2D game development with Monkey
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Michael Hartlef | April 2012 | Beginner's Guides
Monkey is a new programming language that allows you to create apps on multiple platforms very easily. In this article by Michael Hartlef,author of Monkey Game Development Beginner's Guide we will work together through some Monkey game development basics and cover the following topics:
- How to load a script
- About projects and how we can create one
- The basic structure of a simple game
- How to draw circles and rectangles
- How to read keyboard input
- How to print messages to the browser window
- How to export your game to HTML5 and run it inside a browser
At first, we will experiment with Monk a little bit, by creating a project. Then, you will write your first lines of Monkey code, a typical Hello World app. And of course how to save your code and reopen it at a later point.
Of course, you will have to create your first little game, PONGO—a very simple one, but a game in all its glory. You want be a game developer, right? So you've got to do what a game developer has to do. Together, we will recreate one of the first video games in history, Pong. Never heard about it? As always, look at this Wikipedia page to get an idea about Pong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
As a game developer, you have to start small, and this game is the perfect ground to build up your development skills with Monkey. After we are finished with the development of the little game, you can call yourself a Monkey programmer! You don't think so? Yes you are! You learned to walk, and now we will learn how to run. And as they say, practice makes perfect . The best way to learn is by creating some nice little games. So let's get down to business, shall we?
Read 2D game development with Monkey in fullSocial Media for Wordpress: VIP Memberships
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Michael Kuhlmann | April 2012 | WordPress
In this article by Michael Kuhlmann we'll be learning the following topics:
- Why customer value proposition, sustainability, and timing matter
- How to set up memberships and make category-specific content restrictions applicable only to non-members
- Key opportunities to mention your other social networking accounts on our site
- How to implement page-specific custom scripts like a countdown timer
- More ways to reward site members for using our site
Let's bring some of these ideas to fruition.
Read Social Media for Wordpress: VIP Memberships in fullGradebook-An Introduction
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Rebecca Barrington | April 2012 | e-Learning Moodle
If you are using Moodle , you are likely to be delivering some form of course content or providing resources to others. This could be for supporting learning, training, or other educational activity. Many online courses, qualifications, or educational resources have a final goal which is likely to include required elements to be completed. The gradebook can be a valuable tool to help the teacher to manage the online course and track the progress of the student through the required elements. This article by Rebecca Barrington, author of Moodle Gradebook will introduce you to the gradebook and the key features it offers. It will outline the benefits of using the gradebook, the activities that can be graded and used within the gradebook, and the types of grades that can be used.
Read Gradebook-An Introduction in fullSetting up a BizTalk Server Environment
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Steef-Jan Wiggers | April 2012 | Enterprise Articles Microsoft
BizTalk enables the integration and managment of automated business processes within or across organizational boundaries. To build a solid BizTalk solution, deploy a robust environment, and keep it running smoothly you sometimes need to broaden your spectrum, explore all possibilities, and choose the best solution for your purpose. In this article by Steef-Jan Wiggers, author of BizTalk Server 2010 Cookbook, we will cover:
- Gathering requirements by asking the right questions
- Analyzing requirements and creating a design
- Installing and using the BizTak Best Practices Analyzer
- Validating BizTalk installation with the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard tool
- Automating performance analysis by using the PAL tool
Hours 1-12: Your Quest Begins!
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Christer Kaitila | April 2012 | Beginner's Guides Open Source
This article by Christer Kaitila, author of The Game Jam Survival Guide focuses on the early stages of a Game Jam. These most important first few hours will set the state for the rest of your experience. Topics that we will cover include:
- Dealing with the Game Jam theme
- An example of a winning entry
- Coming up with a plan of action
- Brainstorming and prototyping
Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8: Call Routing, Dial Plan, and E.164
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Tanner Ezell | March 2012 | Enterprise Articles
This article by Tanner Ezell, author of Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8: Expert Administration Cookbook focuses on implementing local route groups, device pools, and route patterns. All the recipes in this article require administrator access to the Unified Communications Manager (UCM). It is strongly recommended you get comfortable performing these recipes in a lab environment before implementing them into production.
We will cover:
- Implementing local route groups with device pools for E.164 call routing
- Implementing E.164 route patterns and partitions
- Implementing E.164 called and calling party transformations
- Implementing least cost call routing using Tail End Hop Off
- Implementing call restrictions with line blocking patterns and calling search spaces
Collaboration Features in Alfresco Share
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Amita Bhandari Pallika Majmudar Vinita Choudhary | March 2012 | Content Management Open Source
Alfresco Share offers a number of such features out-of-the-box. These are features that ensure effective task management. These are completely customizable if need be. The numerous technologies and tools that Alfresco supports ensures that no, or minimal, change be made to the enterprise's existing infrastructure.
Enterprises have a number of tasks that require its people to be able to effectively manage their tasks and schedules. For the purpose of managing intra- and inter-team events, a variety of collaboration tools like calendars, forums, and so on are available. More often than not, there are tools independent of each other, or they may not be compatible with existing systems that are in place.
In this article by Pallika Majmudar, co-author of Alfresco Share, we shall understand the various collaborative features like wiki, blogs, data lists, calendar, discussions, and lists features that Share has on offer.
