DirectX 8 and Visual Basic Developmentfills an unmet need in the marketplace as the first book to explain how to use VB.NET and DirectX 8 to create sophisticated multi- media applications. Topics include networked games, 3D multimedia applications, enable Force Feedback joystick devices in their own applications, multimedia applications that allow for multiple user input devices, and multimedia applications that use music and sound. Real world examples explain how to use these tools effectively, professionally, and quickly.

About the Author

Keith Sink is a Senior Technical Engineer for Capital Stream, a financial software company in Seattle, WA, where he has been involved in the design, development, and architecture of a number of successful applications. Keith has been a professional software developer for six years and an MCP since 1994, has taught numerous VB training courses, and has beta-tested Microsoft's DirectX since version 2.0. Keith has been animating and writing video games since the TRS-80 programming days in the early 1980s, and enjoys restoring classic video games. While working with Microsoft, Keith contributed to Office 97 Help content as well as content for the Word and PowerPoint Answer Wizards.

What can you do when database performance doesn't meet expectations? Before you turn to expensive hardware upgrades to solve the problem, reach for this book. Refactoring SQL Applications provides a set of tested options for making code modifications to dramatically improve the way your database applications function. Backed by real-world examples, you'll find quick fixes for simple problems, in-depth answers for more complex situations, and complete solutions for applications with extensive problems. Learn to:

• Determine if and where you can expect performance gains
• Apply quick fixes, such as limiting calls to the database in stored functions and procedures
• Refactor tasks, such as replacing application code by a stored procedure, or replacing iterative, procedural statements with sweeping SQL statements
• Refactor flow by increasing parallelism and switching business-inducted processing from synchronous to asynchronous
• Refactor design using schema extensions, regular views, materialized views, partitioning, and more
• Compare before and after versions of a program to ensure you get the same results once you make modifications

Refactoring SQL Applications teaches you to recognize and assess code that needs refactoring, and to understand the crucial link between refactoring and performance. If and when your application bogs down, this book will help you get it back up to speed.

About the Author

St phane Faroult first discovered relational databases and the SQL language back in 1983. He joined Oracle France in their early days (after a brief spell with IBM and a bout of teaching at the University of Ottawa) and soon developed an interest in performance and tuning topics. After leaving Oracle in 1988, he briefly tried to reform and did a bit of operational research, but after one year, he succumbed again to relational databases. He has been continuously performing database consultancy since then, and founded RoughSea Ltd in 1998.

Pascal L'Hermite has been working with relational databases in OLTP, production and development environments on Oracle Databases for the past 12 years and on Microsoft SQL Server for the past 5 years.

Cyberspace now touches all lives. For some it has become as essential as the telephone or the letter. For others it is still a fearful whisper of technological promise. Sometimes we look on bemused, uncertain why all those little addresses that begin ‘http://’ appear in advertisements, and sometimes we are shocked by the possibilities, when a friend sends letters instantly across the globe through the telephone. When cables and phone lines are allied to computers, this parallel world of cyberspace is created. It is often called a virtual world because it does not exist in tangible, physical reality but in the light and electronics of communications technology. In the virtual world people live virtual lives, alongside their real lives, that may be as substantial as marriage and as insubstantial as checking a television guide. Even those uninterested in the virtual world are affected, often without their knowing.

"This book explains grid in simple terms, using practical examples to demonstrate the technical and business benefits of grid and providing hands-on guidance for readers. This is a must read for everyone who is seriously investigating grid or planning to integrate grid technology in their IT environment."
--Wolfgang Gentzsch, Managing Director of Grid Computing and Networking Services, MCNC, Inc.

A decade ago, the corporate world viewed grid computing as a curiosity. Today, it views it as an opportunity--a chance to reduce costs, improve performance, fund new projects, and take advantage of under-utilized capacity. The engineering behind this transformation has been amply documented. Until now, however, little has been written to prepare managers, executives, and other decision-makers to implement grid computing in a sensible and effective way.

Grid Computing: The Savvy Manager's Guide examines the technology from a rigorous business perspective, equipping you with the practical knowledge you need to assess your options and determine what grid computing approach is right for your enterprise. This book is heavy on real-world experience, distilling from a rich assortment of case studies the best practices currently at work in a variety of industries. Always attentive to grid computing's many competitive advantages, it is also realistic about the challenges of selling the idea to staff and making it a part of your company's culture.

