Agile/iterative methods: From business case to successful implementation This is the definitive guide for managers and students to agile and iterative development methods: what they are, how they work, how to implement them—and why you should. Using statistically significant research and large-scale case studies, noted methods expert Craig Larman presents the most convincing case ever made for iterative development. Larman offers a concise, information-packed summary of the key ideas that drive all agile and iterative processes, with the details of four noteworthy iterative methods: Scrum, XP, RUP, and Evo. Coverage includes:

Readers learn to extend the useful life of their current PC and reduce overall cost of ownership by just simply upgrading your BIOS! Dissects the cryptic descriptions that accompany virtually every motherboard manual and clearly explains what each BIOS option does Dispenses advice on the best setting for each BIOS option in different situations For seasoned 'tinkerers' there is also a comprehensive look at the function of each BOS option What is a BIOS? BIOS, pronounced "bye-ose," is an acronym that stands for Basic Input Output System. The BIOS is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions. Furthermore, The BIOS is responsible for booting your PC by providing a basic set of instructions. The BIOS performs all the necessary tasks that need to be initiated at start-up time: POST(Power-On Self Test, booting an operating system from FDD or HDD). In essence, it is necessary to upgrade the BIOS on your PC in order to maintain or inevitably obtain compatibility with the PC industries latest hardware, software and operating systems.

The freeware Apache web server runs on about half of the world's existing web sites, and it is rapidly increasing in popularity. Apache: The Definitive Guide, written and reviewed by key members of the Apache Group, is the only complete guide on the market today that describes how to obtain, set up, and secure the Apache software. Apache was originally based on code and ideas found in the most popular HTTP server of the time: NCSA httpd 1.3 (early 1995). It has since evolved into a far superior system that can rival (and probably surpass) almost any other Unix-based HTTP server in terms of functionality, efficiency, and speed. The new version now includes support for Win32 systems. This new second edition of Apache: The Definitive Guide fully describes Windows support and all the other Apache 1.3 features. Contents include:

The dot.com crash of 2000 was a wake-up call, and told us that the Web has far to go before achieving the acceptance predicted for it in '95. A large part of what is missing is quality; a primary component of the missing quality is usability. The Web is not nearly as easy to use as it needs to be for the average person to rely on it for everyday information, commerce, and entertainment.

Although Web usability has received lots of hype, especially during the dot-com meltdown, the focus has been mostly on technical issues. Usability experts stress the pitfalls of frames and too many images on Web pages. They recommend editing out unnecessary words and writing in a non-linear style-all valuable advice, of course. But less frequently do they highlight the importance of the visual presentation of Web pages. The Web is a communication medium that does most of its talking visually. What you see on a Web page tells you what you might find within the site, how to get there, and why it might interest you-not to mention the instinctive emotional response that shapes your Web experience. As a result, Web usability issues are communication issues. Easy-to-use sites are those that communicate quickly and effectively.

There's a time bomb on the web: user patience. It starts ticking each time someone opens one of your pages. You only have a few seconds to get compelling content onto the screen. Fail, and you can kiss your customers and profits goodbye.

Think you have to be a technical wizard to build a great web site? Think again. For anyone who wants to create an engaging web site--for either personal or business purposes--"Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual" demystifies the process and provides tools, techniques, and expert guidance for developing a professional and reliable web presence.

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 designerindeed, they are all around you on the Web. However, within web standards still lies a challengewhile 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 tablesthis can make file sizes smaller, allowing pages to load faster, ultimately increasing accessibility for all browsers, devices, and web users.

Apache is far and away the most widely used web server platform in the world. This versatile server runs more than half of the world's existing web sites. Apache is both free and rock-solid, running more than 21 million web sites ranging from huge e-commerce operations to corporate intranets and smaller hobby sites. With this new third edition of Apache: The Definitive Guide, web administrators new to Apache will come up to speed quickly, and experienced administrators will find the logically organized, concise reference sections indispensable, and system programmers interested in customizing their servers will rely on the chapters on the API and Apache modules. Updated to cover the changes in Apache's latest release, 2.0, as well as Apache 1.3, this useful guide discusses how to obtain, set up, secure, modify, and troubleshoot the Apache software on both Unix and Windows systems.

The power of the Web lies in the fact that anyone and everyone can access it, and this should also extend to users with disabilities. Accessibility is about making websites accessible to those with aural, visual, or physical disabilities, or rather, constructing websites that dont exclude these people from accessing the content or services provided. This isn't difficult to accomplish and doesn't require anything more than your normal tool set-HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, or whatever else. All you need to do is use these tools in the right way, and bear in mind the guidelines that exist to help you keep your websites accessible and the laws that enforce web accessibility around the world.

Master Apache Derby: the only open source, pure Java™, fully transactional, small-footprint RDBMS Apache Derby is the world's only enterprise class open source, pure Java, fully transactional relational database. It's small enough to be embedded directly into your Java applications, providing a local data store that requires no DBA support. Powerful enough to support a wide range of traditional applications, this database ships as the default database for WebSphere Application Server and more than fifty other IBM software products. Apache Derby is built on the mature IBM Cloudscape code base IBM recently contributed to the open source community. The IBM Cloudscape code was nominated and won Developer.com's Product of the Year 2005 award.

Author Mitch Tulloch, MCT, MCSE, skillfully guides readers through the administration of Web service, security, application pools, performance, and much more. Learn valuable configuration, maintenance, and content management techniques, manage the FTP, SMTP, and NNTP services, and easily troubleshoot documentation and content development issues.

Methodology for the Digital Calibration of Analog Circuits and Systems shows how to relax the extreme design constraints in analog circuits, allowing the realization of high-precision systems even with low-performance components. A complete methodology is proposed, and three applications are detailed.

Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers is the practical guide to designing, developing, and implementing Web portals using Microsoft servers and the .NET Framework. James J. Townsend provides portal development teams with a working developer's overview of the concepts, technologies, and products used in building successful corporate portals. Readers learn how to create a portal architecture based on Microsoft .NET and integrate multiple server technologies and components to create a powerful portal solution.