Have you ever thought about taking time off to • ride your bike across the United States? • conduct research in the Amazonian rain forest? • work on a presidential campaign? • build houses for the poor? Tens of thousands of students each year take a break before, or even during college to work, travel, volunteer, or do something just plain different. No matter what you may plan to do with your time away, Taking Time Off shows you how to make the most of it. Included are the inspiring stories of 26 students whose pursuits in their time away from school were fulfilling and enjoyable. You'll find practical advice on every aspect of planning a break, from researching your options and financing your leave to convincing your parents it's a worthy idea. This book's resources section also lists programs, jobs, and American and international organizations that can help you to plan your own time off.

The most comprehensive and easy-to-read reference on the market today. Now used by thousands of human resources executives, in-house counsel, business owners and employment lawyers across the United States, this comprehensive guide addresses the latest legal rules and best practices to avoid liability in the California workplace. Comes complete with the latest California forms, checklists and compliance tools. For recent changes to the law, go to www.EmploymentLawPublishers.com for free legal updates between editions with your purchase.

Furnishes an overview of digital photography, covering such topics as cameras, exposure, lighting, shutter speed, depth of field, and resolution--and tips on how to avoid hours of photo-editing by taking great photographs the first time.

Information Technology time management expert Dominica DeGrandis, the reveals the real crime of the century--time theft, one of the most costly factors impacting enterprises in their day-to-day operations. The solution to preventing these value stream delays? Make the work visible. In this timely book (title not final), solutions and preventative measures are illustrated and methodologies outlined for immediate application into daily work.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Cut through the chaos and find the path that’s right for you! Deciding what to do after high school is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make. And that’s a lot of pressure to deal with (especially when everyone else is telling you what they think you should be doing)! Undecided will help you come to grips with this often-overwhelming time of transition by putting the decision-making power back where it belongs: with you. Undecided begins by helping students think seriously about who they are and what they want and then moves on to dissect the various options that are available after high school, such as enrolling in a training program, attending a community college, taking a gap year, enlisting in the military, pursuing a traditional four-year degree, and more. It also takes an in-depth look at how to manage student debt, what you can expect to earn, the kind of lifestyle you may lead, and the possible pitfalls of all of these scenarios. Full of checklists, anecdotes, brainstorming activities, and journal exercises, this book will help you stop procrastinating, put your stress aside, and get busy living.

A single dramatic software failure can cost a company millions of dollars - but can be avoided with simple changes to design and architecture. This new edition of the best-selling industry standard shows you how to create systems that run longer, with fewer failures, and recover better when bad things happen. New coverage includes DevOps, microservices, and cloud-native architecture. Stability antipatterns have grown to include systemic problems in large-scale systems. This is a must-have pragmatic guide to engineering for production systems. If you're a software developer, and you don't want to get alerts every night for the rest of your life, help is here. With a combination of case studies about huge losses - lost revenue, lost reputation, lost time, lost opportunity - and practical, down-to-earth advice that was all gained through painful experience, this book helps you avoid the pitfalls that cost companies millions of dollars in downtime and reputation. Eighty percent of project life-cycle cost is in production, yet few books address this topic. This updated edition deals with the production of today's systems - larger, more complex, and heavily virtualized - and includes information on chaos engineering, the discipline of applying randomness and deliberate stress to reveal systematic problems. Build systems that survive the real world, avoid downtime, implement zero-downtime upgrades and continuous delivery, and make cloud-native applications resilient. Examine ways to architect, design, and build software - particularly distributed systems - that stands up to the typhoon winds of a flash mob, a Slashdotting, or a link on Reddit. Take a hard look at software that failed the test and find ways to make sure your software survives. To skip the pain and get the experience...get this book.