Research Tools and Services Discovery

Lean teams are nimble and diverse. They include product managers, developers, and operations specialists, who may only work together for a short time. How do you manage people that play such different roles and unite them towards a common goal? In this course, Jez Humble provides tips to build high-performance product teams. He compares the strengths of the Taylorist vs. lean management approaches, explains how culture contributes to high-performing teams, and introduces a well-documented case study of a company changing a culture for the better. Plus, learn how to improve performance and adopt the principles of high-performing teams as your own.

Security is paramount for any application. In Java, cryptography is key to the secure storage and transmission of data: to and from resources, users, and APIs. This course teaches the basics of Java cryptography using the Java Development Kit (JDK) crypto libraries: Java Cryptography Architecture (JCA) and Java Cryptography Extensions (JCE). Learn basic cryptography concepts and terms, including symmetric and asymmetric encryption, hashing, and digital signatures. Then find out how to use the cryptographic services or "engine classes" in JCA and JCE, such as Cipher, KeyGenerator, MessageDigest, and Signature, to enforce secure messaging and data storage. Plus, discover how to build a Java keystore to manage your repository of keys and certificates. Instructor Frank Moley uses his 16+ years of experience as a software developer and security architect to guide you through this complex topic.

Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS) can be used to defend an organization's heterogeneous environments, respond proactively to changing business requirements, and simplify IT management—all from a single portal, without requiring you to maintain a complex infrastructure locally. In this course, learn how to get started with OMS. Instructor David M. Franklyn begins by explaining what OMS is, what it can offer your organization, and how to deploy and configure this collection of management services. He also shows how OMS can deliver immediate, actionable insights into log data by providing a cost-effective, all-in-one cloud management solution. To wrap up the course, he discusses how to use OMS to monitor an on-premises environment.

The professionals in charge of Azure administration need to know how to secure services correctly to protect the data flowing between client computers and the cloud. This course investigates security concepts related to Azure deployment and services such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory. Find out how to work with the security portals, secure virtual machines, implement more robust multi-factor authentication, and protect your services and data, including email, documents, and user data. Plus, learn best practices for successfully securing your Azure deployment.

The Microsoft Cognitive Services APIs allow developers to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to create apps that can more effectively understand and interpret the needs of users. In this course, learn how to work with Microsoft Cognitive Services for language. Instructor Sahil Malik explains how to work with the Bing Spell Check API, the Text Analytics API—which you can use to detect language, key phrases, and sentiment—and the Translator Text API. He wraps up the course by taking a deep dive into the exciting Language Understanding (LUIS) service, which allows apps to accept a user's input in natural language.

Manufacturing is a vital, constantly changing industry. The effects of technological advancements, regulations, and other factors present a unique set of challenges to sales professionals. In this course, business strategist and instructor Meridith Elliott Powell provides you with skills and strategies that can help you clearly communicate your value—and close more deals—in this challenging vertical. Meridith highlights key industry trends, shares how to avoid being seen as a commodity, teaches you to leverage stories and case studies to establish credibility, and more.

Enhance your ability to work with the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), the development methodology for Office 365 and SharePoint on premises. This course demonstrates how you can leverage external third-party libraries in your SPFx solutions. Discover how to add third-party libraries into your project, and explore the out-of-the-box behavior for React, Knockout, Angular, and jQuery web parts. Plus, review some advanced scenarios, including how to download libraries programmatically and conditionally, integrate Bootstrap in SPFx, and externalize scripts using externalize and config.json.

Sketch is one of the most popular UX design tools around. This course can help designers of all skill levels be productive with its focused, comprehensive workflow. Follow along with Chris Converse and learn the ins and outs of the Sketch interface, and how to design modern user experiences with Sketch, starting with project setup and working through to interactive prototyping. Chris shows how to create custom shared libraries, draw icons, work with imagery and typography, and share your designs across the web using the Sketch Cloud service. Finally, see how to export your work for developers or project teams for integration into their workflows. By the end of the course, you'll be able to use artboards, share libraries, draw icons, create prototypes, and export assets to high-definition PNGs, JPEGs, and PDFs.

CAD software like SOLIDWORKS makes sheet metal design quick and cost effective. This course gets you up to speed with the sheet metal tools in SOLIDWORKS, and takes you on a trip to the factory floor to see the final manufactured results. Instructor Gabriel Corbett shows what goes on behind the scenes and provides tips on designing parts for the real world.

