Basis of the 1951 cult horror film, The Thing From Another World, Campbell's frightening novelette appeared in ASTOUNDING in early 1938. He had become editor of that magazine five months earlier. A terrifying shape-changing alien at a frozen research station challenges its crew for survival in the most memorable sci-fi story of its decade.

Do you want to push Ruby to its limits? The "Ruby Cookbook" is the most comprehensive problem-solving guide to today's hottest programming language. It gives you hundreds of solutions to real-world problems, with clear explanations and thousands of lines of code you can use in your own projects.

From data structures and algorithms, to integration with cutting-edge technologies, the "Ruby Cookbook" has something for every programmer. Beginners and advanced Rubyists alike will learn how to program with: Strings and numbers Arrays and hashes Classes, modules, and namespaces Reflection and metaprogramming XML and HTML processing Ruby on Rails (including Ajax integration) Databases Graphics Internet services like email, SSH, and BitTorrent Web services Multitasking Graphical and terminal interfaces

If you need to write a web application, this book shows you how to get started with Rails. If you're a system administrator who needs to rename thousands of files, you'll see how to use Ruby for this and other everyday tasks. You'll learn how to read and write Excel spreadsheets, classify text with Bayesian filters, and create PDF files. We've even included a few silly tricks that were too cool to leave out, like how to blink the lights on your keyboard.

The "Ruby Cookbook" is the most useful book yet written about Ruby. When you need to solve a problem, don't reinvent the wheel: look it up in the Cookbook.

He was the "Man in Black," a country music legend, and the quintessential American troubadour. He was an icon of rugged individualism who had been to hell and back, telling the tale as never before. In his unforgettable autobiography, Johnny Cash tells the truth about the highs and lows, the struggles and hard-won triumphs, and the people who shaped him.

In his own words, Cash set the record straight — and dispelled a few myths — as he looked unsparingly at his remarkable life: from the joys of his boyhood in Dyess, Arkansas to superstardom in Nashville, Tennessee, the road of Cash's life has been anything but smooth. Cash writes of the thrill of playing with Elvis, the comfort of praying with Billy Graham; of his battles with addiction and of the devotion of his wife, June; of his gratitude for life, and of his thoughts on what the afterlife may bring. Here, too, are the friends of a lifetime, including Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Kris Kristofferson. As powerful and memorable as one of his classic songs, Cash is filled with the candor, wit, and wisdom of a man who truly "walked the line."

Welcome to the expanded second edition of Dan Cederholm's best-selling Web Standards Solutions. Web Standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax.

It is important that these implementations are the same throughout the Web, otherwise it becomes a messy proprietary place, and lacks consistency. These standards also allow content to be more compatible with multiple different viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, etc. HTML, XML, and CSS are all such technologies.

This book is your essential guide to understanding the advantages you can bring to your web pages by implementing web standards and precisely how to apply them. Web standards such as XHTML and CSS are now fairly well-known technologies, and they will likely be familiar to you, the web designer. Indeed, they are all around you on the Web. However, within web standards still lies a challenge: while the browser's support for web standards is steadily increasing, many web developers and designers have yet to discover the real benefits of web standards and respect the need to adhere to them.

The real art is in truly understanding the benefits and implementing the standards efficiently. As a simple example of its power, you can use CSS to lay out your pages instead of nesting tables. This can make file sizes smaller, allowing pages to load faster, ultimately increasing accessibility for all browsers, devices, and web users. Expanded edition containing bonus material.Teaches how to use Web Standards effectively to build better web sites.Solutions style promotes learning by work-through examples and assessments.What you'll learn

Web Standards Solutions is broken down into 16 short chapters, each covering the theory and practice of different web standards concepts and showing multiple solutions to given problems for easy learning. You'll learn about multi-column layouts, using image replacement techniques to your best advantage, making the best use of tables and lists, and many more. This highly modular approach allows you to rapidly digest, understand, and utilize the essentials of web standards. Use XHTML elements correctly so that your markup is compact and more easily understood.Use CSS to style different elements of a web page.Lay out pages easily and effectively.Compare multiple methods of achieving the same results to make better design choices.Learn about advanced web design techniques and their important caveats.Make your sites more efficient and more accessible.Who is this book for?