Features:

+ Sketches the history of grid computing, showing how it made the leap from academia to business.
+ Examines the criteria you'll need to meet to make your network "grid-enabled."
+ Explains how a grid-based solution can be made to meet key organizational requirements, including security, scheduling, data storage, and fault-tolerance.
+ Surveys the approaches currently available and helps you choose the one that will best meet your needs, both now and in the future.
+ Focuses heavily on the competitive advantages you can reap from grid computing, and provides advice on convincing your organization to adopt grid computing and making a successful transition.

About the Authors:

Pawel Plaszczak is CEO at Gridwise Technologies, an independent consulting firm in grid computing. He gained insider's knowledge of grid technologies as a developer with Ian Foster's Globus Project and continues to remain active in the standards community through Global Grid Forum. Richard Wellner, Jr. is a partner at Gridwsie Technologies and also works as an Enterprise Architect with Univa Corporation. He has been involved in the grid community helping to standardize core protocols and to develop new standards and systems centered upon them. Both authors are major contributors to the development of the Globus Toolkit, currently the most widely used grid infrastructure.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2006, held in Haifa, Israel, in October 2006.

The 15 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. The papers are organized in three topical tracks on hardware verification technologies and methodologies, software testing, and tools for hardware verification and software testing.

Tailor Microsoft CRM to manage records and workflow for your business

Find out how to target your sales efforts and become a customer service leader

A happy customer is a repeat customer, so how do you make ’em happy? You can manage, with Microsoft CRM and this friendly guide by your side! Find out how easily you can provide super service, track your invoices, sell more effectively, maximize your leads, and show your customers they’re tops on your list.

The Dummies Way

• Explanations in plain English
• "Get in, get out" information
• Icons and other navigational aids
• Tear-out cheat sheet
• Top ten lists
• A dash of humor and fun

About the Author

Joel Scott is among a handful of global experts on CRM for small and medium-sized businesses.

Michael DeLisa is the Director of Training at Computer Control Corporation.

When computers started to become business tools and to assume an essential role in all companies, they were very large both physically and in terms of capital and revenue cost. Indeed, when erecting a new building the company would have to design features especially for the computer. A big room to house it, separate power supplies, large air-conditioning plants, and hoisting gear to lift the bits of computer off a lorry into the computer room.

Once the computer was in place then it was treated very much like the directorial suite. It had its own retinue of staff who were somehow a different breed of people to the rest of the organization, and its own set of security procedures not only to prevent access but to deter enquiries.

The computer users—the accountants and engineers—would approach the building clutching a pile of punched cards or papertape and hand it over to an operator who would take them to the inner sanctum to be fed into the machine to be processed. Some hours later the results of this labour would by placed into a pigeonhole to be collected by the user.

In the early seventies Time Sharing started to become common. We now know this as accessing the computer via a terminal, though in those days it was more typically a mechanical teletype running at 50 or 110 baud, and even quite large installations would only be able to run half a dozen of them. Nevertheless this sent a shiver of excitement throughout the user community. It was possible for a department to have its own interface to this vast resource, and this confirmed a great  degree of status. For the first time people felt computing power to be intheir grasp and, although perhaps not driven by need, people wanted access and fought to get it.

Emerging Location Aware Broadband Wireless Ad Hoc Networks is a compilation of new material on wireless networking and technology addressing several technical challenges in the field. The contributions are authored by distinguished experts who presented experimental results on their work at the recent International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, Mobile, Radio Communications (PIMRC) held in Barcelona, Spain, September 5-8, 2004.

The authors present new results on issues involving wireless LANs and ad hoc networks; mobile wireless internet and satellite applications; encoding, algorithms and performance; and issues related to overlay networks, cross layer interactions and smart antennas.

Whether you’re a telecommunications/networking specialist, systems engineer or a scientist, Emerging Location Aware Broadband Wireless Ad Hoc Networks provides valuable insight from experts in wireless networking for developing wireless systems and meeting future application requirements.

