Maya 8 Character Modeling takes a unique approach to modeling as it breaks down character creation using an easy-to-follow formula that makes the learning process less daunting. The author presents an overview of modeling basics and then shows how to block out the body, shape body parts, add details, and create joints and controls using Maya 8. By the time you ve finished the book, you ll have created a figure that is textured, rigged, and ready to be animated. With this book: Understand the building blocks of modeling, including quads, edge loops, normals, UVs, and mapping. Discover how modeling by formula eases the character creation process. Find out how to create a UV layout that makes texturing easier. Learn how to place joints and controls and skin your character so it deforms properly when animated. Companion CD included with the images from the book, Maya files to help build the character, AVI movies that show the modeling process in real time, and Mel scripts for installing a character modeling tool menu that can improve the user s workflow!

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Do you want the ability to manage documents, photos, and other content over the Web but don’t want to shell out thousands of dollars in proprietary solutions? Want to create an online community for your hobby or user group?

You’re not alone. For thousands of like-minded around the globe, the answer is Joomla!, an open source content management system (CMS) used to manage all sorts of data over the Web.

While Joomla! is relatively easy to install, a fair amount of knowledge is required in order to configure the application to your specific needs. Getting StartED with Joomla! Is an entry developer and user’s guide that gets you started with this popular CMS in little or no time.

• All you need to get started with using Content Management Systems in general.
• How to install, configure and get wet in Joomla!
• Upload and manage your documents, photos, blog and more using Joomla!
• Discover and use Joomla! Menus, Components, Managers and more. Extend Joomla!
• How to use the Joomla! Template Manager

Those interested in learning Joomla for the first time or to those using Drupal and other CMS who want to learn Joomla!

Bintu Harwani is a computer programmer and Web developer with several years of experience building content driven Web sites using a variety of Web development technologies including PHP, Ruby, Rails, and more.

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A “Learning Network” is a community of people who help each other to better understand and handle certain events and concepts in work or life. As a result – and sometimes also as an aim – participating in learning networks stimulates personal development, a better understanding of concepts and events, career development, and employability. “Learning Network Services” are Web services that are designed to facilitate the creation of distributed Learning Networks and to support the participants with various functions for knowledge exchange, social interaction, assessment and competence development in an effective way.

The book presents state-of-the-art insights into the field of Learning Networks and Web-based services which can facilitate all kinds of processes within these networks. The main emphasis of the contributions is to explain what services a Learning Network requires and what the reader should do to design and run Learning Network Services, including guidelines on how to evaluate the effectiveness of these services.

This book is a rich source of information for practitioners and professional developers who want to stimulate learning by professionals through web-based social interaction. Managers of educational institutions and training companies will find many ideas about possible services to offer. At the same time, it is an excellent introduction for other researchers in the field, and for students interested in the learning sciences or technology-enhanced learning.

About the Author

Rob Koper is professor in the field of learning technologies and the Dean of the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies (CELSTEC) at the Open University of the Netherlands. Rob has more than 20 years of experience in the field of learning sciences and technologies, and published over 200 publications.

In the past he was responsible for the development of new learning technologies like the Educational Modelling Language (now IMS Learning Design), and methods and technologies to facilitate self-organized learning networks for lifelong learning. His current research is in the area of personal competence development, and he is co-ordinating the Integrated EU project TENCompetence that is building a web-based infrastructure for lifelong competence development.

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Algorithms and Programming is primarily intended for a first-year undergraduate course in programming. It is structured in a problem-solution format that requires the student to think through the programming process, thus developing an understanding of the underlying theory. Although the author assumes some moderate familiarity with programming constructs, the book is easily readable by a student taking a basic introductory course in computer science. In addition, the more advanced chapters make the book useful for a course at the graduate level in the analysis of algorithms and/or compiler construction.

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Coalgebraic logic is an important research topic in the areas of concurrency theory, semantics, transition systems and modal logics. It provides a general approach to modeling systems, allowing us to apply important results from coalgebras, universal algebra and category theory in novel ways. Stochastic systems provide important tools for systems modeling, and recent work shows that categorical reasoning may lead to new insights, previously not available in a purely probabilistic setting.

This book combines coalgebraic reasoning, stochastic systems and logics. It provides an insight into the principles of coalgebraic logic from a categorical point of view, and applies these systems to interpretations of stochastic coalgebraic logics, which include well-known modal logics and continuous time branching logics. The author introduces stochastic systems together with their probabilistic and categorical foundations and gives a comprehensive discussion of the Giry monad as the underlying categorical construction, presenting many new, hitherto unpublished results. He discusses modal logics, introduces their probabilistic interpretations, and then proceeds to an analysis of Kripke models for coalgebraic logics.