Web developers and designers wanting to learn standards-based techniques to improve their sites ���making them more efficient, more accessible, and transferrable across multiple browsers and devices.

Behaviour Driven Development is about writing software that matters. It is an approach to agile software development that takes cues from Test Driven Development, Domain Driven Design, and Acceptance Test Driven Planning.

RSpec and Cucumber are the leading Behaviour Driven Development tools in Ruby. RSpec supports Test Driven Development in Ruby through the BDD lens, keeping your focus on design and documentation while also supporting thorough testing and quick fault isolation. Cucumber, RSpec's steadfast companion, supports Acceptance Test Driven Planning with business-facing, executable requirements documentation that helps to ensure that you are writing relevant software targeted at real business needs.

The RSpec Book will introduce you to RSpec, Cucumber, and a number of other tools that make up the Ruby BDD family. Replete with tutorials and practical examples, the RSpec Book will help you get your BDD on, taking you from executable requirements to working software that is clean, well tested, well documented, flexible and highly maintainable.

Ruby on Rails continues to build up a tremendous head of steam. Fueled by significant benefits and an impressive portfolio of real-world applications already in production, Rails is destined to continue making significant inroads in coming years.

Each new Rails application showing up on the web adds yet more to the collective wisdom of the Rails development community. Yesterday's best practices yield to today's latest and greatest techniques, as the state of the art is continually refined in kitchens all across the Internet. Indeed, these are times of great progress.

At the same time, it's easy to get left behind in the wake of progress. "Advanced Rails Recipes" keeps you on the cutting edge of Rails development and, more importantly, continues to turn this fast-paced framework to your advantage.

"Advanced Rails Recipes" is filled with pragmatic recipes you'll use on every Rails project. And by taking the code in these recipes and slipping it into your application you'll not only deliver your application quicker, you'll do so with the confidence that it's done right.

The current beta includes contributions from Aaron Batalion, Adam Keys, Adam Wiggins, Andre Lewis, Andrew Kappen, Benjamin Curtis, Ben Smith, Chris Bernard, Chris Haupt, Chris Wanstrath, Cody Fauser, Dan Benjamin, Dan Manges, Daniel Fischer, David Bock, David Chelimsky, David Heinemeier Hansson, Erik Hatcher, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Geoffrey Grosenbach, Giles Bowkett, Greg Hansen, Gregg Pollack, Hemant Kumar, Hugh Bien, Jamie Orchard-Hays, Jamis Buck, Jared Haworth, Jarkko Laine, Jason LaPier, Jay Fields, John Dewey, Jonathan Dahl, Josep Blanquer, Josh Stephenson, Josh Susser, Kevin Clark, Luke Francl, MarkBates, Marty Haught, Matthew Bass, Michael Slater, Mike Clark, Mike Hagedorn, Mike Mangino, Mike Naberezny, Mike Subelsky, Nathaniel Talbott, PJ Hyett, Patrick Reagan, Peter Marklund, Pierre-Alexandre Meyer, Rick Olson, Ryan Bates, Scott Barron, Tony Primerano, Val Aleksenko, and Warren Konkel.

New in Paperback! An inspired resource for creating excellent layouts

Layout Workbook is one of five volumes in Rockport's series of practical and inspirational workbooks that cover the fundamental areas of the graphic design business. In this edition, author Kristin Cullen tackles the often perplexing job of nailing down a layout that works.

More than a collection of great examples of layout, this book is an invaluable resource for students, designers, and creative professionals who seek design understanding and inspiration. The book illuminates the broad category of layout, communicating specifically what it takes to design with excellence. It also addresses the heart of design-the how and why of the creative process.

Cullen approaches layout with a series of step-by-step fundamental chapters (a "how-to" of layout) addressing topics such as The Function of Design, Inspiration, The Design Process, Intuition, Structure and Organization, The Interaction of Visual Elements, Typography, and Design Analysis. The book offers inspirational quotations and a unique, progressive design that truly reflects its content.

