Book Description

Congratulations! You’re on Mars Base Alpha, the first human outpost on the red planet. Don’t relax, though. It’s not all roses and unicorns up here. Mars isn’t called “The Bringer of War” for nothing! You’ve just been rained on by a meteor shower and it’s up to you—you!—to put your LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics skills to work to save the day, and the base! And that’s only the beginning of the challenges that lie ahead.

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: Mars Base Command is a book of challenge. It’s about challenging yourself to design and build robots to solve problems, tough problems. Taking a similar approach to best-selling LEGO author James Kelly’s other books, this book presents a series of four challenges in the setting of mankind’s first-ever manned base on the planet Mars. Each challenge begins with a backstory to set the scene. You’re given instructions for constructing a playing field, including devices that your eventual robot must manipulate. Your job is to build a robot that will execute the challenge and garner you the most points.

The book requires the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Education Resource Set. Scoring sheets are included that allow for the book’s use in educational and group settings. Teachers can base lesson plans around the different concepts taught in each challenge. Groups and clubs can choose to run mini-competitions in which teams or individuals compete against each other in a race to save the base. LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: Mars Base Command is an excellent choice for an individual, a group, or a teacher wishing to learn about and have more fun with LEGO’s best-selling robotics platform.

What you’ll learn Download Now »

Book Description

Includes source files plus over 6 hours of screencasts!

JavaScript has become one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. This book will get acquainted with what JavaScript; what it is, where it came from, and most importantly – how to code it!

Ever wanted to liven up a web design with Javascript but not known where to start? In Getting Good with JavaScript author Andrew Burgess breaks down programming in JavaScript into easy, straight-fowrad terms and exercizes.

It’s hard to find a place where JavaScript won’t run, and though the overwhelming majority of JavaScript—especially the JavaScript you’ll be writing in this book—will be in web pages, JavaScript is used not only in web browsers, but also desktop apps, mobile phone apps, and now even on the server, so you definitely won’t be wasting your time Getting Good with JavaScript! to run in the browser.After getting started in Chapter 1, we’ll cover the basics in Chapters 2 and 3. You’ll learn all about the core syntax: what to actually type. Chapter 4 will cover many best practices and important concepts for writing JavaScript. Then, in Chapter 5, I’ll introduce you to the basics of writing JavaScript that interacts with web pages.

This book will introduce you to important programming concepts, show you how to write your first scripts, and make you comfortable with JavaScript code. You’ll learn:

• The basics of types, variables, and operators
• Best practices for efficient coding Download Now »

Book Description

Sound engineer, author and musician Björgvin Benediktsson teaches you How to Record Great Music with whatever equipment you got!

Audio engineering and music production are a huge subject, but by breaking down the essential facets of audio engineering and recording into easily consumable chapters, Björgvin gets you up and running by covering everything from buying essential audio equipment to using reverb effectively in your recordings.

If you’ve been thinking about recording music or dabbling in audio engineering, then kick-start the process by grabbing a copy of Björgvin’s book and start learning how you can record great music with whatever equipment you got!

What Makes a Good Sound Recording music is a subjective process and nobody does it exactly the same way. Sound engineers are usually trying to reproduce something that they hear in their head by using the tools they have on hand. However, regardless of the music genre or style, there are always certain things people try to capture in order for their instruments to sound good. In this chapter I take a look at what exactly those things are, and what needs to be considered when trying to identify what makes a good sound.

How I Record Great Music In this chapter I go through the proper steps involved in recording a great song and explore how you go from an idea to its implementation and to the final product. Download Now »

Book Description

Need fast, reliable, easy-to-implement solutions for automating SharePoint 2010 administration with PowerShell? This book delivers exactly what you’re looking for: step-by-step help and guidance with the tasks you’ll perform most often. You’ll find tested PowerShell scripts and proven techniques for managing installations, servers, farms, IIS, users, services, sites, data, solutions, enterprise services, and more. You’ll even find practical guidance and tested solutions for getting more value from Enterprise Search and PerformancePoint business intelligence. The industry’s most focused resource for scripting SharePoint with PowerShell, this book provides all the answers you need–now!

Fast, Accurate, and Easy-to-Use!

• Run PowerShell scripts from the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell console
• Perform unattended SharePoint installations
• Configure new farms, add servers, and manage sites
• Create new site collections and sub-sites
• Review and set Farm Configuration Values and SharePoint Designer Settings
• Display, get, create, remove, configure, and extend web applications
• Create, manage, remove, back up, and restore SharePoint databases
• Work with SharePoint solutions and features
• Automatically publish and manage content Download Now »

Book Description

“Return on investment in social media is like the weather: Everybody talks about it, but nobody is doing anything about it. With this book, Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah set you up for success with some key fundamentals, and then give you some very specific and illustrative examples on how to calculate the ROI of your social media efforts.”
–Scott Monty, Global Digital Communications, Ford Motor Company

“If you simply slap a few tools like Twitter and Facebook onto your existing marketing, you are not engaging. Social media are more than tools. But if you change your mindset, you can make money. This book is packed with information to show you how.”
–David Meerman Scott, bestselling author, The New Rules of Marketing, and coauthor, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead

Want to earn big profits from social media?

Now, there’s an authoritative, up-to-the-minute resource you can trust–and use.

This in-the-trenches guide is written by experts who’ve developed money-making marketing campaigns for many of the world’s largest companies. Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D., combine practical strategies and proven execution techniques to show how to avoid crucial pitfalls that other companies have encountered, how to make the most of limited resources, and how to strengthen your brand instead of placing it at risk. Download Now »

Book Description

SharePoint® 2010 How-To. Real Solutions for SharePoint 2010 Users

Need fast, reliable, easy-to-implement solutions for SharePoint 2010? This book delivers exactly what you’re looking for: step-by-step help and guidance with the tasks that users, authors, content managers, and site managers perform most often. Fully updated to reflect SharePoint 2010’s latest improvements, this book covers everything from lists and views to social networking, workflows, and security. The industry’s most focused SharePoint resource, SharePoint 2010 How-To provides all the answers you need—now!

Fast, Accurate, and Easy to Use!

• Quickly review essential SharePoint terminology and concepts
• Find, log on to, and navigate SharePoint sites
• Create, manage, and use list items, documents, and forms
• Set up alerts to notify you about new or changed content
• Use views to work with content more efficiently
• Make the most of search in SharePoint Server and SharePoint Foundation
• Organize content with lists, document libraries, and templates Download Now »