For many scientists and clinicians, obesity has at last come of age. When the editors were going through medical school and even specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology, obesity was a nonentity that fell out of the mainstream of ‘real’ diseases and was notable for being dull and unrewarding to treat. Admittedly, this was...

Welcome to the CompTIA A+ Exam Cram, Fifth Edition. This book prepares you for the CompTIA A+ Essentials Exam (number 220-701), and the CompTIA A+ Practical Application Exam (number 220-702) Imagine if you will, that you are at a testing center and have just been handed the passing scores for these exams. The goal of this...

Why did I...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management tool. At its very core, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a database. It’s the place where you can enter information about your customers: Who works at the company, what are their roles, who at your company has communicated with them, what have they purchased, and have they...

For a long time, I was very happy building Ethernet networks, working with switches and then moving to 802.11. It took awhile, but eventually I realized that the world of interconnected networks cannot be reached with Layer 2 alone. In addition, as you spread your wings from the Layer 2 broadcast domains, you encounter the wonders of...

I first met Peter Plesch in the late 1950s when he had established his vacuum techniques in Keele and I was embarking on my PhD. My visit to Keele was to seek advice (freely given) on handling sensitive reaction systems. I rapidly came to appreciate that Peter operated on a somewhat higher intellectual plane than many academics. All...

This has been a very long journey. We found that writing this book was a challenging task, a much harder one than we had anticipated, but there were also moments of joy and discovery along the way! The idea for the book first came to us 18 months ago, and many days and nights have come and gone between the first sentence we wrote and...

I am are very happy to have taken part in the 12th Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference (FC 2008). Due to the recent growth in the number of security and cryptography venues, the competition for high-quality submissions has been on the rise. Despite that, the continued success of FC is attested by the research...

Inkscape is frequently mentioned, and lauded, as one of the best examples of open-source software available today. It is a mature, feature-full and flexible product, thanks to a very dedicated developer community. The latest version, 0.48, adds new tools, such as the Airbrush (which many have longed for), and advanced path editing,...

When we began creating Unity, we were just three programmers working on a beautiful little game. There weren't any good game engines that one could license without putting down wads of cash, so we created our own. We eventually decided that we enjoyed the challenge of making great tools even more than making games, and after some soul...