Cloud Computing is the future of business software. The cloud changes how most companies use and develop and think about software. Instead of hosting a huge IT department a company will buy services as needed from a cloud service provider. Find out on the details about how this will impact you and your company at the cloud architecture overview by Bett Correa.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
How to write and publish your own non fiction book
Do you dream of writing your own non fiction book?
Well stop dreaming and start doing. It’s not anywhere as hard as you think.
One year and one month it took me from the time I started writing my book to the day I published it on amazon.com. I followed these easy steps, and you can too:
1. Come up with your book topic. Make it something you know very well. I dug in deep for mine: Software Architecture. When I wanted to become an architect no one could tell me how to do it. I had to blaze my own trail. After I became one, several developers at my office asked me how I did it. I decided to give a speech on it and it was very well received. That’s when I knew I had a good topic for a book.
2. Write an outline. This can be sections and chapter headings. Brain storm on this for a while and ask people what they think. Don't worry too much about the order of the chapters at first.
3. Make a schedule. For the first 9 months I only wrote on air planes. This was not a good option. In September 2011, I realized I needed to get serious. I started making a schedule where I had to write every weekday morning. I forced myself to write 700 words a day. If you want to finish a book you need to be disciplined. Check your word count and don't stop until you've meet your scheduled word count. An eBook should be between 35 and 50k words. Many printed books author's fill up their books with repetitions and filler because people don't want to buy a paper book unless its 300 pages. But with online books it doesn't really matter how long they are.
4. Write. Don't worry about how good it is. Just write your work count everyday.
5. Reread and fix any issues.
6. Send it to your trusted friends. I send it to about 30 of my trusted friends to review and give me advice. Some I took, some I didn't. But the encouragement they'll give you will get you through the hard part. That’s right, you are about to get into the hard part now that you've finished your first draft.
7. Find an editor. Ask around and you'll be able to find one. Thankfully I found one who is friends with my family. He was just fantastic! He just published his third book, Chuck Van Soye.
8. Review one more time. Make any changes you need to.
9. Hire a professional designer to design your cover. People buy books based on their covers. Make sure its professional and catchy. Put your cover as the first page on your book.
10. Make sure your illustrations look passable. They should at least be somewhat professional looking. Remember that older Kindle's don't do color, so use gray scale.
11. Use all the standard Word formatting for Headers and bold, paragraphs. These transfer directly into Kindle. You might need to remove extra spaces between paragraphs as they make your pages look empty.
12. Create an Amazon.com account. It only took me a few minutes to fill out the information. You don't need an ISDN number to publish your book. It doesn't cost you anything to set up your account. You don't need to pay anyone to set it up for you. You can do it yourself very quickly.
13. Create new Title. Fill in all theMeta data about your book including you as the author under Contributors. Upload your word document with the front cover as the first page in the book. Leave this as color because it will show up on amazon.com's search pages.
14. Select your royalties model. They have two. 35% is for books priced between $.99 and $200. Then they have a 70% based on 2.99 to 9.99.
15. Click Publish. It takes 12 hours for them to process your book, but then it will be available for download. If you find any issues you can update the document or any of the meta data after the 12 hours. Until that 12 hour window is over, the links for editing your book are grayed out.
Now you can write and publish your own book in 15 simple steps. Good luck!!
You can read my newly published book on software architecture at http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
Well stop dreaming and start doing. It’s not anywhere as hard as you think.
One year and one month it took me from the time I started writing my book to the day I published it on amazon.com. I followed these easy steps, and you can too:
1. Come up with your book topic. Make it something you know very well. I dug in deep for mine: Software Architecture. When I wanted to become an architect no one could tell me how to do it. I had to blaze my own trail. After I became one, several developers at my office asked me how I did it. I decided to give a speech on it and it was very well received. That’s when I knew I had a good topic for a book.
2. Write an outline. This can be sections and chapter headings. Brain storm on this for a while and ask people what they think. Don't worry too much about the order of the chapters at first.
3. Make a schedule. For the first 9 months I only wrote on air planes. This was not a good option. In September 2011, I realized I needed to get serious. I started making a schedule where I had to write every weekday morning. I forced myself to write 700 words a day. If you want to finish a book you need to be disciplined. Check your word count and don't stop until you've meet your scheduled word count. An eBook should be between 35 and 50k words. Many printed books author's fill up their books with repetitions and filler because people don't want to buy a paper book unless its 300 pages. But with online books it doesn't really matter how long they are.
4. Write. Don't worry about how good it is. Just write your work count everyday.
5. Reread and fix any issues.
6. Send it to your trusted friends. I send it to about 30 of my trusted friends to review and give me advice. Some I took, some I didn't. But the encouragement they'll give you will get you through the hard part. That’s right, you are about to get into the hard part now that you've finished your first draft.
7. Find an editor. Ask around and you'll be able to find one. Thankfully I found one who is friends with my family. He was just fantastic! He just published his third book, Chuck Van Soye.
8. Review one more time. Make any changes you need to.
9. Hire a professional designer to design your cover. People buy books based on their covers. Make sure its professional and catchy. Put your cover as the first page on your book.
10. Make sure your illustrations look passable. They should at least be somewhat professional looking. Remember that older Kindle's don't do color, so use gray scale.
