Category Archives: Uncategorized

We just published a new video on how to construct the exponential growth and logistic functions using calculus. If this is of interest to you, check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRm4xngylwo

We just launched a new video series on YouTube, “Building Scalable Web Applications.” This series is based on the book Building Scalable PHP Web Applications Using the Cloud. While the examples are written in PHP for clarity, the ideas covered work in any programming environment you are in, whether it is Ruby on Rails, Django, ASP.NET, or anything else.

The first video in the series covers an overview of what cloud computing is, and what sorts of problems it tries to solve.

You can buy the book at:

• Apress
• Barnes and Noble
• Amazon

I’m happy to announce the latest book by Jonathan Bartlett – Building Scalable PHP Web Applications Using the Cloud. This book is published in conjunction with Apress.

The book is an intro-level tutorial to help programmers get their arms (and code) around cloud technology from a variety of vendors.

The book walks the user through a variety of tasks in cloud computing from the basics, such as how to get your first cloud computer up and running, to the advanced, such as how to architect your system and application to maximize scalability.  The book gives a tour through setting up various components.  It has chapters on system administration, creating cloned systems, configuring a local caching system, database master/replica setups, infinitely scalable disk storage, security, and writing the PHP code to connect to these different services.

Additionally, the book contains tutorials on several popular cloud vendors, including Linode, Amazon Web Services, and the Google Cloud Platform.  Each section gives step-by-step instructions on how to get up and running, as well as discussions of alternate configurations and their pros and cons.  

While the book uses PHP as the implementation language, the concepts in the book apply to nearly any programming language you would use.  The book is available in both print and digital formats, and can be purchased either from the publisher or from Amazon.

We have the first two videos up for our chemistry video series. Check them out below! Don’t forget to like and subscribe!

Our latest video is Refactoring Introductory Calculus, Part 1.

In computer programming, the word “refactoring” refers to taking a process apart and putting it back together with the components slightly shifted in order to make the result both easier to understand and use while simultaneously being more powerful. This is the first episode in a series about rethinking the way that calculus is taught and communicated in order to do the same thing – simplify the foundations while increasing the power of those foundations.

In this part, we will talk about how focusing on differentials instead of derivatives makes the process of calculus easier, giving a unified set of rules for single-variable, implicit, and multivariable derivatives. Additionally, the process given here removes the need for the chain rule, which simply follows naturally from the process rather than having to be some special rule.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t allow arbitrary links, so we are linking all of the YouTube cards in the video to this post. Here are the links to the items discussed in the YouTube cards:

1. Simplifying and Refactoring Introductory Calculus. This is the paper that serves as the basis for the video series.
2. To see how this works with higher-order differentials, see the paper Extending the Algebraic Manipulation of Differentials.

Bartlett Publishing is proud to release two new books from author Jerry Bergman. Bergman is a prolific author and his previous book, Fossil Forensics, is one of out bestselling titles.

This fall, Bergman release two new titles – Poor Design: An Invalid Argument Against Intelligent Design and Useless Organs: The Rise and Fall of a Central Claim of Evolution. These two books are a stunning combination of physiology, philosophy, and natural history. They knit together the details of the systems of the human body together with the understanding of what they mean in the context of modern claims about the nature of humanity.

Bergman skillfully shows that the things that we used to think were junk (or poorly designed) were, to a large extent, a testimony to our ignorance about those systems rather than evidence of their poor design or lack of function. Biology is best understood in the context of well-organized systems, and these books show why this conception is better than the alternatives.

These are perfect books to read on their own. However, they should also be considered for use as supplemental material for homeschool biology and anatomy courses.

We are getting serious about our YouTube channel, youtube.com/BPLearningTV. We just uploaded the first video in a long time on the Hyperreal Number System! Check out the video, and don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel.

We are happy to announce that Rainbow Resource, one of the leading providers of homeschool educational materials, is now carrying our programming book, New Programmers Start Here!

New Programmers Start Here is an introduction to computer programming that is specialized to the needs of homeschool students in junior high and high school who have no prior computer programming experience. It teaches the history of computers, the basics of how the Internet, the web, and HTML works, and how to program the computer using the JavaScript programming language.

The New Programmers Start Here website contains numerous resources to go with the book, including videos and handouts.

Rainbow Resource maintains an inventory of only the highest quality classroom materials, and we are honored that they are carrying our products.