Gamification may be a new term, but the idea of using game-thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences isn’t exactly new. The military has been using games and simulations for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and the U.S. military has been a pioneer in the use of video games across branches. Three...

This book is an introduction to modern ideas in cryptology and how to employ these ideas. It includes the relevant material on number theory, probability, and abstract algebra, in addition to descriptions of ideas about algorithms and com plexity theory. Three somewhat different terms appear in the discussion of secure communications...

When it comes to HDR, only three key ingredients are needed: hardware, software, and post-processing technique. Hardware is simple—there are only a few things you need to set up and shoot an HDR series. Software is vastly improved, making it easier for anyone to create an HDR image. The hard part is the post-processing technique. There...

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a powerful tool that enables you to automate operations in the Microsoft Offi ce applications and in other applications that host VBA. By automating operations using VBA, you can save yourself and your colleagues huge amounts of time and effort. Getting more work done in less time is usually good...

This is the first comprehensive introduction to Support Vector Machines (SVMs), a new generation learning system based on recent advances in statistical learning theory. SVMs deliver state-of-the-art performance in real-world applications such as text categorisation, hand-written character recognition, image classification, biosequences...

I still remember deploying my first Microsoft Access application 10 years ago for a head hunting agency. They had a user base of about 200 users (I can already hear some of you groan) and they needed a system to manage job applicants and the companies that want to hire them. And they tossed my meager development team of two an...

This book is designed to help you prepare for the Cisco VPN certification exam. The VPN exam is one in a series of exams required for the Cisco Certified Network Professional - Security (CCNP - Security) certification. This exam focuses on the application of security principles with regard to Cisco IOS routers,...

I got started in Blender approximately eight and a half years ago. At the time, there were very few tutorials or other training resources available. Essentially, the only resource around was the people of the Blender Community, who was active through the online forum, http://blenderartists.org. With nothing but the generous time of...

A 2009 Game Developer Magazine Front Line Award Finalist, this book covers both the theory and practice of game engine software development, bringing together complete coverage of a wide range of topics. The concepts and techniques described are the actual ones used by real game studios like Electronic Arts and Naughty Dog. The examples are...

I hate management books. I do. People give them to me all the time saying: “You should read this one, it changed my life!” These books are all about 150 pages. They have 14 point type, double-spaced. They have lots of pictures. They have titles like: Open Locker Management, Management by not Managing, First Clean All The...

This book is a practical guide to testing in Moodle. You will initially learn to create different types of questions such as True/False, multiple choice, short answer, and so on. After you have learned how to create questions you will follow a step-by-step process to create complete tests by tweaking various options. Once you have gone...

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...