It can be a concierge, camera, flashlight, game...

Windows Azure is a highly scalable, robust, and cost-effective solution for the deployment of applications and services—for organizations and enterprises of all sizes, and in all types of markets. My task at Microsoft is to ensure that developers can help these organizations and enterprises to achieve their goals by quickly and easily...

Geometric algebra (GA) is a powerful new mathematical system for computational geometry. Although its origins can be traced back to Hermann Grassmann (1844), its development as a language for space–time geometry with applications to all of physics did not begin until 1966. Suddenly, in the year 2000 it was recognized that a specialized...

Once upon a time, starting a business meant months of researching, refining business goals and writing business plans, talking to investors and banks, negotiating for loans, and raising money. But today, agile web development practices mean that you can almost launch on an idea and figure it out as you go. At least that’s what authors...

Nagios is a tool for system and network monitoring. It constantly checks other machines and various services on those machines. The main purpose of system monitoring is to detect and report any system not working properly as soon as possible--so that you are aware of problems before a user runs into them. It is a modular and flexible solution...

High-performance system architectures are increasingly exploiting heterogeneity: multi- and manycore-based systems are complemented by coprocessors, accelerators, and reconfigurable units providing huge computational power. However, applications of scientific interest (e.g. in high-performance computing and numerical simulation) are not yet...

SharePoint enables Web sites to host shared workspaces and is a leading solution for Enterprise Content Management. The newest version boasts significant changes, impressive enhancements, and new features, requiring developers and administrators of all...

Deploy and manage high-performance data transformation solutions across your enterprise using the step-by-step techniques in this fully revised guide. Hands-On Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services, Second Edition explains the tools and methods...

Supramolecular chemistry has become not only a major field of chemistry, but is also a vivid interface between chemistry, biology, physics, and materials science. Although still a relatively young field, termini such as molecular recognition, host-guest chemistry, or self-assembly are now common knowledge even for chemistry students, and...

The blogosphere is a busy place. It’s hard to nail down a firm number, but the best estimates indicate that there are more than 200 million blogs bumping around globally in cyberspace. It can be daunting for a beginning blogger (or even an intermediate one) to comfortably find a spot of his or her own in such a crowd. Where can you...

SimpleDB is a highly scalable, simple-to-use, and inexpensive database in the cloud from Amazon Web Services. But in order to use SimpleDB, you really have to change your mindset. This isn't a traditional relational database; in fact it's not relational at all. For developers who have experience working with relational databases, this...

The spectacular coastline of Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula is a diverse playground where you can bask on pristine beaches, explore ancient ruins, play golf or tennis, go biking, snorkeling or scuba diving, do serious shopping, or escape to a secluded lagoon. With info on Cancun, Isla Mujeres, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and the...