Wow! eBook – Blog

Book Description

Personal health and fitness has joined the digital revolution. Using Microsoft HealthVault, people interested in monitoring their health have an unprecedented opportunity to research their own data. This concise book explains how HealthVault users can collect and analyze their data, and how application developers can help them with mobile or web-based applications.

You’ll learn how to use HealthVault’s open API, flexibility, and connections with multiple health-care providers to develop health data applications, enable automatic updates from well-known fitness devices, and use programming libraries to create reports and investigate trends.

• Get a walkthrough of HealthVault functionality available to end users
• Use HealthVault to capture data from devices that measure a user’s health
• Examine HealthVault’s API for interacting with applications and devices, using .NET code samples
• Develop a Quantified Self application for consumers that can track more than 80 data types
• Learn how to build mobile apps for HealthVault by exploring an end-to-end example for Windows Phone 7
• Use best practices for releasing, maintaining, and marketing HealthVault applications to end users

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Getting Started with HealthVault
Chapter 2. Quantifying Yourself Download Now »

Book Description

With this digital Early Release edition of Programming C# 5.0, you get the entire book bundle in its earliest form – the author’s raw and unedited content – so you can take advantage of this content long before the book’s official release. You’ll also receive updates when significant changes are made, as well as the final ebook version.

With its support for dynamic programming, C# 5.0 continues to evolve as a versatile language on its own. But when C# is used with .NET Framework 4.5, the combination is incredibly powerful. This bestselling tutorial shows you how to build web, desktop, Metro and rich Internet applications using C# 5.0 with .NET’s database capabilities, UI framework (WPF), extensive communication services (WCF), and more.

In this seventh edition, .NET experts Ian Griffiths and Jesse Liberty cover the latest enhancements to C#, as well as the fundamentals of both the language and the framework. You’ll learn concurrent and asynchronous programming with C# 5.0 and how to use .NET tools such as the Entity Framework for easier data access.

• Learn C# fundamentals such as variables, flow control, loops, and methods
• Build complex programs with object-oriented and functional programming techniques
• Process large collections of data with the native query features in LINQ
• Learn all about asynchrony new to C# 5.0

Table of Contents Download Now »

Book Description

Machine Learning in Action is unique book that blends the foundational theories of machine learning with the practical realities of building tools for everyday data analysis. You’ll use the flexible Python programming language to build programs that implement algorithms for data classification, forecasting, recommendations, and higher-level features like summarization and simplification.

A machine is said to learn when its performance improves with experience. Learning requires algorithms and programs that capture data and ferret out the interesting or useful patterns. Once the specialized domain of analysts and mathematicians, machine learning is becoming a skill needed by many.

Machine Learning in Action is a clearly written tutorial for developers. It avoids academic language and takes you straight to the techniques you’ll use in your day-to-day work. Many (Python) examples present the core algorithms of statistical data processing, data analysis, and data visualization in code you can reuse. You’ll understand the concepts and how they fit in with tactical tasks like classification, forecasting, recommendations, and higher-level features like summarization and simplification.

Readers need no prior experience with machine learning or statistical processing. Familiarity with Python is helpful.

What’s inside Download Now »

Book Description

As Ruby pro David Copeland explains, writing a command-line application that is self-documenting, robust, adaptable and forever useful is easier than you might think. Ruby is particularly suited to this task, since it combines high-level abstractions with “close to the metal” system interaction wrapped up in a concise, readable syntax. Moreover, Ruby has the support of a rich ecosystem of open-source tools and libraries.

Ten insightful chapters each explain and demonstrate a command-line best practice. You’ll see how to use these tools to elevate the lowliest automation script to a maintainable, polished application.

You’ll learn how to use free, open source parsers to create user-friendly command-line interfaces as well as command suites. You’ll see how to use defaults to keep options simple for everyday users, while giving advanced users options for more complex tasks.

There’s no reason a command-line application should lack documentation, whether it’s part of a help command or a man page; you’ll find out when and how to use both. Your journey from command-line novice to pro ends with a look at valuable approaches to testing your apps, and includes some fun techniques for outside-the-box, colorful interfaces that will delight your users.

With Ruby, the command line is not dead. Long live the command line.

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Book Description

The Developer’s Code isn’t about the code you write, it’s about the code you live by.

There are no trite superlatives here. Packed with lessons learned from more than a decade of software development experience, author Ka Wai Cheung takes you through the programming profession from nearly every angle to uncover ways of sustaining a healthy connection with your work.

You’ll see how to stay productive even on the longest projects. You’ll create a workflow that works with you, not against you. And you’ll learn how to deal with clients whose goals don’t align with your own. If you don’t handle them just right, issues such as these can crush even the most seasoned, motivated developer. But with the right approach, you can transcend these common problems and become the professional developer you want to be.

In more than 50 nuggets of wisdom, you’ll learn:

• Why many traditional approaches to process and development roles in this industry are wrong—and how to sniff them out.
• Why you must always say “no” to the software pet project and open-ended timelines.
• How to incorporate code generation into your development process, and why its benefits go far beyond just faster code output.
• What to do when your client or end user disagrees with an approach you believe in.
• How to pay your knowledge forward to future generations Download Now »

Book Description

Matt Wynne and Aslak Hellesøy show you how to express your customers’ wild ideas as a set of clear, executable specifications that everyone on the team can read. You’ll learn how to feed those examples into Cucumber and let it guide your development. You’ll build just the right code to keep your customers happy, and not a line more. Although it was born in the Ruby community, you can use Cucumber to test almost any system, from a simple shell script or Perl script, to web applications written in PHP, Java, or any platform.

In Part 1, you’ll get started by using the core features of Cucumber and working with Cucumber’s Gherkin DSL to describe—in plain language—the behavior your customers want from the system. Then you’ll write Ruby code that interprets those plain-language specifications and checks them against your application. If you’re new to Cucumber, this part of the book will teach you everything you need to know to get started.

In Part 2, you’ll consolidate the knowledge you’ve gained with a worked example, where you’ll learn more advanced Cucumber techniques. You’ll also learn how to test asynchronous systems and systems that use a database.

In Part 3, you’ll find a selection of recipes for some of the most difficult and commonly seen situations the authors have helped teams solve. With these patterns and techniques, you’ll learn how to test Ajax-heavy web applications with Capybara and Selenium, REST web services, Ruby on Rails applications, command-line applications, legacy applications, and more. Download Now »