Textures in Blender

In this article by Allan Brito, we will learn how to use textures to give our materials more realism. The biggest problem of working with textures is actually finding or creating a good texture. That's why, its highly recommended that you start as soon as possible to create your own texture library. Textures are mostly image files, which represent certain kinds of surfaces such as wood or stone. They work like wallpaper, which we can place on a surface or object. For instance, if we place an image of wood on a plane, it will give the impression that the plane is made of wood. That's the main principle of using textures. We will make an object look like something in the real world using a texture. For some projects, we may need a special kind of texture, which won't be found in a common library. So we will have to take a picture ourselves, or buy an image from someone. But don't worry, because often we deal with common surfaces that have common textures too.

The ASP.NET Repeater Control

The Repeater control is a data-bound control that uses templates to display data. The Repeater control works by looping through the records in your data source and then repeating the rendering of one of its templates called the ItemTemplate, one that contains the records that the control needs to render. In this article by Joydip Kanjilal we will learn more about the Repeater control and some of its uses.

The Basics of Joomla! Module Creation and Creating a "Send us a question" Module

To date, Joomla! has been well known as a great content management system (CMS). There are many sites using it throughout the world, some of them having great features that impress their visitors. Most of the time, these appealing and powerful features work thanks to JavaScript.

In this article by Jose Argudo Blanco, author of the book Joomla! 1.5 JavaScript jQuery, we will:

• Learn the basics of Joomla! module creation
• Create a "Send us a question" module

The Best Way to Create Round Cornered Boxes with CSS

"Boxes with round corners have become synonymous with WEB 2.0 and the future of website design. Forget AJAX, don't worry about SEO, put content on the back burner, what really excites people is nice rounded boxes. Why is this so? I'll tell you why…"

Read Tim Walton's step-by-step method of creating the easiest and the most efficient rounded boxes.

The Core HTTP Module in Nginx

Nginx is an open source high-performance web server, which has gained quite some popularity recently. Due to its modular architecture and small footprint, it has been the default choice for a lot of smaller Web 2.0 companies to be used as a load-balancing proxy server. It supports most of the existing backend web protocols such as FCGI, WSGI, and SCGI.

In this article by Dipankar Sarkar, author of Nginx 1 Web Server Implementation Cookbook, we will cover:

• Setting up the number of worker processes correctly
• Increasing the size of uploaded files
• Using dynamic SSI for simple sites
• Adding content before and after a particular page
• Enabling auto indexing of a directory
• Serving any random web page from a directory
• Serving cookies for identifying and logging users
• Re-encoding the response to another encoding
• Enabling Gzip compression on some content types
• Setting up 404 and other error pages

The DataGrid API with IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale 6: Part 1

The client-server distributed ObjectGrid instances combines the resources of multiple JVMs on multiple servers. In this article by Anthony Chaves, we'll learn how to use the resources held by the ObjectGrid instance to co-locate data and business logic on a single JVM. Co-locating data and logic on the same JVM requires a different model of programming. This article deals with the DataGrid API which makes co-location possible. In this article, we'll explore:

• Concepts implemented by the DataGrid API
• The programming model for sending logic to ObjectGrid partitions
• Where we would use the DataGrid classes

The Deployment Feature of Alfresco 3

Alfresco offers true Web Content Management (WCM) by providing an open source alternative to expensive proprietary systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, Interwoven, and IBM Content Manager. Alfresco WCM is a good fit for the customers who are also looking for cost savings.

The previous article introduced you to the content delivery feature of Alfresco.

This article by Munwar Shariff, co-author of the book Alfresco 3 Web Content Management, introduces you to the deployment feature of Alfresco. It focuses on the auto deployment feature where the content can be scheduled to be delivered to the production servers automatically.

By the end of this article you will have learned how to:

• Set up the process for auto deployment
• Deploy to a test server
• Deploy directly from a workflow

The Different Types of Q Replication

In the world of DB2 replication, we have two main options—SQL replication and Q replication, both of which involve replicating between source and target tables. The choice of replication solution depends on a number of factors, of which the fundamental ones are:

• Type of source
• Type of target
• Operating system support

In this article by Pav Kumar-Chatterjee, author of IBM InfoSphere Replication Server and Data Event Publisher, we look at the different types of replication available, namely the base replication methods of unidirectional, bidirectional, and peer-to-peer.

The DPM Feature Set

Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 is a backup and recovery solution which provides continuous data protection for Windows application and file servers to seamlessly integrated disk, tape, and cloud.

In this article by Steve Buchanan, author of Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010, we will take a look at the existing as well as new features of DPM.