Book Reviews
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November 3, 2017Satya Nadella is the third CEO (Chief Operating Officer) in Microsoft’s 42 years of operation. Bill Gates served as CEO for 35 years then Steve Ballmer took over then in 2014 Satya Nadella took over and had to reinvent the company. Satya Nadella new book Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone goes into depth of how he turned Microsoft around from losing the mobile market to being a huge cloud company with a new vision. Bill Gates does provide Forewords which are very good as well. Satya Nadella really gets into his personal life talking about coming to America meeting his wife and having his children. He talks about his love of the game cricket. He talks about starting at Microsoft and about being a salesman than to working on Windows NT and building Bing. Satya Nadella talks about Microsoft losing the mobile market and making a bad purchase in the Nokia. Satya Nadella talks about Azure and creating cloud-based services and moving products like Microsoft Office to the cloud and taking Microsoft subscription based in the cloud. He gets into competing with Amazon’s AWS infrastructure. Satya Nadella talks about Microsoft security and trust with customers data and uptime guarantees. Nadella talks about working with Apple and changing company culture to work with companies to bring Microsoft to their platforms. He talks about bring Microsoft Office to Apple’s iOS and Googles Android. Nadella talks about partnering with companies that Microsoft used to compete with and changing Microsofts company mentality to a software and services company. Satya Nadella goes on to explain that the companies mission statement was outdated to say a computer on every desk has already happened and the company needed a more modern mission statement and goal to strive four in the changing landscape of computing. This was a great book I would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in Microsoft’s new visions and strategies. This book is also...
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Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff was a good book published October 19, 2009. I think the timing of the book was great in 2009 was right around the time the iPhone was changing the industry and everyone was getting broadband in their homes so the timing of the publication was perfect. Marc Benioff was an executive under his mentor Larry Ellison who decided to go out on his own and start the Software As A Service (SAS) model that we all know today like Office 365, Quickbooks in the cloud and many others. Marc got the blessing from Larry Ellison and a two million dollar investment to start the company. Salesforce started in an apartment next to Marc where he rented and turned the living rooms into offices and closet into a data center. Marc Benioff is famous for his customer support and people skills in the book he goes through a lot of the things he has learned that have made him one of the best in the business for dealing with people. Marc Benioff talks about how he was always better at dealing with people then he was coding computers. Marc talks about outages that his company has had and how they turned trust.salesforce.com into a platform for users of their software to find out about outages and how they have built trust with customers because of this trusted platform. Marc goes into sales strategists they use at Salesforce and how they develop new features based on customer feedback to ensure customers do not leave their platform. Marc talks about the Salesforce pricing model and the hardship for going from monthly to yearly services. Marc Benioff goes into why he started a...
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April 10, 2017The Red Goodbye A Serena Triton Detective Novel (Book 2) The Red Goodbye is the follow-up to my first novel The Pangram Killer which I published over a year ago. This book is the second novel set a year later where we get to see Serena Triton develop personally and professionally. We get to see her and her love interest relationship evolve to the next level and we get to see Serena working hard at her new position in open unsolved and continue to work with her old partner. We will get to see some other characters from the last book revisit and we will learn more about their pasts. I am very proud to be publishing my second novel I feel this one is 100% better than the first one from the book cover to the editing and much more… I feel I have grown and developed more as a writer and are more in touch with the whole process of writing, editing, character development and story telling. I feel this book is a big leap forward for me and the character. Being a huge fan of the mystery, thriller, crime genre my entire life I really enjoy being able to add my book to that category. So many authors in this category I have looked up to in my writing career it’s great to have my own book published right along with them. From The Back of The Book “A year after Serena Triton a detective cracked the largest cases in her career she is rewarded with a move from active homicide to the open unsolved unit. Serena gets her first taste of the new unit working a case that is older than she and could possibly lead her to an unexpected killer and unexpected alibi in an old...
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April 5, 2017I just finished The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly it was a good book but not great. The Scarecrow was not as good as last time we see Jack McEvoy in the book The Poet but the book is still good. The Scarecrow follows veteran reporter and crime writer Jack McEvoy to his new job 7 years later at the LA Times. Jack being a best seller and master reporter after his encounter with The Poet 7 years earlier is high on the pay scale and with the downsizing of the paper gets his pink slip and is told he has two weeks left on his reporting beat intends to go out with another huge story. The book has Jacks love interest and recurring Bosch character Rachael Walling back again. FBI Special Agent Rachael Walling is just coming back from a punishment style assignment after she got involved with Jack 7 years ago during The Poet investigation. Mention of Harry Bosch and other characters from Michael Connelly Novels is fun to read I really like the way all the characters at some point meet or hear about each other makes it feel more of a connected series. This book was published in 2009 while The Poet was originally published in 1996 then republished again after major success in 2002. The time lapse in the book is 7 years where in reality the time lapse was really 13 years. The years are not a big issue but with such time laps it just makes the character Jack McEvoy feel like a character the author forgot about at times. There has not been any mention of Jack McEvoy in any Michael Connelly book since 09 when this was published making me feel at times that the author took the character as far as he...