First, review the sheet metal tools in SOLIDWORKS and the properties that make sheet metal unique: bend radius, K-factor, bend deduction, gauge thickness, and more. Then learn how to create basic parts, with base features, flanges, and bends that add strength and connections. Find out how to flatten parts and add holes, cuts, and corners that are manufacturing ready, and use the Convert to Sheet Metal command to convert imported geometry into native sheet metal parts. Gabriel also shows you how to create assemblies from multiple parts, use the Pattern and Mirrors tools to effortlessly duplicate existing work, and then document your designs with detailed sheet metal drawings. Watch the bonus videos to learn about the different machinery and processes that occur during manufacturing.

Sketching is the foundation for every 3D model in SOLIDWORKS. By bolstering your understanding of the suite of settings that deal with sketching in SOLIDWORKS, you can improve your designs and enhance your overall productivity. In this course, learn about the essential tools and functions for sketching in this powerful 3D CAD software. Instructor David Antanavige starts by reviewing basic sketch entities such as circles and splines. He also dives into other key topics such as sketch tools, sketch settings, spline tools, dimensions, and 3D sketching.

Get acquainted with Spring MVC, an essential web framework for Java developers who work on enterprise-level projects. Throughout this practical course, instructor Shonna Smith steps through fundamental aspects of this framework, including Spring MVC controllers, models, and views. She also discusses the benefits of learning Spring MVC, explores custom app configuration, and provides exercises that can help you strengthen your understanding of key concepts. Upon completing this course, you'll have the knowledge you need to build robust MVC applications with Spring MVC.

Developers face an array of challenges when trying to develop performant applications for Microsoft SQL Server. In this course, instructor Joey D'Antoni shares concepts and strategies that can help you enhance your app's performance on SQL Server. Throughout this course, Joey walks through best practices for building efficient, scalable database applications. He covers an array of topics, including execution plans, columnstore indexes, datatypes, temporary objects, and what not to do with SQL Server. He also goes over indexing, and shares how best to create temporary objects.

Succession planning ensures that there are highly qualified people in all of your mission critical positions—not just today, but tomorrow, next year, and five years from now. These rich talent review sessions help leaders understand their current bench strength and make plans for improvement. In this course, learn the step-by-step process for implementing and facilitating a robust succession planning process. Discover how to build an approach that will allow your organization to keep its leadership pipeline full and flowing. Having the right people in the right places will ensure that your talent is your competitive advantage.

Toon Boom Harmony is used by the best animation studios in the world. To qualify for highly competitive jobs in TV, film, and gaming, students need to master the tools and the complete production process of this powerful animation software. In this course, animator Dermot O' Connor shows how to use Toon Boom Harmony to create hand-drawn and digital animation, complex character rigs, and even some cool special effects. He walks through the Toon Boom Harmony interface, introduces the program's drawing tools and color controls, and teaches techniques for drawing keys, breakdowns, and in-betweens in a traditional animation style, as well as creating motion- and morph-tweened digital animations. Then he shows how to set up, rig, and animate a character, and add finishing touches to your animations, such as moving cameras and sound. Plus, learn to export your work as movies and image sequences.

Like all JavaScript-based technologies, TypeScript is changing rapidly as it grows. This course introduces the new kinds of types and the approaches to interacting with them, as well as other features of this rapidly evolving scripting language. Instructor Emmanuel Henri shows how to take advantage of the latest features in TypeScript, as well as critical updates from previous versions, such as type tagging, generators and iterators, and control flow analysis. By the end of the course, even well-versed TypeScript programmers will have found something new to add to their daily workflow.

Interactivity is key to seeing how architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) designs will perform in the real world. Unity provides a powerful toolset for adding interactivity and making AEC visualizations more dynamic. Join George Maestri in this course to learn how to use Unity scripting, animation, and UI tools to enhance the interactivity of your designs. Review the basics of scripting, including working with variables and functions. Learn to apply scripts directly to objects in your scene and trigger them with a single keystroke. Next, discover how to animate interactions, such as opening doors and drawers, and adjust how animations are triggered with colliders and proximity detection. Finally, George shows how to create a simple user interface for your scene, adding buttons, menus, and sliders that allow the viewer to control object visibility, lighting levels, and more.

How do you create authentic, sincere portraits that capture the essence of people? A lot of it comes down to post-production. Using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Chris Orwig walks us through three start-to-finish, up-close portrait projects: a portrait of a legend, a portrait of an artist, and a portrait of a celebrity. He explains the common foundation for the shots—a natural style, setting, and lighting—and explains how to zero in on the best image from a collection. He shows how to enhance each portrait with Lightroom and Photoshop, combining black-and-white adjustments with creative cropping, retouching, and color and tone enhancements. He recaps the editing process for each portrait, and closes with some ideas to integrate in your own workflow.

