I was crawling around the CodePlex site and discovered a cool utility:

"Google Book Downloader is small utility which allows you to save book as PDF from google to your local filesystem."

Google has made public domain books accessible online and this .Net app can make them accessible on a plane. What will they think of next?

As The Wife probably knows more than most, I read a lot of books. That is, books about technology, mind you. I think I took a SQL Server 2000 book on my honeymoon. The Wife reads more (approximately 2.5 vertical feet of books per month) than I do, but she's all over the chart with bios, mysteries, thrillers, oddities like a book about the number zero or salt; even those sappy romance books.

I'm currently reading what could be a really interesting tech book but I feel more like a proof reader. I'm not saying I'm like Chris Sells or anything with my own book, I've got some errata. However, this book I'm reading now has ascended the six stages of book errors with invalid code and sentence struggles in short order:

1. Whoops
2. Laughter (with)
3. Laughter (at)
4. The 'oh crap' stage
5. Can I learn anything here?
6. Is this book actually hurting my brain?

I've never seen one this bad before. It really makes me appreciate the great editors that I was fortunate enough to have on my team. This is more of a reminder to myself - for gosh sakes, proof your work before you send it out! Gah!

Footnote - any grammar issues in this post were purely intentional.

So, I wrote a book. I feel really fortunate to have had the experience and I am humbled by the idea that its on Amazon and store shelves across the country. The photo to the right is my brother-in-law and his charming wife with copy-in-hand, somewhere in NYC.

Late in 2006, Scott Vandehey and Kelly White were approached about writing this book. We (Pop Art) were putting the wraps on a successful 15+ month DotNetNuke project for a client and both of them had blogged a little about it. We had put together several DotNetNuke sites with an definite eye for design. After Scott Hanselman helped us dispel the notion that this book offer from Jim Minatel might be a hoax, ScottV and Kelly invited me to join the author team.

We, the three amigos, locked ourselves in a room (figuratively) and wrote down a draft set of chapters using index cards spread out over the table, and then handed out assignments. We went home and worked on a sample chapter to (1) prove to Jim that we could express ourselves sufficiently on paper and (b) to dip our toes into the waters of authorship.

When we reconvened a few days later, the mood and sobered up a little. Kelly was already full with a rich family life and a fledgling local developer community in the works. Scott had a brand new baby on the way too. The long-and-short of it is they were both honest and smart enough to know that the time commitment was too much. I have a lot of respect for them knowing it just wouldn't work rather than bailing out somewhere down the road. They showed a lot of class and professionalism.

I knew full well what I was getting into. Fortunately, so did my wife. She supported me so well during those non-stop evenings and weekends. It was a lot to bite off and she helped me so much just from the occasional drive-by-hug, or the smack-on-the-ass as I walked past her to refill my coffee cup.

I started my career with an internship at Andersen Consulting, then onto Peoples Energy, next was The Information Management Group, and now Pop Art. I've been developing software and consulting my entire career. Over time, I've learned a few important things like "Don't miss deadlines, period". So, it seemed reasonable to approach this endeavor in a similar manner. I worked out a schedule with Jim, my Senior Editor. I didn't really have anything to compare it to and Jim seemed OK with the plan so I just rolled with it. I entered into a contract with Wrox having every intention of living up to the letter and spirit of the agreement; just like any other client.

Every couple of weeks, I'd submit the next chapter to my editor, Christopher Rivera. He would manage the workflow on that side including comments from my awesome technical editor, Robert Bogue. I would occasionally have check-in phone calls with Christopher too. He did a fantastic job of helping me through this maze; a super nice guy.

Along about chapter 10 or so, Christopher chimed in on a conference call and said, "Wow, you're still on schedule. That's pretty rare." Now, I don't know about you, but that's about the worst thing he could have said for my motivation. I let out a big laugh and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was well aware of interviews with rock star developers like MLB and others who would sign a book deal, get past the due date for the final draft, and only then sit down and start writing it.

Come hell or high water, I was sticking with the impression that rock stars can do that but not little-ol-me. This self-imposed rule of hitting my final due date with solid material worked well for releasing relevant content and minimizing the impact of my home life. Kari was spectacular for eight long months, fifteen chapters, and over 400 pages - I sure do love her.

Towards the end, Jim moved to a new position and Chris Webb became my Senior Editor. I wrapped up the book in late August. It went to production and made it out in time for the awesome OpenForce '07 conference in Vegas next week. I would have loved to attend this conference but alas, I'm in San Jose all week on business and my six year wedding anniversary is next weekend too. Ah, the trump card.

So, I'm incredibly anxious to see what readers make of it. The book describes how to design sites with DotNetNuke using modern web techniques. I steered clear of any hardcore programming or database work, the core of this book is about the front end and how to make it do-what-it-do. Inside, you'll see how to maneuver around skins, containers, modules and apply modern HTML, CSS and JavaScript techniques to the various parts of DotNetNuke. Just to add some panache, I included a few scenarios with sIFR, Silverlight and the ASP.Net AJAX Control Toolkit.

I learned a lot while I researched the nooks and crannies of this framework and I developed a sincere appreciation for the core team and all of their work to advance the platform. I haven't read tech books the same way since and the cliche dedications of "my spouse is so awesome" don't seem so cliche anymore. Its a humbling experience to have such a cool opportunity to impact a thriving community. The Wrox tag line is "Programmer to Programmer" and that's certainly the case here. I'm just a guy trying to help. I hope it helps you.

I saw this link on Don Box's blog about a new Workflow book coming out. Since I'm considering WF, I'm going to take his advice and get the book.

This is a nice parlay for me after a session at the recent Seattle Code Camp. I sat in on a Windows Workflow Foundation talk by Paul Mehner, the South Sound .Net User Group Leader in Olympia, WA.

I could tell this guy is a professional trainer; he had a thorough understanding of Windows Workflow Foundation, solid content and a ton of energy. Not a sleepy eye in the whole audience!

I've just finished the book Death By Meetings written by Patrick Lencioni. Its a non-fictional gem on how to run effective meetings in a company. The author took a nice approach by telling a fable about a company, Yip Software, and how they were driven to change their meeting style in order to survive; a compelling story that wasn't too contrived. The value of his approach was clearly stated and I bought into it right away. Probably not to any small degree because we're already doing most of it.

We have a five minute huddle every day with the department. We exchange a few pleasantries and dive into one minute updates on our work for the day, or what is creating a road block for the team. Every other week, we have tactical meetings that address short term goals for 60 to 90 minutes. The executive team has quarterly strategic meetings that allow the company to reaccess goals and what has changed in the market. The company has two day offsite meetings every 14 to 18 months too. I've been to three offsite meetings so far. They're great for letting your mind step back, take a broad context and dive into a passionate discussion about the business.

It was interesting to listen to a story that could have come directly from Pop Art. Our Chief Operating Officer, Tom Paul, has been an avid sponsor of this type of meeting approach for a while. This was my first book I've digested in this isle. I'm usually stuck by the tractor beam of the technical aisle. I feel our biweekly tactical meetings can use a bit more passionate debate, but we're pretty close on most of the points. If you haven't ventured down this aisle before, I thoroughly recommend this book. This book doesn't contain anything new; yet I find it very refreshing to periodically digest the fundamentals to keep me grounded. I'm sure several other books cover this topic well, so its kind of like 8th grade biology class. Its doesn't matter where you go to school, so long as you pass the class.