This book is for anyone who wants to write good Visual Basic 2008 code – even if you have never programmed before.

Writing good code can be a challenge, there are so many options, especially in a language like Visual Basic. If you want to really get the best from a programming language you need to know which features work best in which situations and understand their strengths and weaknesses. It is this understanding that makes the difference between coding and coding well.

Beginning VB 2008 has been written to teach you how to use the Visual Basic programming language to solve problems. From the earliest chapters, and from the first introductory concepts, you'll be looking at real-world programming challenges and learning how Visual Basic can be used to overcome them. As you progress through the book the problems become more involved and interesting while the solutions become correspondingly more complex and powerful as Visual Basic features interact to achieve the results that you want.

By the time you've finished reading this book and worked through the sample exercises, you'll be a confident and very competent Visual Basic programmer. You will still have many explorations of the .NET Framework API to look forward to in your future career, but you will have a firm foundation to build from and you will know exactly where to go to find the things that you need to progress confidently in your projects.

Debra Dalgleish, Microsoft Office Excel MVP since 2001, and an expert and trainer in Excel, brings together a one-stop resource for anyone curious about representing, analyzing, and using their data with PivotTables and PivotCharts. You’ll find this book inimitable when facing any new or difficult problem in PivotTables, covering the entire breadth of situations you could ever encounter, from planning and creating, to formatting and extracting data, to maximizing performance and troubleshooting.

The author presents tips and techniques in this collection of recipes that can’t be found in Excel’s Help section, while carefully explaining the most confusing features of PivotTables to help you realize their powerful potential.

The chapters in this book have been organized into a collection of recipes to take you step by step from the problem you are experiencing to the solution you are aiming for. Without fuss, you’ll find clear and precise information to help you assess your situation, whether common or unique, and solve your problem. Working examples of complex PivotTables and numerous PivotTable programming examples will help you solve problems quickly, without the need to digest heavy content.

Competent system administrators know their success hinges upon being able to perform often tedious tasks with rigor and punctuality. Such metrics are often achieved only by instituting a considerable degree of automation, something that has become even more crucial as IT environments continue to scale both in terms of size and complexity. One of the most powerful system administration tools to be released is Puppet, a solution capable of automating nearly every aspect of a system administrator’s job, from user management, to software installation, to even configuring server services such as FTP and LDAP.

Pulling Strings with Puppet: Configuration Management Made Easy is the first book to introduce the powerful Puppet system administration tool. Author James Turnbull will guide you through Puppet’s key features, showing you how to install and configure the software, create automated Puppet tasks, known as recipes, and even create reporting solutions and extend Puppet further to your own needs. A bonus chapter is included covering the Facter library, which makes it a breeze to automate the retrieval of server configuration details such as IP and MAC addresses.

Discover how JRuby on Rails can be used to create web applications faster and more efficiently while still taking advantage of the vast power of the Java platform.

Ruby on Rails is proving itself to be one of the most efficient and powerful agile web development application frameworks available and has had a profound influence on the Java community. The JRuby project offers Java developers the best of two worlds: the flexibility of Ruby on Rails coupled with the enterprise-level power and maturity of the Java platform.

JRuby core developer Ola Bini covers everything you need to know to take full advantage of what JRuby has to offer, including

• Full coverage on how to use JRuby to create web applications faster and more efficiently, while continuing to take advantage of the vast power of the Java platform
• Several real-world projects that illustrate the crucial specifics you need to know about the interaction of Java and Ruby
• Helpful, practical instruction and discussion on how web applications can be deployed using a variety of popular servers such as Apache and Mongrel

The unique, visual format of Illustrated C# 2008 has been specially created by author, and teacher of development methods, Daniel Solis. The concise text, use of tables to clarify language features, frequent figures and diagrams, as well as focused code samples all combine to create a unique approach that will help you understand and get to work with C# fast.