The book will be of interest to researchers in theoretical computer science, logic and category theory.

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As if the World Wide Web isn’t reason enough to do cartwheels down the street, the globe is now ablaze with the fire of a different flavor: Java – a fresh blend of technologies that bring the Web to life with dazzling animation, pulse-pounding sound, and full-blown interactivity, the likes of which the online community has never seen.

One of the wonderful things about Java is its universal appeal; all Web surfers can add a dash or two of Java to their Web pages, bringing their Web sites to life with little effort.  And even if you’ve never seen Java in action before, you’re going to be just fine with Java For Dummies, 3rd Edition at your side. Assuming that you’re comfortable using your computer, you’re soon likely to find yourself surfing the seas of Java on the World Wide Web, creating your very own Java-powered pages, and hooking up Java applications on your desktop computer.

If you want, you can read this book from front to back. But each part of Java For Dummies, 3rd Edition stands on its own. You’ll uncover information about

• Exactly why everyone on the Web seems to be scrambling for a taste of Java
• How to use the Java applets
• When to customize the applets to fit your needs
• How Java desktop applications differ from their Web-oriented applet counterparts
• What to do to make some nifty, kick-butt Java applications for your desktop
• How to overcome the top Java snafus

Java For Dummies offers everything you need to know to inject your pages and desktop with the appropriate flavor of Java. As icing on the cake (or cream in your coffee, if you prefer), you’ll discover the best places on the Web to satisfy the constant Java cravings you’re sure to get. Brace yourself – you stand a good chance of becoming a serious Java addict.

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From the book’s Foreword by Trevor Mole, Managing Director, Property Tectonics; President of the European Association of Building Surveyors and Construction Experts:

‘Shu-Ling and Martin have built on their research work and that of others to produce an understandable and readable insight into innovation in small professional service firms. They have successfully unravelled the complex behavioural and organisational forces taking place and created a framework to help practitioners understand the issues and to fashion the right environment in which to foster innovation and deliver economic value.’

Small professional practices in the built environment are crucial to the success and long-term viability of the design, construction and property industries. This research-based book addresses the urgent need to better understand the nature and process of innovation in these important firms.

The authors offer an analysis of both why and how innovation is a key competitive factor for small professional practices in the built environment. As these practices are located in different business environments and behave in different ways to other types of industry firms, the context-specific methodology to design, implement and assess innovation in small professional practices presented in this book will appeal to researchers and practitioners in surveying and design.

Innovation in Small Professional Practices in the Built Environment makes a significant contribution to an underdeveloped area of innovation by offering new theoretical and practical insights and models grounded in results from a 22-month case study of a small professional practice.

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By their very nature, construction projects can create seemingly endless opportunities for conflict. Written by a best selling author with over 40 years of experiences in the construction and general contracting business, Construction Process Planning and Management provides you with the necessary tools to save time and money on your construction project. In this book, Sid Levy provides valuable advice for avoiding or working through the common problems that are a result of the long-term nature of construction projects, failure to select a ?project delivery system? appropriate to the project, incomplete drawing and specifications, unrealistic scheduling, poor communication and coordination among participants, and inadequate contract administration. From project genesis, through design development to contractor and contract selection, on to construction oversight, punch list and successful project close-out, this book will point out those pitfalls to avoid and offer practical advice at every step along the way.

Administer the general construction process including solicitation of contractor’s qualifications (pre-qualify bidders), comparative analysis of bid packages, recommendation for contract award, contract document negotiation and documentation of job change orders.

Provide Project Planning and on-site management and coordination of all construction projects.

Ensure compliance of building construction rules and regulations and collaborate with chief engineers to monitor quality of construction.

Conduct technical/plan review of construction documents and submit written responses identifying required corrections or changes.

Design, implement and oversee Company standards for construction policies, practices and processes.

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Do you remember landmark games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Asteroids? Well, here’s an exciting opportunity to build and/or port these games to one of the hottest mobile and netbooks platforms today: Google’s Android.

Pro Android Games teaches you how to build cool games like Space Blaster and the classic Asteroids from scratch on the latest Android platform. This book also shows you how to port other classic freeware/shareware games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D from C using the Java Native Interface (JNI) for Android.

This book is all about a unique perspective in Android game development: a well-balanced, powerful combination of pure Java and hybrid game development, mixing Java and C. By combining the elegant object-oriented features of Java and the raw power of C, there is no limit to the types of games that you can build for the platform. With actionable real-world source code in hand, this book allows you to dive right into games development on Android. You’ll definitely have fun, and perhaps you’ll even make some money. Enjoy!