"...a useful work of reference...having copies in both the library and the laboratory is highly recommended." IEE Review

"... ideal for college-level laboratory courses and for practicing engineers and scientists." Chemical Engineering Progress

"...this is a good text and worth consideration for anyone teaching a course in interfacing or experimentation." Physics Today

This practical text describes how to use a desk-top computer to monitor and control laboratory experiments. Stephen Derenzo clearly explains how to design electronic circuits and write computer programs to sense, analyze and display real-world quantities, including displacement, temperature, force, sound, light, and biomedical potentials. He includes numerous laboratory exercises and appendices that provide practical information on microcomputer architecture and interfacing, including complete circuit diagrams and component lists. A very basic knowledge of electronics is assumed, making the book ideal for college-level laboratory courses and for practicing engineers and scientists.

This text describes in practical terms how to use a computer to monitor and control laboratory experiments. The author clearly explains how to design electronic circuits and write programs to sense, analyse and display real-world quantities, including displacement, temperature, force, sound, light, and biomedical potentials. Topics include analog amplification and signal processing, digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion, electronic sensors and actuators, interfacing circuits and programming. Only a very basic knowledge of electronics is assumed, making it ideal for college-level laboratory courses and for practising engineers and scientists.

About the Author

STEPHEN E. DERENZO is Professor-in-Residence in the Department of electrical Engineering and computer Sciences at UC Berkeley and a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has been teaching courses on electronic circuits, electronic transducers, and microcomputer interfacing for over 15 years and this book was developed from those courses. He has authored and co-authored over 150 technical publictions, was awarded the 1992 annual Merit Award of the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society of IEEE, and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Oracle DBA on Unix and Linux provides all the information needed to install, support, tune, and upgrade Oracle databases on the UNIX and Linux platforms. Maintain a robust, mission-critical Oracle8i database. This book provides administrative solutions for the day-to-day DBA. You'll learn how to install the database for maximum efficiency, upgrades, patches, migrations, tune, and maintain its security. The book also explains in detail how to build and support a fully functioning Oracle database. This authoritative text contains up-to-date information available on Oracle's latest release and shows you how to: configure database architecture; install and set up with UNIX requirements; create the actual database with scripts; GUI management products; use Backup and Recovery; tune, monitor, and troubleshoot servers; Web DB and the Oracle Portal, 8i, iFS, Java, and 9I coverage; and iAS--Internet Application Server.

About the Author

Michael Wessler received his B.S. in Computer Technology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. He is an Oracle Certified Database Administrator for Oracle 8 and 8i. He has administered Oracle databases on NT, and various flavors of Unix, and Linux at several different companies ranging from a handful of employees to IT staffs in the thousands. Included in this experience is working at a true .com startup and managing a mission-critical OPS database on a Sun Cluster. Michael has also programmed professionally in COBOL, SQL, and PL/SQL. Currently, he is an Oracle consultant for Perpetual Technologies working at the Department of Defense in Indianapolis, Indiana. Michael is coauthor of Oracle Unleashed, Second Edition; Unix Primer Plus, Third Edition; and COBOL Unleashed.

The ultimate guide to cover letters that will set you apart from the pack-revised, updated, and ready for anything . . .

175 High-Impact Cover Letters, Third Edition arms job seekers with an arsenal of highly effective professional cover letter models that, with minor modification, can be rapidly deployed as needed. You'll find a full chapter, complete with numerous models, dedicated to each of five different types of cover letters: employer broadcast letters, search firm broadcast letters, advertising response letters, networking cover letters, and resume letters.

With step-by-step instructions and a wealth of samples, 175 High-Impact Cover Letters shows you how to prepare a well-written, professional letter that will help you land the interview every time. For the Third Edition, almost every letter has been substantially rewritten or fine-tuned to reflect the current thinking and terminology in the field of staffing, while an entirely new chapter provides proven "do's" and "don'ts" of effective cover letter writing. You'll find:

• Examples of more than 175 winning cover letters
• Cover letters appropriate for junior and senior experience levels in twenty-eight different occupations
• Sample job ads and the appropriate cover letter response
• Results of an authoritative survey of employment professionals that highlight what employers look for in cover letters

No matter how impressive your resume, it's your cover letter that employers read first. With 175 High-Impact Cover Letters, Third Edition, you can make sure they'll be eager to turn to the next page.

About the Author

RICHARD H. BEATTY is President of the Brandywine Consulting Group, a corporate outplacement consulting firm, and a bestselling career author whose books have sold over 900,000 copies. His other books include 175 High-Impact Resumes, The Interview Kit, The Resume Kit, The Perfect Cover Letter, and The Five-Minute Interview, all from Wiley.