Lighting by Design

Free eBooks >> Lighting by Design - Lighting by Design is a practical guide structured around a new theoretical approach to the design of lighting for architectural spaces. Christopher Cuttle outlines his unique three-level approach to lighting design in this indispensable text for students and professionals. Through Observation, Visualisation and Realization, the book explains how to envision, develop and produce your own lighting ideas. Architects, interior designers and specialist lighting designers will benefit from a holistic approach to the lighting process, combining technical information with a distinctive design theory.

Cuttle begins with the development of observational skills, leading to the ability to visualise architectural spaces in light. The final stage of realising the lighting concept involves application of calculational procedures to develop a technical lighting specification. The text includes practical advice on meeting design specifications and contractual obligations. There is also a glossary of technical terms and symbols, and a guide to the calculations that the author uses for quantifying lighting concepts.

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The Fundamentals of Creative Design

Free eBooks >> The Fundamentals of Creative Design - A comprehensive introduction to typography, layout, image and color usage, and othe creative design principles presented through detailed explanation illustrated with examplars from contemporary design.
More than 200 color photos, plus 50 black and white illustrations, provide an illuminating, highly visual introduction to the key elements of graphic design. Each subject matter, or “fundamental"? uses detailed diagrammatic explanations to help students understand the basics. Formats and printing, layout, image and color usage, and more all receive the same in-depth treatment, always with an emphasis on real life application and possibilities.

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Database system concepts

Free eBooks >> Database system concepts - This is a required book for my undergrad Databases class. While reading over it before the semester started I began to wonder why my professor would ever choose such a terrible book. Of course it became clear when, on the first day of class, the professor began to read word for word off slides with the names of the authors sitting at the bottom along with the familiar 'cute' artwork from the cover. Note to instructors: choosing a book because it provides prewritten notes and allows you to be extra lazy is not a valid reason for choosing a textbook. The book is filled with lots of mathematical notation with few good examples. By good examples I mean those that involve realistic databases and not the 'Consider a schema R = (A, B, C, D, E)...' mathematical drivel that fills most of the pages.

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Introduction to Algorithms, Second Edition

Free eBooks >> Introduction to Algorithms, Second Edition - INTRODUCTION TO ALGORITHMS is pretty much the standard textbook in the field of algorithms. In its favor is the fact that it is quite comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics that the beginning student will need to know. On the other hand, it has a tendency towards the confusing and the obscure, with many of the example problems not making a lot of sense. If one decides to purchase this book (and the students will have no choice in this matter, being subject as they are to the whims of their professors), then I recommend that one immediately prints out the "bug correction" page available on the web, as there are several major howlers present in the book, and if one isn't careful then many hours will be lost while one checks and rechecks faulty pseudo-code. In one particularly confused portion of the book, the correction sheet completely replaces three entire pages of the text.

This book covers a huge amount of material, and many of the topics are described quite adequately. Although readers may already be familiar with the numerous data structures that are discussed, the book doesn't assume prior knowledge and goes into quite a lot of detail concerning them. These sections, in particular, are illustrated clearly and offer great reference material that every programmer should have access to. This portion on data structures is one area where the book's conciseness is an advantage. It's simple enough for the beginner to learn from, but it contains more than enough information for the advanced user in need of mental refreshing.

The opening sections that discuss the rudiments of algorithm analysis are also covered competently. The easier subjects don't suffer from the book's shortcomings, as these ideas aren't quite as difficult to understand. For a simple introduction to the easier-to-grasp concepts in Algorithms, these sections simply can't be bettered. It's not until later chapters that some of the material appears incomprehensible.

Other parts of the book are very confusing to the beginning students who, presumably, make up the bulk of the target audience. If this text is used as an accompaniment to a class (as it usually is), then you'll probably do all right. One really needs to have some other source of information, because this book tends to get quite confusing. The problem sets included are frequently obscure, and don't always relate to the material in that chapter. The fact that many of the problems have no given solution (even if one attempts to contact the authors!) is quite telling. The style of the book is extremely dry and occasionally impenetrable, even when compared to other computer science textbooks.