11. Use all the standard Word formatting for Headers and bold, paragraphs. These transfer directly into Kindle. You might need to remove extra spaces between paragraphs as they make your pages look empty.
12. Create an Amazon.com account. It only took me a few minutes to fill out the information. You don't need an ISDN number to publish your book. It doesn't cost you anything to set up your account. You don't need to pay anyone to set it up for you. You can do it yourself very quickly.
13. Create new Title. Fill in all the
15. Click Publish. It takes 12 hours for them to process your book, but then it will be available for download. If you find any issues you can update the document or any of the meta data after the 12 hours. Until that 12 hour window is over, the links for editing your book are grayed out.
Now you can write and publish your own book in 15 simple steps. Good luck!!
You can read my newly published book on software architecture at http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
You Can Be a Software Architect
Today I published my book, You Can Be a Software Architect.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
Be the first to read it!
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
Be the first to read it!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
My Upcoming Book
With in the next few weeks I'll be publishing my first book! Its called You Can be a Software Architect.
It’s a step by step guide on how to go from developer to software architect. I decided to write the book after getting asked by many people how I became an architect.
I started writing the book in January of 2011. I finished the first draft on November 1st 2011. I then sent the book to about 30 trusted friends who gave me lots of comments and suggestions.
Here you go!! I've published it on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
Be the first to read it!
It’s a step by step guide on how to go from developer to software architect. I decided to write the book after getting asked by many people how I became an architect.
I started writing the book in January of 2011. I finished the first draft on November 1st 2011. I then sent the book to about 30 trusted friends who gave me lots of comments and suggestions.
Here you go!! I've published it on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Software-Architect-ebook/dp/B007BDIRF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329796975&sr=8-1
Be the first to read it!
The Thinker
The thinker is one of the phases of existance you might get trapped in. This is when you spend your time just considering your next step with-out actually doing it. You read and research, and maybe even discuss and debate, but never take action. You might say, "I am not ready yet. I need to do more study. People will make fun of me. I'll be a laughing stock! I am not qualified." Self doubt fills you in this phase.
The way to get out of this phase is to start small. Do something small to learn that you can do it. Once you succeed or fail, note down the things you learned. Then try again with something a little bigger or more complex. Keep trying and growing. Make sure you get feedback from your mentors. Work on one thing during each practice, and focus on it. Then afterwards review the results. Don't try to change too much at once. Focus on only one improvement at a time.
The way to get out of this phase is to start small. Do something small to learn that you can do it. Once you succeed or fail, note down the things you learned. Then try again with something a little bigger or more complex. Keep trying and growing. Make sure you get feedback from your mentors. Work on one thing during each practice, and focus on it. Then afterwards review the results. Don't try to change too much at once. Focus on only one improvement at a time.
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Key to being Succesful in College
My sister is almost done with her last semester at community college. I asked her what the key to being successful in college is. She has a B average or higher.
Her secret is doing her home work right away, but then she admits, "But I don't actually do that."
So this leads me down the path, all of us know the right things to do to be successful in life: Discipline, organization, hard work. But how many of us actually do it?
If you’re a self help book junkie, you know all the best ways of Getting Things Done, but do you do them? Is life too intolerable to actually life day to day like that?
Last year I did so much accomplished so much, and I am very glad I did. But what was the price? I know that I enjoyed it, but was it too stressful? Did I miss out on anything important?
What we need to ask ourselves is what do we really want out of life? What do we want our lives to be about? What we need are some priorities. For me its this picture represents mine.
Next, after the priorities are created, tactically, simply look at each element in your day and ask which of these priorities this task will meet. If it does not meet any of your priorities ask you’re self why you are doing it? It is a waste of time. Start eliminating those time wasters. If I am thinking about eating a big bowl of ice cream, I have to ask if this meets my health priority.
So this answers some ways of being successful, but not fully. You need to also be more strategic. Start planning goals for each. Such as, I am going to spend more time praying everyday. Or for example, I am going to plan a romantic valentine’s dinner with my husband to meet my goal of spending more time with my family.
Make sure your use your calendar to manage the important events, otherwise they will never happen.
The next challenge is over scheduling. What if you have so many fantastic opportunities which mean your goals in each area? How do you know when to say no? If you figure out, please let me know!!
Her secret is doing her home work right away, but then she admits, "But I don't actually do that."
So this leads me down the path, all of us know the right things to do to be successful in life: Discipline, organization, hard work. But how many of us actually do it?
If you’re a self help book junkie, you know all the best ways of Getting Things Done, but do you do them? Is life too intolerable to actually life day to day like that?
Last year I did so much accomplished so much, and I am very glad I did. But what was the price? I know that I enjoyed it, but was it too stressful? Did I miss out on anything important?
What we need to ask ourselves is what do we really want out of life? What do we want our lives to be about? What we need are some priorities. For me its this picture represents mine.
So this answers some ways of being successful, but not fully. You need to also be more strategic. Start planning goals for each. Such as, I am going to spend more time praying everyday. Or for example, I am going to plan a romantic valentine’s dinner with my husband to meet my goal of spending more time with my family.
Make sure your use your calendar to manage the important events, otherwise they will never happen.
The next challenge is over scheduling. What if you have so many fantastic opportunities which mean your goals in each area? How do you know when to say no? If you figure out, please let me know!!
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