When I was about 12 years old, my father came home from work with a Roman coin he’d bought for me. It was very worn, with a barely visible profile of a Roman emperor’s head on one side. But I was totally fascinated by the sudden realisation that this coin had existed for a length of time I was struggling to imagine. It belonged to a...

Every mathematician (beginner, amateur, and professional alike) thrills to find simple, elegant solutions to seemingly difficult problems. Such happy resolutions are called ``aha! solutions,'' a phrase popularized by mathematics and science writer Martin Gardner. Aha! solutions are surprising, stunning, and scintillating: they reveal the beauty...

• You’re a beginner to programming and you’ve chosen Visual Basic 2010 as the place to start. That’s a great...

Patent laws are different in many countries, and inventors are sometimes at a loss to understand which basic requirements should be satisfied if an invention is to be granted a patent. This is particularly true for inventions implemented on a computer. While roughly a third of all applications (and granted patents) relate, in one way or another,...

Welcome to the AP Chemistry Five-Step Program. The fact that you are reading this preface suggests that you will be taking the AP exam in chemistry. The AP Chemistry exam is constantly evolving and so this guide has evolved. In this edition, we have updated the book to match the new AP Chemistry exam, especially the changes in the free-response...

Surviving Dreaded Conversations gives managers all they need to get through those difficult, face-to-face conversations we all encounter in our office. Whether it’s firing an employee, asking for a raise or...

Most employeers are astounded at how easily and quickly their proprietary information can get out of their control. In a large number of cases, theft of trade secrets often involves employees leaving a company to start their own business or work for a direct competitor.

Nearly all books that address the topic of trade secrets have...

Microsoft is introducing a large number of changes to the way that the .NET Framework operates. Familiar technologies are being altered, best practices replaced, and developer methodologies adjusted. Many developers find it hard to keep up with the pace of change across .NET's ever-widening array of technologies. You may know what's happening in...

Nobody knows more about how to work quickly under pressure and still produce top-notch results than...

Though the digital camera is one of the hottest selling gadgets on the market today, the technology can be intimidating and frustrating to first-time users. To new users, going from click to pictures with a digital camera can be overwhelming thanks to memory sticks, docking stations, computers, image editing software, printers, special papers,...