If you're looking at this page, then no doubt you're looking mainly for pricing information, since this book is the definitive standard on the subject. Keep in mind that "definitive" doesn't necessarily mean perfect, and, alas, this book is far from perfection. But if you have an alternative method of learning the material, then this is an excellent book to have as accompaniment. And once you've learned the material, you'll find this to be a great resource.

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Designing With Web Standards

Free eBooks >> Designing With Web Standards - You code. And code. And code. You build only to rebuild. You focus on making your site compatible with almost every browser or wireless device ever put out there. Then along comes a new device or a new browser, and you start all over again. You can get off the merry-go-round. It's time to stop living in the past and get away from the days of spaghetti code, insanely nested table layouts, tags, and other redundancies that double and triple the bandwidth of even the simplest sites. Instead, it's time for forward compatibility.

Isn't it high time you started designing with web standards?

Standards aren't about leaving users behind or adhering to inflexible rules. Standards are about building sophisticated, beautiful sites that will work as well tomorrow as they do today. You can't afford to design tomorrow's sites with yesterday's piecemeal methods.

Jeffrey teaches you to:

• Slash design, development, and quality assurance costs (or do great work in spite of constrained budgets)
• Deliver superb design and sophisticated functionality without worrying about browser incompatibilities
• Set up your site to work as well five years from now as it does today
• Redesign in hours instead of days or weeks
• Welcome new visitors and make your content more visible to search engines
• Stay on the right side of accessibility laws and guidelines
• Support wireless and PDA users without the hassle and expense of multiple versions
• Improve user experience with faster load times and fewer compatibility headaches
• Separate presentation from structure and behavior, facilitating advanced publishing workflows

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Encyclopedia of Movie Special Effects

Free eBooks >> Encyclopedia of Movie Special Effects - Students, film buffs, and general readers will enjoy this books brief biographies, definitions of studio jargon, descriptions of special effects techniques, and descriptive lists of effects used in specific films. Many entries include historical notes, and an appendix lists Academy Award winners and nominees for special effects from 1939 to 1998.

The Enclyclopedia of Movie Special Effects has all you'd ever what to know about filmmaking, special effects, and stuntwork. Everything from 1925's landmark "The Lost World" to 1999's "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" is included with great detail and frequent illustrations. It also includes biographies of the great film magicians like Alfred Hitchcock and Stan Winston. Each entry also includes various links to other publications for further reading, making it a great reference piece for the film geek in all of us. Plus, the index includes a listing of every makeup, special effects, and visual effects Oscar given, proving that this book is an invaluable addition to any true filmlover's collection.

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Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic

Free eBooks >> Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic - As a serious Web designer or developer, you'll want to do one thing and one thing only when you lay your hands on the latest version of Dreamweaver: Start tinkering with all its new features. Problem is that's hard to do on someone else's dime. With Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic, you don't have to! In these pages, Dreamweaver wizards Mossimo Foti, Angela C. Buraglia, and Daniel Short and several other experts draw on their own professional experience to offer 12 real-world projects that let you explore Dreamweaver MX 2004 at your leisure. With a focus on areas that can be troublesome for professional users-whether because they present thorny issues or because they draw on completely new features-each lesson provides need-to-know tips, proven techniques, and best practices.

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Airport Design and Operation

Free eBooks >> Airport Design and Operation - The annual number of airline passengers has continued to increase in the past decade, putting great strain on the airports. Increasing volumes of passengers and freight will continue making demands for expansion of airport facilities and construction of new airports. Traditionally airport design and airport operation have been treated separately, yet they are closely related and influence each other. Poor design adversely affects operation; sound understanding of operation is needed to enable good design. The aim of this book is to present a new and integrated approach to the two.

This second edition includes some important changes in the international regulations covering design and operations. It reflects the greater attention being given to security, safety and the environment, together with changes in the technology and the way the air transport industry operates.

New sections on collaborative decision making and low visibility operations strengthen the operational character of this book. Two completely new chapters have been added covering the topical problems of cargo and radio navigation aids and the chapter on passenger terminals has been enhanced considerably.

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