It was while teaching numerous seminars on various programming languages that the author realized the immense power diagrams have in explaining programming language concepts. Most people learn quicker and retain information better when the material is presented in a clean, simple, visual format. To achieve this result in his book, Solis uses concise text and bulleted lists, tables to clarify and summarize language features, as well as his renowned, ubiquitous figures and diagrams. Each language feature is illustrated with a concise and focused code sample for complete clarity.

Following an overview of the .NET platform and the role played by C#, you’ll soon move into exploring the C# language in its entirety, including all the new C# 2008 features right down to the most complex topics involved in C#. If you’re a C++ or VB programmer migrating to C# 2008, this book will be invaluable; the unique visual approach offers a far from lightweight treatment of C# 2008, so even the most experienced programmers will come away with a deeper understanding of the C# language.

Nik Lever takes you through the journey from the basics of 3D manipulation all the way to morph objects and sub-division surfaces. On the way you get Visual C++ project files to study and software that runs on the Windows desktop. The free CD-ROM gives you a full-featured development environment for 3D character animation, so even if you find some of the maths and the code hard to follow straight away you can still create your own games. The game engine (Toon3DCreator) provided free and fully functional on the CD-ROM, even has an ActiveX control that allows you to distribute your work on the Internet. All source code for Toon3D is included on the CD. You will also get an insight into the artist’s problems; learn how to keep the characters interesting while not exhausting the game engine.

Understand the complete picture and make the most of your skills to help you succeed in, or break into the computer gaming industry with this comprehensive guide to programming for real-time 3D character animation.

The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation provides the foundation for building applications and high–quality user experiences in Windows Vista. WPF blends application user interface, documents, and media content to provide richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs.

Author Matthew MacDonald shows you how WPF really works. His no–nonsense, practical advice will get you building high–quality WPF applications quickly and easily. MacDonald will take you through a thorough investigation of the more advanced aspects of WPF, and its relation to other elements of the WinFX stack and the .NET Framework 3.5, to complete your understanding of WPF and C# 2008.

WPFs functionality extends to support for Tablet PCs and other forms of input device, and provides a more modern imaging and printing pipeline, accessibility and UI automation infrastructure, data–driven UI and visualization, as well as the integration points for weaving the application experience into the Windows shell.

Business intelligence and real–time reporting mechanisms play a major role in any of today’s forward–looking business plans. With many of these solutions being moved to the Web, the popular Rails framework and its underlying Ruby language are playing a major role alongside web services in building the reporting solutions of tomorrow.

Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails is the first book to comprehensively introduce this popular framework, guiding readers through a wide–ranging array of features. Note this isn’t a staid guide to generating traditional reports, but rather it shows you how the Ruby language and Rails framework can create truly compelling reporting services by plugging into popular third-party applications and services such as Google AdWords, UPS.com, iTunes, and SalesForce.com.

Beginning Web Development, Silverlight, and ASP.NET AJAX: From Novice to Professional aims to give you the skills you need to start building web applications with Microsoft’s next–generation technology as quickly as possible. Whether you’re interested in ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, or the technologies that support them (WPF, WCF, WF, etc.), this book is the starting point that you need.

It adopts a “zero to hero” approach that concentrates on achieving practical results you can use in real projects rather than presenting a deep academic treatment that can’t be immediately applied.

The aim is to give you, the reader, the knowledge you need to achieve the results you want with the minimum of fuss. When you’ve read this book, you’ll have a solid understand of all the techniques that are available, when to use them, and their relative strengths and weaknesses.

The Facebook API allows web developers to create Facebook applications and access Facebook data from other applications. Facebook API Developers Guide covers the use and implementation of the Facebook API—what the key features are and how you can access them. You will learn, through practical examples, the main features of the Facebook API including an introduction to the API–specific languages FQL and FBML. These examples are further supported by the introduction of other technologies like language libraries, relational database management systems, and XML.

• Covers all key features of the Facebook API
• Explains the API languages FQL and FBML
• Teaches by example, with useful code and tips you can use in your own applications