The interface is the heart and soul of a video game: it is the integral piece that allows a player to interact with the game. In order to create a great interface, you must carefully plan every detail. "Game Interface Design" helps you outline each step and define the goals for your interface. It covers the interface from the first image that appears onscreen to the information displayed during game-play. You?ll cover basic design and art principles, explore the world of interface buttons as you learn how to create your own functioning button, and find out how to substitute images and icons for onscreen text. You?ll also learn how to incorporate animation and use Flash to create an amazing, interactive interface. Along the way, you?ll get a glimpse into the video game industry, including developer and publisher relationships, schedules, budget constraints, and politics of the industry.

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Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional explains how to use the open source image manipulation program, GIMP version 2.4. You"ll learn how to install GIMP on Windows, Linux, and MacOS X platforms. Once you"ve installed the application, you"ll learn about the interface and configuration options, and then jump into a quick-and-simple project to familiarize yourself even further.

You"ll learn how to prepare camera images for display on web pages–including functions like rescaling, cropping, and balancing color. The book also explains with great detail how to utilize layers, paths, and masks. You"ll also learn how to draw lines and shapes, use patterns and gradients, and even create your own brushes, patterns, and gradients.

Touch-ups are covered thoroughly: how to smudge away blemishes, fix red-eye, and stitch panoramic images. You"ll even learn how to tap into the powerful filters, effects, and plug-ins that are available and automate tasks using scripts. The entire book is laid out in a project-based manner, so as you progress through it, numerous projects help solidify your newly acquired abilities.

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Get the right answers for smart broadband decision making– from financial, management and marketing to equipment, applications, and protocols. Broadband Crash Course examines broadband delivery in terms of markets and business opportunities. Writing with the surety and thoroughness of a telecom insider and business executive, P.J. Louis clearly and painlessly demonstrates how broadband services are delivered over today"s complex telecommunications infrastructure, minus the heavy-duty math. This one-of-a-kind guide is your chance to learn about:

* Service bundling (voice, Internet access, e-mail, etc.) across all major network types (wireless, IP, cable, satellite, LANs, etc.)
* Benefits of wireline and wireless broadband technologies
* Service bundling and provisioning across the wireline and wireless broadband networks
* The Local Loop and its future
* Coaxing more applications from the technologies you"ve got
* Business models that have proven themselves in the real world
* 3G wireless, the wireless Internet, softswitching, M-commerce: how will they affect your business?

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Learning Microsoft Excel 2003 with Mark Swift is a movie-based workshop for users who are new to working with spreadsheets, or those wanting to improve their skills. This workshop begins with a basic overview of the application and quickly advances to cover useful formulas, functions, techniques for enhancing spreadsheets including charts, and much more.

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Learning Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with David Rivers is a movie-based tutorial designed to help new and existing Outlook users get a basic to intermediate understanding of this latest version of Microsoft Office Outlook. The training begins with a basic overview of the newly designed Outlook interface and quickly advances to cover such topics as sending e-mail, using contacts, tasks, the calendar, notes, mailbox options and much more. Exercise files accompany this training,
allowing you to follow along and learn at your own pace.

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A quick, easy introduction to creating professional Web sites with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Browser support of CSS has increased dramatically with the introduction of versions 6 of Internet Explorer, Netscape, and AOL clients. Author is three-time President, board member, and active instructor in the HTML Writers Guild. CSS is the prerequisite bridge between HTML coding and higher-level programming technologies, such as XHTML, Javascript, Java, and Flash. Learning to apply CSS is the HTML Web-designer’s next developmental step toward professional and stable Web design. A prerequisite to learning higher-level languages like Javascript, Java, and Flash, CSS is gaining increasing support among major browsers, including Netscape, Internet Explorer, and newcomers Opera, Mozilla and NeoPlanet. The key to successful CSS implementation is in understanding how different browsers use and interpret CSS. This tutorial takes the unique position of teaching the reader how to make smart decisions about how and when to apply CSS, based on browser support and intended effects. In 24 straightforward, hourly lessons, the reader learns by accomplishing hands-on tasks that can be applied to his own site in every hour. Kynn Bartlett has taught thousands the basic principles of good Web design through online courses and his participation in W3C technical working groups, the HTML Writers Guild (president, board member and instructor) and the Web Standards Project education FAQ. Bartlett is a frequent speaker at conferences and provides consulting for businesses and government agencies.

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Incorporating an advanced approach to presenting information about Ubuntu, Ubuntu Unleashed aims to provide the best and latest information that intermediate to advanced Linux users need to know about installation, configuration, system administration, server operations, and security. Written by renowned open source authors, Paul and Andrew Hudson, it includes detailed information on hot topics in Ubuntu Linux, such as wireless networks, and programming in PHP, Perl and others. It thoroughly covers all of Ubuntu’s software packages, including up-to-date material on new applications, Web development, peripherals, and programming languages. It also includes updated discussion of the architecture of the Linux kernel 2.6, USB, KDE, GNOME, Broadband access issues, routing, gateways, firewalls, disk tuning, GCC, Perl, Python, printing services (CUPS), and security. The included DVD comes with a complete Ubuntu Linux distribution.

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This book has plenty of introductory material, good examples, and a comprehensive reference section aimed at more experienced users.

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This groundbreaking book is the first in the Kimball Toolkit series to be product-specific. Microsoft’s BI toolset has undergone significant changes in the SQL Server 2005 development cycle. SQL Server 2005 is the first viable, full-functioned data warehouse and business intelligence platform to be offered at a price that will make data warehousing and business intelligence available to a broad set of organizations. This book is meant to offer practical techniques to guide those organizations through the myriad of challenges to true success as measured by contribution to business value.Building a data warehousing and business intelligence system is a complex business and engineering effort. While there are significant technical challenges to overcome in successfully deploying a data warehouse, the authors find that the most common reason for data warehouse project failure is insufficient focus on the business users and business problems. In an effort to help people gain success, this book takes the proven Business Dimensional Lifecycle approach first described in best selling The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit and applies it to the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 tool set.

Beginning with a thorough description of how to gather business requirements, the book then works through the details of creating the target dimensional model, setting up the data warehouse infrastructure, creating the relational atomic database, creating the analysis services databases, designing and building the standard report set, implementing security, dealing with metadata, managing ongoing maintenance and growing the DW/BI system. All of these steps tie back to the business requirements. Each chapter describes the practical steps in the context of the SQL Server 2005 platform.

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SAP Query Reporting is everything an SAP user needs to know to create your own reports in SAP using Query tools, no programming required! Designed as a hands-on learning aid, you will be able to follow along and perform each new skill learned on your own SAP system. The book’s tutorial style, step-by-step instruction will teach you everything you need to know to use the SAP Query tools, including its configuration, advanced usage, and integration to Microsoft. Additionally the book gives best business practice recommendations for the technology and internal business use of the tools. Learn to:

* Understand query security, table reads, and table joins
* Perform basic and advanced calculations
* Incorporate pictures and graphics into reports
* Configure shortcuts and tran codes, schedule jobs and email PDFs
* Utilize SAP Reporting with Microsoft Office applications

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