Join Packt and Prepare for Tech in 2016

At a time of rapid development and innovation, tech skills have never been more valuable. The right skills and cutting-edge knowledge can bring huge rewards.

Over the summer, Packt Publishing carried out a survey of more than 20,000 people from across the world of tech, to investigate what skills are most important in today’s fast-changing technological landscape. Now, as the year draws to a close, the publisher is continuing their invitation to ‘Skill Up’ by reviewing the year and looking closely at what the future might hold. From the key challenges to the skills and tools people are most passionate about learning, Packt is preparing for an exciting 2016.

To do this, Packt has created a short survey that asks respondents what was significant in 2015, and what trends and challenges look set to dominate technology in 2016. Whatever your area of tech, Packt wants to hear from you!

As a thank you, and to help you Skill Up in whichever way you choose, respondents will receive a discount code allowing them to purchase any Packt eBook or video for just $5. Because the publisher wants to hear from as many people as possible, they’re encouraging everyone who responds to share the survey with friends and colleagues – they’ll also receive a discount!

Join Packt today and help them to help you look forward to the next 12 months of technical innovation and creation.

Find out more here.

Looking to upgrade your professional skills?

What does your industry look like? Download our comprehensive IT industry salary reports, with data from over 20,000 developers.

The results of the survey are now out on our website here - http://bit.ly/1SHsgW2

We have some great deals for people who would want to  download the report,

here - http://bit.ly/1KOMea5

The $5 eBook Bonanza is here!

Following the success of last year’s festive offer, Packt Publishing will be celebrating the holiday season with an even bigger $5 offer.

From Thursday 18th December, every eBook and video will be available on the publisher’s website for just $5. Customers are invited to purchase as many as they like before the offer ends on Tuesday January 6th, making it the perfect opportunity to try something new or to take your skills to the next level as 2015 begins.

With all $5 products available in a range of formats and DRM-free, customers will find great value content delivered exactly how they want it across Packt’s website this Xmas and New Year.

Book review: Developing Responsive Web Applications with AJAX and jQuery

Developing Responsive Web Applications with AJAX and jQuery

Packt Publishing  

Writer: Sandeep Kumar Patel

Paperback:248

Link to the book page:   
https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/developing-responsive-web-applications-ajax-and-jquery

My rating: 4/5

This book is intended for Java developers wanting to create rich and responsive applications using AJAX.  

This a cool book to start to develop a responsive web application. Reading chapter to chapter you will learn to setup your environment step by step. 

A little bit knowlegge on this technology stack "HTML5, CSS, Javascript" will be a plus to follow this book on a easy way. Together, they are a powerful combinations.

Also, you will find more interesting tips to work with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Google + integration.

Final chapters cover more advanced tricks to get the best when you are debugging and testing your web application. By the end of this book, you will be able to develop responsive web applications by combining AJAX development techniques with the jQuery JavaScript library.

Packt’s celebrates 10 years with a special $10 offer

(Press release)
This month marks 10 years since Packt Publishing embarked on its mission to deliver effective learning and information services to IT professionals. In that time it’s published over 2000 titles and helped projects become household names, awarding over $400,000 through its Open Source Project Royalty Scheme.

To celebrate this huge milestone, from June 26th Packt is offering all of its eBooks and Videos at just $10 each for 10 days – this promotion covers every title and customers can stock up on as many copies as they like until July 5th.

Dave Maclean, Managing Director explains ‘From our very first book published back in 2004, we’ve always focused on giving IT professionals the actionable knowledge they need to get the job done. As we look forward to the next 10 years, everything we do here at Packt will focus on helping those IT professionals, and the wider world, put software to work in innovative new ways.

We’re very excited to take our customers on this new journey with us, and we would like to thank them for coming this far with this special 10-day celebration, when we’ll be opening up our comprehensive range of titles for $10 each.

If you’ve already tried a Packt title in the past, you’ll know this is a great opportunity to explore what’s new and maintain your personal and professional development. If you’re new to Packt, then now is the time to try our extensive range – we’re confident that in our 2000+ titles you’ll find the knowledge you really need , whether that’s specific learning on an emerging technology or the key skills to keep you ahead of the competition in more established tech.’ More information is available at http://www.packtpub.com/10years 

Book review: The Manager's Guide to Employee Feedback

The Manager's Guide to Employee Feedback  

Impackt Publishing  

Writer: Glen Devey

Paperback: 70

Link to the book page:   
http://www.packtpub.com/managers-guide-to-employee-feedback/book

My rating: 4/5

This book is aimed primarily at new Managers who want to improve their skills to delivering a feedback. Six chapters, six lessons ahead.

* Chapter 1: Feedback Fundamentals 

"Taking a portion of the output and comparing it with the input to decide
whether you are getting what you want out of a system."

Seven key principles: Evidence- based, Activity- focused, Results- orientated, Specific, Honesty, Only positive languaje and Timed well.

* Chapter 2: Delivering Balanced Feedback
WIN model of feedback: What went well, Insteresting aspects of perfomance, Next time...

It's a structure for emphasizing the positive aspects
of someone's performance and also for suggesting areas of improvement.

* Chapter 3: Addressing Specific Performance Issues
BAR model of feedback: Background, Activity, Results.

* Chapter 4: Delivering a Reprimand
In opposite to the WIN model I talked before, here we have the DESC model. 
If you need to have a purely corrective conversation with someone you should use this one.

* Chapter 5: Giving Feedback to Colleagues and Managers
This is the most important chapter on my opinion.
We have to choose our words and techniques depending of people we are talking about.
Some insteresting examples of a softening frame, Mismatch frames and Alternative frames are showed here.

* Chapter 6: Integrating Your New Skills
The four step plan to achieve just about anything:
1. Decide on the outcome you want.
2. Choose a course of action.
3. Pay attention to what happens in the moment.
4. Change course if necessary.

Feedback like in an electronic lesson, as so simple but applied to your company. You should study your environment, people you are going to talk and message you want to communicate. These are the keys, have a good feedback!!

Video Review Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration

Video Review: Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration

PACKT Video

Author: Diethard Steiner

Topics and Technologies : Video, e-Learning, Open Source

Link to the video page: http://www.packtpub.com/building-a-data-mart-with-pentaho-data-integration/video

My rating: 4/5 
If you are looking for an easy way to learn how to create ETL transformations to populate a star schema these videos are recorded for you.

You only have to follow these videos step-by-step and you will get powerful results.

Today we will started with Chapter 3: "Agile BI – Building OLAP Schema, Analyzing Data, and Implementing Required ETL Improvements" 

There are 3 videos here:

* 3.1: Creating a Pentaho Analysis Model

In this video we may learn two interesting perspectives on PDI: Model and Visualize. The first one we can built metadatas for analysis and reporting on an easy way. We only select our data from the physical tables and drop into the model.
* 3.2: Analyzing Data Using Pentaho Analyzer

Once we have created our model we can explore the data. In this case we will use Pentaho Analyzer. We drop our measures or levels into the sections we want and we will make our report, that's simple!!
* 3.3: Improving Your ETL for Better Data Quality  

There are tools to get a better data quality. DataCleaner is fully integrated within Pentaho Kettle / PDI and you can profile your data directly within Spoon.
You can download this plugin here: http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/EAI/Human+Inference

You will get some interesting statistics about your data (row count, highest value, lowest value, standard deviation, variance, mean...) with this useful tool.
Also, on this chapter, you will learn some PDI steps to clean and you do not load duplicates values.

Short videos, faster knowledge. Totally recommend!!