Audiovisual storytelling has a long, well-developed history. As far back as the earliest known prehistoric times, human beings have communicated the essence of story through the use of pictures and sound: whether it’s cave paintings of the hunt, a poet proclaiming the epic adventures of Odysseus, Greek actors performing tragedy...

With more than 400 million active users and growing, it’s hard to ignore the buzz about Facebook. It’s a hot topic these days, and shows no signs of letting up. If you’re ready to get to the bottom of this Internet sensation and find out how to use this social networking phenomenon for yourself,...

As I write this, Java is just beginning its second decade. Unlike many other computer languages whose influence begins to wane over the years, Java’s has grown stronger with the passage of time. Java leapt to the forefront of Internet programming with its first release. Each subsequent version has solidified that position. Today,...

In this age of universal electronic connectivity, of viruses and hackers, of electronic eavesdropping and electronic fraud, there is indeed no time at which security does not matter.Two trends have come together to make the topic of this book of vital interest. First, the explosive growth in computer systems and their interconnections...

Many years ago, when I had to learn C overnight to make a living as a programmer (this was before C++), I would have given half my salary to find a mentor, a person would say, “Here are the potholes in the road...errors that you are sure to make in learning C. And here’s how to steer around them.” Instead, I had to...

Over the years, Exchange Server has become a complicated messaging solution that many organizations rely on. Many companies have not upgraded to Exchange Server 2007 and are still using Exchange Server 2003. With the release of Exchange Server 2010, they are now contemplating upgrading to take advantage of this new version’s...

The first edition of Fuzzy Logic with Engineering Applications (1995) was the first classroom text for undergraduates in the field. Now updated for the second time, this new edition features the latest advances in the field including material on expansion of the MLFE method using genetic algorithms, cognitive mapping, fuzzy agent-based...

Why did I...

There are many students and professionals in science and engineering, other than those specifically interested in fields such as computer science or computer engineering, who need to know how to solve computational problems on computers. There are basically two approaches to meeting the needs of such people. One is to rely on software...

Do you know why experienced Ruby programmers tend to reach for basic collections and hashes while programmers from other languages go for more specialized classes? Do you know the difference between strip, chop, and chomp, and why there are three such similar methods when apparently one might suffice? (Not to mention lstrip and...

This book is intended to survey the most important computer algorithms in use today, and to teach fundamental techniques to the growing number of people in need of knowing them. It is intended for use as a textbook for a second course in computer science, after students have acquired basic programming skills and familiarity with computer...

Parallel hardware has been ubiquitous for some time now. It’s difficult to find a laptop, desktop, or server that doesn’t use a multicore processor. Beowulf clusters are nearly as common today as high-powered workstations were during the 1990s, and cloud computing could make distributed-memory systems as accessible as...