Rails is large, powerful, and new. How do you use it effectively? How do you harness the power? And, most important, how do you get high quality, real-world applications written?

From the latest Ajax effects to time-saving automation tips for your development process, Rails Recipes will show you how the experts have already solved the problems you have. Use generators to automate repetitive coding tasks.Create sophisticated role-based authentication schemes.Add live search and live preview to your site.Run tests when anyone checks code in.How to create tagged data the right way.and many, many more...

Owning Rails Recipes is like having the best Rails programmers sitting next to you while you code.

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.

You: The Owner's Manual challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. After taking a quiz that tests your body of knowledge, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs.

Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body — as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, You: The Owner's Manual gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, you'll also get the great-tasting and calorie-saving Owner's Manual Diet — a thirty-recipe eating plan that's designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.

Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?

Developers and system administrators alike are uncovering the true power of XML, the Extensible Markup Language that enables data to be sent over the Internet from one computer platform to another or one application to another and retain its original format. Flexible enough to be customized for applications as diverse as web sites, electronic data interchange, voice mail systems, wireless devices, web services, and more, XML is quickly becoming ubiquitous. XML Hacksis a roll-up-your-sleeves guide that distills years of ingenious XML hacking into a complete set of practical tips, tricks, and tools for web developers, system administrators, and programmers who want to go far beyond basic tutorials to leverage the untapped power of XML. With plenty of useful real-world projects that illustrate how to define, read, create, and manipulate XML documents, XML Hacksshows readers how to put XML's power to work on the Internet and within productivity applications. Each Hack in this book can be read easily in a few minutes, saving programmers and administrators countless hours of searching for the right answer. And this is an O'Reilly Hacks book, so it's not just practical, imminently useful, and time-saving. It's also fun. From Anatomy of an XML Document to Exploring SOAP Messages XML Hacksshows you how to save time and accomplish more with fewer resources. If you want much more than the average XML user—to explore and experiment, do things you didn't know you could do with XML, discover clever shortcuts, and show off just a little—this invaluable book is a must-have.

Spring in Action2E is an expanded, completely updated second edition of the best selling Spring in Action. Written by Craig Walls, one of Manning's best writers, this book covers the exciting new features of Spring 2.0, which was released in October 2006.

Spring is a lightweight container framework that represents an exciting way to build enterprise components with simple Java objects. By employing dependency injection and AOP, Spring encourages loosely coupled code and enables plain-old Java objects with capabilities that were previously reserved for EJBs. This book is a hands-on, example-driven exploration of the Spring Framework. Combining short code snippets and an ongoing example developed throughout the book, it shows readers how to build simple and efficient J2EE applications, how to solve persistence problems, handle asynchronous messaging, create and consume remote services, build web applications, and integrate with most popular web frameworks. Readers will learn how to use Spring to write simpler, easier to maintain code so they can focus on what really matters— critical business needs.

Spring in Action, 2E is for Java developers who are looking for ways to build enterprise-grade applications based on simple Java objects, without resorting to more complex and invasive EJBs. Even hard-core EJB users will find this book valuable as Spring in Action, 2E will describe ways to use EJB components alongside Spring. Software architects will also find Spring in Action, 2E useful as they assess and apply lightweight techniques prescribed by Spring. and learn how Spring can be applied at the various layers of enterprise applications.

The Internet, with its profusion of information, has made us hungry for ever more, ever better data. Out of necessity, many of us have become pretty adept with search engine queries, but there are times when even the most powerful search engines aren't enough. If you've ever wanted your data in a different form than it's presented, or wanted to collect data from several sites and see it side-by-side without the constraints of a browser, then Spidering Hacksis for you. Spidering Hackstakes you to the next level in Internet data retrieval—beyond search engines—by showing you how to create spiders and bots to retrieve information from your favorite sites and data sources. You'll no longer feel constrained by the way host sites think you want to see their data presented—you—you'll learn how to scrape and repurpose raw data so you can view in a way that's meaningful to you. Written for developers, researchers, technical assistants, librarians, and power users, Spidering Hacksprovides expert tips on spidering and scraping methodologies. You'll begin with a crash course in spidering concepts, tools (Perl, LWP, out-of-the-box utilities), and ethics (how to know when you've gone too far: what's acceptable and unacceptable). Next, you'll collect media files and data from databases. Then you'll learn how to interpret and understand the data, repurpose it for use in other applications, and even build authorized interfaces to integrate the data into your own content. By the time you finish Spidering Hacks, you'll be able to: Aggregate and associate data from disparate locations, then store and manipulate the data as you likeGain a competitive edge in business by knowing when competitors' products are on sale, and comparing sales ranks and product placement on e-commerce sitesIntegrate third-party data into your own applications or web sitesMake your own site easier to scrape and more usable to othersKeep up-to-date with your favorite comics strips, news stories, stock tips, and more without visiting the site every day

Like the other books in O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, Spidering Hacksbrings you 100 industrial-strength tips and tools from the experts to help you master this technology. If you're interested in data retrieval of any type, this book provides a wealth of data for finding a wealth of data.