Emergency and fire-protection systems are important to get right. This course covers the basics of creating detailed sprinkler and fire-alarm drawings for a variety of spaces, with AutoCAD. Start by adding custom display configurations and room tags that update automatically, and then quickly jump into creating fire piping and sprinkler heads. Finally, learn how to place fire-alarm devices, control panels, and conduit.

As a professional designer, you have the creativity needed to tackle video production—you just need to learn the tools and processes. In this course, instructor Tony Harmer helps you build upon the skills covered in the first installment of Video and Audio for Designers with Creative Cloud. Here, Tony builds on the nuts and bolts of video and audio production, specifically for designers who have to produce in these mediums for their jobs, or are being asked to learn these skills. Most visual designers have some basic skills that translate to working with video and sound. Here, Tony speaks their language, translating potentially foreign terms and concepts into ones that designers may find more familiar. He goes over how to build a title sequence, work with motion graphic templates, clean up audio, and more. Throughout the course, he covers how to work with After Effects, Premiere, and Audition as he steps through the creation of a video intended for social sharing.

Accelerate web applications with native code using WebAssembly. WebAssembly is a new, revolutionary technology that allows developers to program webpages using popular high-level languages like C, C++, Rust, and Python. Code is then compiled to WebAssembly bytecode and implemented by the JavaScript engine built into all web browsers. You gain flexibility and functionality without sacrificing performance. This course focuses on the practical uses of the technology: converting C and C++ code to WebAssembly and executing WebAssembly in JavaScript. Programmer and engineer Matt Scarpino demonstrates the power of the WebAssembly, implementing quick sort and matrix multiplication algorithms. He also reviews advanced features, such as debugging and the WebAssembly text format. By the end of the course, you'll understand the massive potential WebAssembly represents and be ready to implement it in your next web project.

Learn the essentials of the Windows operating system, including the new features in Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Nick Brazzi shows how to use core bundled apps that come with Windows 10, manage files and folders, browse the web, and work with mail, calendar, and contacts. Want to customize Windows 10? Learn how to find and install new apps from the Windows Store, and adjust your display preferences and account settings so your PC works perfectly for you. Finally, find out how to back up and restore Windows in case of computer failure, recover missing files, and use built-in tools to protect yourself against malware, such as viruses and spyware.

Losing files is terrible for anyone but losing animation-work that you've spent 500 or 1,000 hours on-can be crippling. In this course, David Andrade introduces a production workflow that will help you mitigate disasters and get projects done on time. He covers the creative and technical aspects of animation, including scripting, storyboarding, layout, file management, and rendering. Each step is shown in context in the production pipeline, allowing you to see how software like After Effects, Maya, and Blender fit together. Use the pipeline to solve your unique creative and technical challenges and develop a customized production workflow to suit your personal style.

Not all CAD packages excel at the same tasks. But moving models between them can be difficult. In this course, you can learn a workflow for moving models between ZBrush and CAD packages that use SubD (subdivision surfaces), such as Rhino. Instructor Jean Gorospe shows how to build incredible designs that take advantage of both their strengths-and prepare for an exciting 3D printing process known as stereolithography (SLA). Follow along and discover how to build a modern task chair in Rhino, transfer the model to ZBrush for high-res detailing, send the mesh back to Rhino to convert it to NURBs, and finalize the design for printing. Jean even shows you what the results look like coming straight off an SLA printer, and after they've been washed and cured.

The digital revolution has altered what it means to be a good leader. Today's leaders must be able to respond as quickly as technology changes—or risk being left behind. This course teaches adaptive project leadership techniques to help you keep up with the pace of change. It covers strategies and skills such as lean product management, adaptive thinking, and agile leadership. Instructor Kelley O'Connell shows how to better understand the customer journey, how to adopt an adaptive mindset, how to manage virtual teams, and how to create a culture of continuous learning and growth. These lessons will help you communicate and collaborate better across the entire organization, deliver products and projects that exceed changing expectations, and stand out as a leader in the digital age.

Affinity Photo is a powerful but approachable image enhancement program that is being embraced by a growing number of photographers. In this course, instructor Steve Caplin covers advanced techniques that can help experienced users get more out of this powerful photo app. Steve goes beyond the essentials, explaining how to restore hazy images, work with advanced blending controls, convert images to black and white, sharpen the edges of an image, and more. Plus, he shares how to boost your productivity by setting your own keyboard shortcuts and creating macros.