The combat techniques of Tai Ji, Ba Gua, and Xing Yi were forbidden during China's Cultural Revolution, but the teachings of grandmaster Wang Pei Shing have survived. This comprehensive guide, written by one of his students, selects core movements from each practice and gives the student powerful tools to recognize the unique strategies and skills, and to develop a deeper understanding, of each style. It contains complete instructions for a 16-posture form to gain mastery of combat techniques. The book helps practitioners achieve a new level of practice, where deeply ingrained skills are brought forth in a more fluid, intuitive, and fast-paced fashion.

This official Microsoft Training Kit will help you ace the MCP Exam 70-284 and prepare for on-the-job skills by learning how to plan, install and configure an Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure, monitor and troubleshoot servers, and much more.

One of the great benefits of Unix is the vast array of free and inexpensive software tools that are available for the platform. Programming with GNU Software provides an overview of how C and C++ programmers can use some of these tools: the source-code editor Emacs, the gcc compiler, gdb debugger, gprof profiler, and the RCS version-control system. The book offers a quick-paced tutorial that, unlike some introductions to Unix tools, is particularly focused on the needs of C programmers.

Welcome to MCAD/MCSD Training Kit??Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET. .NET is a new Microsoft technology that offers new application frameworks such as Web services, ASP.NET, WinForms, and ADO.NET. This revolutionary component technology simplifies development and deployment of components. By completing the lessons and exercises in this book, you will be able to build XML Web services and server components. This book also addresses the objectives of the Microsoft Certified Professional Exam 70-310 and Exam 70-320.

Welcome to MCSE Training Kit—Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. This kit introduces you to the Windows 2000 family of products and prepares you to install, configure, administer, and support Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. This kit introduces the various tools for administering and configuring Windows 2000 including the Microsoft Management Console, Task Scheduler, Control Panel, and the registry. You will learn about the network protocols and services that ship with Windows 2000. This kit concentrates on Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the network protocol of choice for Windows 2000. It also introduces you to the Domain Name System (DNS), which is an Internet and TCP/IP standard name service, and is required for Windows 2000 domains and directory services based on Active Directory technology.

Welcome to the MCSE Training Kit: Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server Clustering Services. This Microsoft Press self-paced training kit is designed to provide you with comprehensive information about using Microsoft clustering technologies on Windows 2000 Advanced Server. This training kit also maps to the objectives presented by Microsoft for the Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) Exam 70-223. In addition to the exam material, this training kit presents useful information about Network Load Balancing.

Focusing on implementing and administering network security in a Windows Server 2003 environment, this guide covers implementing, managing, and troubleshooting security policies, patch management infrastructure, security features, and much more.

BEA. WebLogic Platform 7 is a fast-paced introduction to the new WebLogic Platform. The focus of this book is to provide you with an in-depth knowledge of the WebLogic Platform 7.0 product and how you can leverage its capabilities and new features to create, configure, manage, and monitor an optimal operational environment for your J2EE applications. Hence, the primary technical topics discussed in this book fall under the realm of WebLogic Server Administration. This book covers in J2EE concepts and how to develop J2EE applications targeted for the WebLogic Platform.

This self-paced learning tool is designed to help any developer master the basics of object-oriented programming (OOP) with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and illustrates concepts with definitive and intuitive game programming examples.

In this book, you'll study some of the more advanced applications, protocols, and services included with Windows Server 2003 and learn how to use them to create a network that is both efficient and secure.

Welcome to MCAD/MCSD Training Kit—Developing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET. By completing the lessons and associated exercises in this course, you will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to develop Windows-based solutions using Visual Basic .NET or Visual C# .NET.

This kit packs the tools and features exam 70-271 candidates want most—including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content, rigorous, objective-by-objective review, exam tips, and a robust testing suite.

This kit packs the tools and features MCDST exam candidates want most—in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; exam tips from an expert, and a robust testing suite for Exam 70-272.

If you are a MySQL user who wants to find out more about the program, but is not interested in becoming a database administrator just to be able to read books on MySQL, then MySQL Crash Course is for you. This tutorial-based book is organized into a series of short, easy-to-follow lessons that take a very hands-on approach to meeting the needs of the average MySQL user. The essentials of MySQL are taught through a series of self-paced lessons in which you will complete exercises that illustrate the most important aspects of MySQL.

Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes has established itself as the gold standard for introductory SQL books, offering a fast-paced accessible tutorial to the major themes and techniques involved in applying the SQL language. Forta's examples are clear and his writing style is crisp and concise. As with earlier editions, this revision includes coverage of current versions of all major commercial SQL platforms. New this time around is coverage of MySQL, and PostgreSQL. All examples have been tested against each SQL platform, with incompatibilities or platform distinctives called out and explained.

Fooling around with Photoshop to create interesting composite artwork is all well and good. But if you rely on Photoshop to meet tough production challenges in a fast-paced professional environment, fooling around won't cut it! You need results, and you need them now: This book delivers! In this copiously illustrated volume, best-selling authors David Blatner and Bruce Fraser offer scads of hands-on production techniques as well as clear explanations of the concepts that drive them, so that you can get the best results possible on your own Photoshop CS2 projects. You'll learn about managing color, getting great scans, correcting tones and colors, and more. You also find complete coverage of all of Photoshop CS2's newest features: integration with Adobe Bridge; Vanishing Point; super-tight integration with the rest of Adobe's Creative Suite 2; and more. Throughout, the emphasis is on efficiency: the time-saving tips and professional shortcuts that will allow you to work faster, smarter, and more creatively with Photoshop CS2.

Learn how to install, configure and troubleshoot SQL Server 2000 and prepare for the Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) exam with this official Microsoft study guide. Work at your own pace through the lessons and hands-on exercises. And use the special exam-prep section and testing tool to measure what you know and where to focus your studies before taking the actual exam. As you build real-world database administration expertise, you’re also preparing for MCP exam 70-228 a core exam on the MCDBA track and an elective on the MCSA and MCSE tracks.

This book was developed for information technology (IT) professionals who need to design, plan, implement and support a Microsoft Windows 2000 network infrastructure or who plan to take the related Microsoft Certified Professional exam 70-214, Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network. To use this book, you should understand basic Windows 2000 installation and configuration, as well as Active Directory installation and basic concepts.

In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana’s history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, Banana takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Eden—examining scholars’ belief that Eve’s “apple” was actually a banana— and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named “banana republics” rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the banana’s path to the present, ultimately—and most alarmingly—taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sight—and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.