St Albans was one of the greatest Benedictine abbeys of medieval England, and the early 14th century was a period during which the concerns of the community and the role of the abbot emerge particularly clearly. Yet the history of the abbey during this period has received little attention since general surveys undertaken over eighty years ago, and the manorial history by Levett in 1938. Basing herself on the unique and relatively unexploited Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, Michelle Still examines the position of St Albans in both the secular and monastic worlds, with a focus on the period 1290-1349. The study includes discussion of the role of the abbot as a feudal landlord, a provider of education (at the abbey's grammar school), and a dispenser of charity. In conclusion, she notes the pivotal importance of the personality and influence of the abbot of St Albans in ensuring the strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict in an age when traditional monasticism was increasingly challenged. Through the detailed study of this one abbey, this book makes an important contribution to the overall picture of monastic life in medieval England.

* The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick is the first book to cover ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/) comprehensively, one of the most popular open source software suites for creating and manipulating images. * Beginner /Intermediate Programmers and Web Developers looking for an automated solution for image manipulation; this book explains how ImageMagick's features can be incorporated in a variety of applications. * The author and review team is unusually strong: the author has been involved in large-scale image processing and storage for the past several years. And the creators of ImageMagick were closely involved in the book's technical review.

MythTV is a powerful open source personal video recorder (PVR) application that runs on Linux. Developed for several years by volunteers, it offers a stable and extensible platform for automating all of the things you would expect from a PVR, and much more.

"Practical MythTV: Building a PVR and Media Center PC" takes a project-based approach to implementing your own MythTV setup. You get to pick and choose the functionality you want to install for your PVR, and will learn the details of everything from selecting hardware to advanced customization.

You will learn how to record your favorite television shows, store your DVDs for later playback, create a music library out of your CD collection, and even use your PVR for voiceover IP. Your PVR wouldn't be complete without a remote control or the ability to play back content to other TVs in your home. You'll learn how to do both of these things in this book. You'll even learn to how to utilize your Xbox as a remote front-end to play back content.

Beyond these basics, you will learn advanced techniques like commercial detection and skipping, auto-expiring content, creating your own themes for MythTV, and utilizing plug-ins to do things like display weather conditions, RSS feeds, and photo slide shows.

An open source project backed by years of continual development, ImageMagick supports over 90 image formats and can perform impressive operations such as creating images from scratch; changing colors; stretching, rotating, and overlaying images; and overlaying text on images. Whether you use ImageMagick to manage the family photos or to embark on a job involving millions of images, this book will provide you with the knowledge to manage your images with ease. An open source project backed by years of continual development, ImageMagick supports over 90 image formats and can perform impressive operations such as creating images from scratch; changing colors; stretching, rotating, and overlaying images; and overlaying text on images. Whether you use ImageMagick to manage the family photos or to embark on a job involving millions of images, this book will provide you with the knowledge to manage your images with ease.

The tried-and-tested textbook in a new version: clear in terms of content, varied methodology, curriculum-related, competence-oriented "Discover, understand, shape religion" is valued for the integrative concept, the demanding, fresh materials, the tasks for head, heart and hand, the proximity to the student , the weight of art, the Bible and tradition, the consistent consideration of neighboring religions. - The novelty of the 2nd edition: Orientation of religious instruction to competencies, the limitation of content to core curricula and the consideration of individualized learning paths. Particular attention is paid to the independence of the students, for example in learning and using specific methods. The tasks are assigned to the chapters and formulated in a student-oriented manner. Basic cognitive knowledge is highlighted and sustainable learning is striven for.