• How to write/port advanced 3D games for any Android device.
• How to setup a Linux system for hybrid game compilation.
• How to combine Java and C code in an elegant manner by building a simple Java application on top of a native library.
• How to tackle pure Java gaming with two practical games: Space Blaster and the arcade classic Asteroids.
• How to mix OpenGL API calls in Java and C for high performance 3D graphics using the 3D cubes sample by Google.
• How to bring two of the greatest PC 3D shooters to the Android platform: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom using Java and C.

This book is for Google Android developers interested in game application development in Java or porting existing C-based games via JNI into Android and developing/deploying from there. It is targeted to developers who already know such basics of Android development as activity, view, and layout. Additionally, it assumes that you are a seasoned game developer in Java and C, and have a basic knowledge of Linux and Shell Scripting.

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This book takes a comprehensive look at Magento, a robust and flexible e-commerce platform built on the Zend framework. With over 750,000 downloads, Magento is the fastest growing open source e-commerce solution. This book walks you through all of the steps necessary to build a fully functional Magento-based web site. It also includes information on managing products, customers, and orders. This book is directed at web site designers and developers, but will also be extremely useful for business owners who have web sites built on the Magento platform.

• Introduces you to Magento, the fastest-growing open source e-commerce platform
• Demonstrates how to configure and use Magento
• Covers how to customize Magento and develop extensions for the Magento platform

• How to install and set up a Magento based e-commerce web site
• How to effectively manage products, customers, and orders
• How to sell products through Magento
• How to design a custom Magento web site
• How to add content to your Magento web site
• How to create your own Magento extensions

Current and prospective web site designers and web developers; small business owners who want an online presence

About the Author

Adam McCombs is a website designer and a front end developer with over seven years of experience. He specializes in adapting open source frame works such as Magento, Wordpress, Joomla!, and Drupal into functional custom website solutions for clients of small and medium sized businesses. His work and blog can be found at www.mccombs.me.

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Effectively forecast, manage, and control software across the entire project lifecycle

Accurately size, estimate, and administer software projects with real-world guidance from an industry expert. Fully updated to cover the latest tools and techniques, Applied Software Measurement, Third Edition details how to deploy a cost-effective and pragmatic analysis strategy. You will learn how to use function points and baselines, implement benchmarks and tracking systems, and perform efficiency tests. Full coverage of the latest regulations, metrics, and standards is included.

• Measure performance at the requirements, coding, testing, and installation phases
• Set function points for efficiency, cost, market share, and customer satisfaction
• Analyze quality and productivity using assessments, benchmarks, and baselines
• Design and manage project cost, defect, and quality tracking systems
• Use object-oriented, reusable component, Agile, CMM, and XP methods
• Assess defect removal efficiency using unit tests and multistage test suites

About the Author

Capers Jones is a renowned author, consultant, and speaker. He was the founder and chairman of Software Productivity Research (SPR), where he retains the title of Chief Scientist Emeritus. Jones is the author of Estimating Software Costs, Second Edition.

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If you have basic programming experience, this book is your ideal guide for writing games using Visual Basic .NET and Managed DirectX 9. This Second Edition includes almost entirely new coverage. While coverage of game design and 2D artwork remain, this edition includes more detailed coverage of the DirectX game code and utilizes the free Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition compiler. A true beginner’s guide, this book covers each essential step for creating your own complete role playing game, including a character creation screen and a combat system. This book serves as a comprehensive introductory guide for readers who are new to programming or new to programming for games.

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Build better web applications by learning how a servlet container actually works.

• Enhance your Java EE web programming skills by getting an expert level understanding of the servlet specification and its reference implementation, Apache Tomcat.
• Build a Tomcat distribution from its source code, and explore the components, classes, and technologies that make up this container.

• Use standard development tools such as Eclipse, Ant, and Subversion to dissect a Tomcat distribution.
• Discover the touch points between the servlet specification and a servlet container’s implementation.
• Acquire specialist grade skills in a range of technologies that contribute to Java server side development.

In Detail

While Tomcat is one of the most popular servlet containers, its inner workings still remain a mystery to many developers. If you only have a superficial familiarity of how this container actually functions, much of its power remains untapped and underutilized. This book will provide you with all that you need to undertand how to effectively use Apache Tomcat.

This book begins by providing detailed instructions on building a Tomcat distribution. The next few chapters introduce you to the conceptual underpinnings of web servers, the Java EE and servlet specifications, and the Tomcat container. Subsequent chapters address the key Tomcat components, taking care to provide you with the information needed to understand the internal workings of each component. Detailed examples let you walk through a Tomcat installation, stepping into key Tomcat components, as well as into your own custom servlets.