"Scripted GUI Testing with Ruby" is a practical, quick-moving tutorial based on real life, and real-world GUI applications.

Right out of the gate you'll start working with code to drive a desktop GUI. You'll discover the kinds of gotchas and edge cases that don't exist in simple, toy programs. As you add more tests, you'll learn how to organize your test code and write lucid examples. The result is a series of "smoke tests" team will run on Continuous Integration servers.

Next, we'll explore a variety of different testing tips and tricks. You'll employ a series of increasingly random and punishing test monkeys to try to crash programs. Table-driven techniques will show you how to check dozens of different input combinations. See how to use longer acceptance tests (in the form of stories) to represent the way a typical customer would use your program.

The book uses examples from Windows, OS X, and cross-platform Java desktop programs as well as Web applications. You'll develop test scripts in Ruby; you don't need to be a Ruby expert, but basic comfort with the language will be helpful.

What's the truth behind the legend of the hound of the Baskervilles? Is it really a devil-beast that's haunting the lonely moors? Enter Sherlock Holmes to find the answer, in this, the only full-length novel ever written by the creator of one of the most popular and enduring detective series ever written.

Packing the power of desktop applications into a small mobile device, the iPhone SDK offers developers the ability to create dynamic, visually-appealing, and highly-capable mobile applications, using the same APIs and tools that Apple uses for its own applications.

However, harnessing that power means learning new tools, new APIs, and even a whole new programming language.

iPhone SDK Development is a Pragmatic guide to get you started developing applications for iPhone and iPod touch. With it, you'll get a complete understanding of the tools and techniques needed to succeed on the platform:

* Use the XCode IDE to manage your source code, images, sounds, database files, and other application resources, building your app and deploying it onto your own device for testing.

* Develop your user interface the visual, code-free way, with Interface Builder.

* Master the iPhone's unique user interface components, including tables, tab bars, navigation bars, and the multi-touch interface.

* Connect your iPhone to the outside world with networking, exploit the power of a relational database with SQLite, and rock out with first-class support for audio and video.

* Make use of the iPhone's unique mobile APIs, like geolocation and the motion-sensing accelerometer

* Use XCode's powerful performance and debugging tools to eliminate memory leaks, zombies, and other hazards.

* Understand the process for packaging your application for end-user distribution through Apple's App Store.

With explanations of the big picture and an eye to the little details that you'll need, _iPhone SDK Development_ will help you succeed on today's most important mobile platform.

If the Marines are “the few, the proud,” Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick’s career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon— two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he’ll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and military practice, which can mock those ideals.

In this deeply thoughtful account of what it’s like to fight on today’s front lines, Fick reveals the crushing pressure on young leaders in combat. Split-second decisions might have national consequences or horrible immediate repercussions, but hesitation isn’t an option. One Bullet Away never shrinks from blunt truths, but ultimately it is an inspiring account of mastering the art of war.

A generation of screenwriters has used Syd Field’s bestselling books to ignite successful careers in film. Now the celebrated producer, lecturer, teacher, and bestselling author has updated his classic guide for a new generation of filmmakers, offering a fresh insider’s perspective on the film industry today. From concept to character, from opening scene to finished script, here are easily understood guidelines to help aspiring screenwriters—from novices to practiced writers—hone their craft. Filled with updated material—including all-new personal anecdotes and insights, guidelines on marketing and collaboration, plus analyses of recent films, from American Beauty to Lord of the Rings—Screenplay presents a step-by-step, comprehensive technique for writing the screenplay that will succeed in Hollywood. Discover:

•Why the first ten pages of your script are crucially important
•How to visually “grab” the reader from page one, word one
•Why structure and character are the essential foundation of your screenplay
•How to adapt a novel, a play, or an article into a screenplay
•Tips on protecting your work—three legal ways to claim ownership of your screenplay
•The essentials of writing great dialogue, creating character, building a story line, overcoming writer’s block, getting an agent, and much more.

With this newly updated edition of his bestselling classic, Syd Field proves yet again why he is revered as the master of the screenplay—and why his celebrated guide has become the industry’s gold standard for successful screenwriting.