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March 27, 2017The Poet is the prequel to the book The Narrows a Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly I reviewed back in April of last year. This book centers around Jack McEvoy a crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain News Paper. Jack’s twin brother commits suicide which does not sit well for Jack, something feels out of place to him. Jack’s investigative reporter skills go into high gear which leads him to a run in with the FBI and opens a large case surrounding police suicides. Rachel Walling who is notorious for appearing in Harry Bosch novels gets introduced in this book and becomes involved with Jack McEvoy. I remember Rachel appearing and having a large role in the Harry Bosch novel The Narrows, but it was fun as a reader and to get more background on her from her original appearance. If you like the Rachel Walling character like I do she appears in several other Michael Connelly books staring Bosch and Jack McEvoy second book The Scarecrow. I really like how Michael Connelly takes you into the world of reporting. Michael Connelly who worked at the Los Angeles Times before a successful novel career really gets into detail about the life of a reporter. Jack McEvoy has the usual reporter stuff going on deadlines and chasing down leads but since Michael Connelly has experience with this as a former writer for a newspaper, it just looks and feels more detailed and authentic than some of the other books I have read over the years with a reporter as the main character. The one downside to this books is it’s a bit dated since it was published in 1997. That is not the fault of the author or of the publisher in any way. It’s fun to read about Jack...
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The world’s most famous hacker Kevin Mitnick has a new book out titled The Art of Invisibility “The World’s Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data”. This book is a great reference book as well as great read with real eye-opening information about the world of security There is much you can learn from this book about protecting your privacy online, in your home and in public. Kevin Mitnick grabs your attention right away in this book by diving into the world of privacy online talking about email security. Who can read your email and how to keep your email safe by encrypted email using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption. Kevin Mitnick then talks about keeping your physical laptop safe using hard drive encryption and goes into the different kinds of encryption software like Symantec PGP, Microsoft Bitlocker and many others in the security marketplace. Kevin Mitnick explains the security of different browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. We get into using SSL websites and the important item of HTTPS for web browsing. Kevin Mitnick then explains using browser extensions like https everywhere and Ghostery to keep you safe while accessing sensitive data online like shopping on amazon or doing your banking. The book gets into adjusting browser settings to block geolocation tracking and other intrusive data collection. Kevin Mitnick explains the differences between mobile browsing and desktop browsing, then dives into security on your mobile device. That chapter was a real eye opener for me to say the least. Kevin Mitnick then explains about using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to change your location and keep you’re online browsing safe. He warns about free VPNS and data logging that different services do when using a VPN. The...
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February 2, 2017What lead you to write the book The Ax? My first visit to a friends house her family thought I may have been an ax murderer because we never met in person before. What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? The end was my favorite part to write because of the surprise of who the ax murderer really was. What’s the one big takeaway you want people to have after reading your book? I hope that anyone who reads my book enjoys them. What books have most influenced your life most? Autobiographies most influence me, I like to read how others made it to where they are, the experiences of struggles, to me that’s encouraging. Do you have any other writing projects in process? Yes, I am presently working on a book entitled; Santa Claws What was the hardest part of writing your book? For me I think the most difficult part would be writing to hold a persons interest, I don’t want to bore my readers. Granted not everyone will like the type of book I may write but that is true for any author. Different people have different tastes. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? Follow your dreams, at least try. Living with a, what if, is to me the worst to live with because you can spend times wondering what may have been. Those are the questions you had asked for, now I would like to share a story with you, I’m not sure I told you before. When my book; The Ax was published, a friend’s daughter read the book. She never liked to read but she chose my book to start with. Her daughter emailed me saying she really enjoyed reading my book and...
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January 25, 2017What a blessing given to us by DC Comics! I am so happy that DC has decided to reprint every Nightwing volume pre New 52. It’s like a dream come true for me! Nightwing has been my #1 favorite superhero for as long as I can remember. Regardless this has to be one of the best if not the best comic book series I have ever read. Nightwing: Blüdhaven is two graphic novels in one. It includes a solo Dick Grayson mini-series from 1995 and the first eight issues of Nightwing from 1996-1997. Dick Grayson we all know as the original Robin and decide to go out on his own. He finds his own path as Nightwing and even gets his new costume.. I love how with this miniseries we get to see how Dick became the Nightwing we know and love today. Dennis O’Neil is a tremendous writer as well. The dialogue was very much alive and you can tell that he had a firm grasp on who Dick Grayson really is as a person. He also takes you on this tremendous action packed thrill ride which discovers the truth behind the murder of Dick’s parents. Dick then travels to a foreign country to find out about his parent’s past. He gets somewhat involved in a struggle between a corrupt but jailed prime minister and an even more corrupt dictator-king. The situation does not go well, and it’s even sad. But I liked it – the story really shows Dick’s character, and his past, his parents – there are even flashbacks to his parents teaching him how to fly on the trapeze and his mother calling him Robin. The issues after the first four you read are issues #1-8 of Chuck Dixon’s legendary run of Nightwing’s solo series. Dixon...
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January 3, 2017A Star Wars book, full of action, with all our well known and loved characters, and with some interesting new ones that you will grow to love. I was first thrown a curve ball with the addition of Luke Skywalkers wife and the Solo children. I was saddened by the death of a beloved persona (no, I won’t tell the name, though I don’t think it’s a secret among fans), but accepted it. After all those years of battling against the Empire, Thrawn, kidnappers, crazy Admirals & Dark Jedi, it is only logical that someone was bound to die, even with the legendary Solo luck and Luke’s strength in the Force to protect the family and friends it was bound to happen eventually. I enjoyed reading about the Jade Saber Luke’s wife Mara’s new ship and seeing Luke keep his old X-Wing around. We learn a lot about Mara and her illness that she struggles with and use the force to keep it at bay most of the time. The struggle with her illness doesn’t allow for her relationship with Luke to evolve, nor does it leave room for children, and why shouldn’t they have some to continue the Skywalker line? Also, the idea of being “invisible” by the force is new Luke faces off with an enemy at times that can hide himself from the force that’s a new concept for the most part. We get to see Luke apprentice his nieces and nephews that’s a lot of fun to watch. We see Luke start the Jedi academy and a very small glimpse into that they ties into other books. Having a vileness people come in from another galaxy and be humanoid was different. A humanoid in fact that with a little disguise no one can tell them from...