Servlets are an exciting and important technology that ties Java to the Web, allowing programmers to write Java programs that create dynamic web content. Java Servlet Programmingcovers everything Java developers need to know to write effective servlets. It explains the servlet lifecycle, showing how to use servlets to maintain state information effortlessly. It also describes how to serve dynamic web content, including both HTML pages and multimedia data, and explores more advanced topics like integrated session tracking, efficient database connectivity using JDBC, applet-servlet communicaton, interservlet communication, and internationalization. Readers can use the book's numerous real-world examples as the basis for their own servlets. The second edition has been completely updated to cover the new features of Version 2.2 of the Java Servlet API. It introduces chapters on servlet security and advanced communication, and also introduces several popular tools for easier integration of servlet technology with dynamic web pages. These tools include JavaServer Pages (JSP), Tea, XMLC, and the Element Construction Set. In addition to complete coverage of 2.2 specification, Java Servlet programming,2nd Edition, also contains coverage of the new 2.3 final draft specification.

Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. There are many ways to take advantage of Excel's advanced capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. Excel Hacksprovides more than 130 hacks — clever tools, tips and techniques — that will leapfrog your work beyond the ordinary.

Now expanded to include Excel 2007, this resourceful, roll-up-your-sleeves guide gives you little known "backdoor" tricks for several Excel versions using different platforms and external applications. Think of this book as a toolbox. When a need arises or a problem occurs, you can simply use the right tool for the job. Hacks are grouped into chapters so you can find what you need quickly, including ways to: Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration — manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.Analyze and manage data — extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.Hack names — learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.Get the most out of PivotTables — avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.Create customized charts — tweak and combine Excel's built-in charting capabilities.Hack formulas and functions — subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.Make the most of macros — including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

You can either browse through the book or read it from cover to cover, studying the procedures and scripts to learn more about Excel. However you use it, Excel Hackswill help you increase productivity and give you hours of "hacking" enjoyment along the way.

Today's digital cameras are affordable and provide quality images that rival their traditional film counterparts. Because digital images are easier to share, and because you only have to print the pictures you need, this new medium is both cost effective and environmentally friendly. Best of all, it's fun! With a digital camera, you can set free your creative spirit and take risks you never would with a film camera. The only obstacle is learning how to unlock all or this power and pleasure packed into these pocket-sized picture takers. Digital Photography Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition expands on the basic photography techniques introduced in the bestselling first edition to help you take the kind of pictures you've always wanted to—and now in full color! This book is the photo mentor you've always wanted: it explains each of the camera's components, shows you what they do, and then helps you choose the right settings. When you ask, "How can I get that picture?", simply pull this small guide out of your camera bag, backpack, or back pocket and find the answer quickly. This fully illustrated book covers everything from image resolution, shooting sports action, close ups and night shots, to memory cards, transferring images, archiving, making QuickTime movies, and much more. Topics in the guide's three main sections on "Digital Camera Components", "Standard Camera Functions", and "How Do I?" are labeled A to Z for quick reference. Or if you prefer, use the comprehensive index or table of contents to find the information you need. There's even an entire section of easy to read reference tables for quick look up of white balance settings, exposure compensation, camera mode explanations, and much more.

It's not just another book on Ajax. It's Pragmatic Ajax: a concise, complete look at a new way of envisioning and implementing browser-based applications.

Ajax turns static web pages into interactive applications. Now you can deploy rich-client applications to clients without sacrificing the easy deployment of web applications. But to many folks, Ajax seems difficult. That's why we produced this book. As a Pragmatic guide, it strips away the mystery and shows you the easy way to make Ajax work for you.

We cover the the basics of DHTML, JavaScript, and the infamous XmlHttpRequest call. You'll see how to add Ajax to existing programs, and design new applications to exploit the power of Web 2.0. Learn the three layers of Ajax framework, and when (and how) to use each. See how to create rich clients, use visual effects, add client-side validation, and handle forms. Write applications that degrade gracefully if clients don't support JavaScript. And see how to integrate your Ajaxified clients into Java, .NET, and Ruby on Rails server frameworks.

With Pragmatic Ajax, you'll: Understand the breadth of the Ajax/Web 2.0 landscape, and go-indepth on how Ajax worksLearn how JavaScript works with your server-side frameworkSee how to easily apply Ajax techniques to an existing application—and when not toKnow what's coming by looking at new features and frameworks currently in active development.

Writing dynamic applications isn't that hard. Folks are awed by Google Maps, but it isn't rocket science (apart from the satellite pictures). As a special bonus, see how to implement your own Google Maps-like application using DHTML.

This tutorial teaches users how to work with the features and facilities of the Bourne Shell and helps them gain a clear understanding of the Shell's capabilities for programming.Shows users how to design and write their own Shell scripts to accomplish specific tasksCovers the Bourne Shell-a command interpreter and programming languageUses shaded syntax boxes, icons, as well as Q&A, Do/Don't, and Workshop sections to highlight key points and reinforce learning