By the end of this article, you will have learned about:
- Wiki pages and blogs in Share
- Managing data lists
- Creating events in Alfresco Share
- Effective collaboration through discussions
- Managing and creating data lists
Read Collaboration Features in Alfresco Share in full
Combining Silverlight and Windows Azure projects
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David Burela | March 2012 | Enterprise Articles Microsoft
It can be difficult to combine multiple different frameworks into the same solution while working with new technologies. This article will focus on how to combine Silverlight 4, Windows Azure, and a WCF 4.0 (Windows Communication Foundation) service together.
In this article by David Burela, author of Microsoft Silverlight 5 and Azure Enterprise Integration, we will discuss the following topics:
- Combining Silverlight and Windows Azure projects
- Consuming an Azure-hosted WCF service within a Silverlight application
- Configuring the number of web roles
Creating Views 3 Programmatically
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J. Ayen Green | March 2012 | Drupal
In this chapter, we will switch from the admin user interface to code, creating a view within a module and other examples of using code in conjunction with Drupal and Views architectures to manipulate the content. These methods should only be considered if you are comfortable with PHP and the Drupal architecture and API. The benefits of using code include more granular control, as well as the ability to achieve behaviors otherwise unavailable. The drawbacks are that the Views environment can be very complex, and one can easily break the environment.
The differences between using the Views UI to create a view and doing it in a module is that the UI does the coding for you and makes it more convenient to make changes to the view afterwards. That said, the UI method does not make it easy to distribute a ready-made view, nor does it make it facilitate tying such a view to other code.
In this artice by J. Ayen Green, author of Drupal 7 Views 3 Cookbook, we are going to cover the following topics:
- Programming a view
- Handling a view field
- Styling a view field
- Fine tuning the query
Introduction to Logging in Tomcat 7
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Tanuj Khare | March 2012 | Web Services Open Source
Logging services play a vital role in the life of the administrator and developer to manage the application from the phase of development to production issues. It's the logging services that help you to find the actual problem in the web application. Also, it plays an essential role in performance tuning for many applications.
In this artice by Tanuj Khare, author of Apache Tomcat 7 Essentials, we will look at the logging features in Apache Tomcat 7. We will cover the following topics:
- Logging services in Tomcat 7
- JULI
- Log4j
- Log level
- Valve component
- Analysis of logs
Getting Started with GameSalad
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Miguel DeQuadros | March 2012 | Beginner's Guides
So, you're ready to become an iPhone developer? This article will show you how to create a very simple prototype level. Once you get into GameSalad you will truly enjoy it, the interface is so simple, and you never have to do any programming.
Many people dream of creating games, but unfortunately not many people possess the knowledge to find a suitable game engine (or create their own), to learn the language and start developing. You are going to love GameSalad for its simplicity and power of use.
In this article by Miguel DeQuadros,author of GameSalad Beginner’s Guide will discuss the following topics for GameSalad:
- System requirements for developing
- Registering with GameSalad and downloading it
- Tour through GameSalad's user interface
- How to create a GameSalad project
- How to add moveable characters, platform collisions, win and death points
- Add controls to your characters
- Preview your game on your computer
Tabula Rasa: Nurturing your Site for Tablets
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Tom Stovall | March 2012 | Beginner's Guides Drupal Open Source
The Drupal Mobile Web Development Beginner’s Guide follows a humble ‘Mom & Pop’ restaurant website which gets a makeover complete with cutting edge features that play to mobile, tablet and desktop audiences. Restaurant websites are notoriously horrible to navigate and our Mom & Pop example is wellintentioned but no exception to this rule. We bring this site out of the early 1990’s with cutting edge development practices and a team development workflow. This pizza chain goes mobile with location services, audio, video, charting and mapping worthy of any multi-million dollar site.
In this article by Tom Stovall, author of Drupal 7 Mobile Web Development Beginner’s Guide, we'll:
- Examine touch events and go over the differences between touch events and mouse-click events
- Learn to add touch events to our jQuery cycle on the home page
- Take a look at the adaptive web page designs and begin the process of adapting a design for three layouts—phone, tablets, and desktop
- Learn to set the viewport with JavaScript
Silverlight 5 LOB Development : Validation, Advanced Topics, and MVVM
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Braulio Díez | March 2012 | Enterprise Articles Microsoft
Most Line of Business (LOB) applications have to interact with a database. The recommended technology in order to cover this interaction is RIA Services.
In this article by Braulio Díez Botella,co-author of Mastering LOB Development for Silverlight 5: A Case Study in Action we will cover:
- Validation
- Advanced topics
- RIA Services and MVVM
3D plot using gnuplot
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Lee Phillips | March 2012 | Cookbooks
This article, written by Lee Philips the author of gnuplot Cookbook contains the following :
- Making a surface plot
- Using coordinate mappings
- Coloring the surface
- Making a contour plot
- Making a vector plot
- Making an image plot or heat map
- Combining contours and images
- Combining surfaces with images
- Plotting a path in 3D
- Drawing parametric surfaces
Configuration and Handy Tweaks for UDK
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Thomas Mooney | March 2012 | Cookbooks
This article by Thomas Mooney, author of Unreal Development Kit Game Design Cookbook contains lessons in adjusting configuration, scripts, and even supplying additional actors and Kismet actions. Everything here is about altering the editor or gameplay settings to provision a customized playing experience:
- Groundwork for adjusting configuration defaults
- Enabling the remote control for game inspection
- Changing the Play in Editor view resolution
- Removing the loading hints and similar articles
- Editing DefaultEngineUDK to allow 4096x4096 texture compression
- Setting the preview player size reference object
- Binding a keyboard shortcut to a player action
