Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Writing

  • Eight essential aspects influencing the publication of good technical books

    A recent remark in a LinkedIn.com forum stated “Please do not use Microsoft Press and “Technical Editing” in the same sentence. Have you ever seen the 1st editions of the Technical books?” I believe that the general thrust of the statement was that the technical editing done for first editions…

  • Active Directory book available for iPad or iPhone

    While I use a 3GS iPhone, I must admit that I have not gotten into iPad. Maybe I’ll do so after Apple upgrades the device to V2.0, whenever that might be. In any case, I was intrigued to find that “Active Directory, 4th edition” from O’Reilly Books is now available…

  • Exchange 2010 SP1 still changing

    I’ve commented before about the problem posed for authors who attempt to describe software as it is being developed. Code that you think is solid and won’t change is removed before the final build because a bug is discovered or code that someone has been working on but not revealed…

  • Exchange 2010 SP1 “Inside Out” book makes its first public appearance

    When browsing Amazon.co.uk today, I was amused to receive this recommendation: Fantastic – the word is out that my Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out book is soon to be available! Great… until I read the PR text that talked about the content that should be in the 1,312 pages that…

  • Progress towards publication: Exchange 2010 SP1 “Inside Out” Book

    My Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out book is slowly taking shape. Now that Microsoft has released SP1 (August 25, 2010), the code is finalized, which makes things much easier all round. To give you an insight into the work that has to be done to get a book from…

  • Exchange 2010 Best Practices Book now available

    Microsoft Press/O’Reilly have just published the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Best Practices (also available from Amazon.co.uk) book by Siegfried Jagott and Joel Stidley. I had some involvement in this book as I was the technical editor for roughly half the chapters, a task that filled many interesting hours over the…

  • A small increase

    As discussed in earlier posts, Microsoft Press had some concern about the size of my Exchange 2010 SP1 book as the submitted manuscript amounted to some 1,600 pages. They asked me to reduce the size to 1,100 pages and I started on the task of cutting complete chapters, sections, and…

  • Selecting a book about technology

    Recently, a question was posed on the Exchange MVP mailing list about what books people would recommend to help technologists get up to speed with Exchange 2010. Clearly this is a topic that I am both interested in and have an opinion, so I made a contribution. Thinking about the…

  • The cutting technique

    I blogged a few days ago about the need to reduce the size of my Exchange 2010 SP1 book to bring it down from the 1,600 or so pages that Microsoft Press has estimated its current size to something more reasonable of the order of 1,100 or so pages. Still…

  • “Inside Out” Book submitted but Exchange 2010 SP1 continues to evolve

    After some ten months of work, my Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out book was submitted to Microsoft Press last Wednesday.  The hard work now begins to edit, format, and complete the content in a form that is suitable for publication. At the same time, I’ll be tracking developments in…