During the course of the book you will encounter various structural components such as the Server and Service; containers such as the Engine, Host, Context, and Wrapper; and helpers such as the Loader, Manager, and Valve. You will also see how Tomcat implements the JNDI API to provide both a directory service for storage agnostic access to its resources, as well as a naming service that implements the Java EE Environment Naming Context.

Along the way you will learn how various elements of the servlet 2.5 specification, as well as the HTTP RFCs are implemented by a servlet container. By the end of your journey, you will have acquired specialist grade skills in a range of technologies that contribute to the arena of Java server side development. You will then be able to count yourself as part of the elite minority of Java EE web developers who truly understand what goes on under the covers of a servlet container.

What you will learn from this book

• Obtain an in-depth view of the inner workings of one of the most successful open source projects of all time.
• Discover the touch points between the Java EE platform specifications and a servlet container’s implementation.
• Learn how to extract the most out of your Tomcat installation by understanding how its various components are implemented.
• Use standard development tools such as Subversion, and Ant, and Eclipse to build a Tomcat distribution from its source code.
• Execute Tomcat from inside the Eclipse IDE to watch the various components cooperate in processing a request.
• Acquire specialist grade skills in a range of technologies and protocols that contribute to Java server side development.
• Learn advanced software techniques such as building a custom class loader, implementing a custom protocol, and implementing JNDI-based naming and directory services.
• Explore some of the performance optimizations and design patterns used in building highly scalable and performant software.

Approach

This book taps into the author’s wide experience as an architect and programmer to explore Tomcat from the ground up. Each major component of Tomcat is covered in careful detail, both from a conceptual and an implementation perspective. Written with detailed explanations and lots of screenshots, the book covers its topics in a concise, practical, and understandable manner.

Who this book is written for

This book is intended for web developers who want to take their programming skills to the next level, and for server administrators who want to get a better understanding of the container software they manage.

This book will give you an expert’s understanding of every component that contributes to the overall request processing capabilities of Tomcat. In addition, the concepts you learn will be general enough to be carried over to other servlet containers.

This book is also a good starting point for developers who want to understand how high availability and high performance software, such as Tomcat, are designed.

If you wish to contribute to the Tomcat project, then this is an ideal book for you.

Prior knowledge of the Java programming language, and web development on the Java platform is assumed.

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Macworld, the most widely-read Macintosh magazine, has won a myriad of editorial and design awards over the years. Macworld combines objective product testing with years of market experience to give readers the perspective, advice, and inspiration to get the most of their Mac. Each issue is loaded with authoritative product reviews, expert hints and tips, in depth feature articles and more!

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The Independent Guide to the iphone 3GS – The ‘it’ phone of our era, Apple’s iPhone is an iconic piece of technology coveted by an International population of millions. With the arrival of the latest model, the iPhone 3GS, comes an abundance of brand new applications, special features and multi-media add-ons, and this expert written magbook is on hand to guide you through these applications and help you maximize the phone’s potential.

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The Independent Guide to Ebay 2010 – Looking for an easy way to beat the credit crunch? Well look no further, as this guide to eBay – the world’s most profitable online market – is here to answer your prayers. All the latest tricks and tips together with expert advice will help you master eBay.download

With hundreds of practice questions and hands-on exercises, CompTIA A+ Certification Study Guide, Sixth Edition covers what you need to know–and shows you how to prepare–for these challenging exams.

* 100% complete coverage of all official objectives for CompTIA A+ exams 220-601, 220-602, 220-603, and 220-604
* Exam Readiness Checklist at the front of the book–you’re ready for the exam when all objectives on the list are checked off
* Inside the Exam sections in every chapter highlight key exam topics covered
* Simulated exam questions match the format, tone, topics, and difficulty of the real exam

Covers all the exam topics, including:

* CPUs and Motherboards
* Power Supply and Cooling Systems
* Memory and Storage Devices
* Display and Input Devices
* Cables, Connectors, and Ports
* Installing, Upgrading, Troubleshooting, and Maintaining PCs
* Supporting Laptops and Portable Devices
* Installing, Configuring, Optimizing, and Upgrading Operating Systems
* Managing Disks and Files
* Managing Printers and Scanners
* Installing, Configuring, and Troubleshooting Networks
* Security
* Safety and Environmental Issues
* Communication and Professionalism

CD-ROM includes:

* Complete MasterExam practice testing engine, featuring: One full practice exam
* Detailed answers with explanations
* Score Report performance assessment tool
* Video training clips of key A+ related tasks
* Electronic book for studying on the go

With free online registration:

* One-hour LearnKey video training session
* Bonus downloadable MasterExam practice test
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