interaction. You'll also learn how to add JavaScript to create rich Internet applications and websites.Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript explains each technology separately, shows you how to combine them, and introduces valuable web programming concepts, including objects, XHTML, cookies, and session management. You'll practice what you've learned with review questions in each chapter, and find a sample social networking platform built with the elements introduced in this book. This book will help you:-Understand PHP essentials and the basics of object-oriented programming-Master MySQL, from database structure to complex queries-Create web pages with PHP and MySQL by integrating forms and other HTML features-Learn about JavaScript, from functions and event handling to accessing the Document Object Model-Use libraries and packages, including the Smarty web template system, PEAR program repository, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library -Make Ajax calls and turn your website into a highly dynamic environment-Upload and manipulate files and images, validate user input, and secure your applications

    By stepping back and questioning the current mindset, the faults of the status quo stand out in stark relief--and this guide gives you the tools and frameworks you need to kick off a digital transformation. Design Thinking is about approaching things differently with a strong user orientation and fast iterations with multidisciplinary teams to solve wicked problems. It is equally applicable to (re-)design products, services, processes, business models, and ecosystems. It inspires radical innovation as a matter of course, and ignites capabilities beyond mere potential. Unmatched as a source of competitive advantage, Design Thinking is the driving force behind those who will lead industries through transformations and evolutions.This book describes how Design Thinking is applied across a variety of industries, enriched with other proven approaches as well as the necessary tools, and the knowledge to use them effectively. Packed with solutions for common challenges including digital transformation, this practical, highly visual discussion shows you how Design Thinking fits into agile methods within management, innovation, and startups.Explore the digitized future using new design criteria to create real value for the user Foster radical innovation through an inspiring framework for action Gather the right people to build highly-motivated teams Apply Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, Big Data Analytics, and Lean Start-up using new tools and a fresh new perspective Create Minimum Viable Ecosystems (MVEs) for digital processes and services which becomes for example essential in building Blockchain applications Practical frameworks, real-world solutions, and radical innovation wrapped in a whole new outlook give you the power to mindfully lead to new heights. From systems and operations to people, projects, culture, digitalization, and beyond, this invaluable mind shift paves the way for organizations--and individuals--to do great things. When you're ready to give your organization a big step forward, The Design Thinking Playbook is your practical guide to a more innovative future.

    This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole--a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:SyntaxObjectsFunctionsInheritanceArraysRegular expressionsMethodsStyleBeautiful featuresThe real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.