Finally the renovation of my room is complete and now I can boast of a neat little bookshelf for my precious books. I had earlier written about my Online Book Shelf at anobii.com. Now I have an actual image of it. My books are one thing that I am extremely proud of. I have always been a voracious reader all my life and perhaps my small little tiny library is the most precious materialistic thing I posses.
This collection of time management tools addresses the very specific needs of embattled system administrators everywhere. Bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli shows you how to manage interruptions, eliminate timewasters, prioritize based on customer expectations, automate processes for faster execution, and much more. It’s the first step to a more productive, and less stressful system Administration.
Time is a precious commodity, especially if you’re a system administrator. No other job pulls people in so many directions at once. Users interrupt you constantly with requests, preventing you from getting anything done. Your managers want you to get long-term projects done but flood you with requests for quick-fixes that prevent you from ever getting to those long-term projects. But the pressure is on you to produce and it only increases with time. What do you do?
The answer is time management. And not just any time management theory–you want Time Management for System Administrators, to be exact. With keen insights into the challenges you face as a sys admin, bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli has put together a collection of tips and techniques that will help you cultivate the time management skills you need to flourish as a system administrator.
Time Management for System Administrators understands that an Sys Admin often has competing goals: the concurrent responsibilities of working on large projects and taking care of a user’s needs. That’s why it focuses on strategies that help you work through daily tasks, yet still allow you to handle critical situations that inevitably arise.
Among other skills, you’ll learn how to:
* Manage interruptions
* Eliminate timewasters
* Keep an effective calendar
* Develop routines for things that occur regularly
* Use your brain only for what you’re currently working on
* Prioritize based on customer expectations
* Document and automate processes for faster execution
I have always worked as a system administrator and have found this book really very useful. It just takes couple of days to implement and follow what is mentioned in the book and lo..you are now more productive and less stressful system administrator !
This book is a _MUST READ_ for every Sysad.. the elite clan !
I have always been a voracious reader all my life and have devoured thousands of books, videos, and other material that I can lay my hands on. Decisions that we take on a daily basis are largely based on knowledge & experience. Much of this knowledge and experience can be derived from the wisdom and experiences of others. Earlier I usually used to read books borrowed from my school / college library and return after finishing them. However, these days I usually buy a lot of books, even though I may not have the time to finish reading all the books I buy, but, I feel motivated by the fact of building a library which I think is a übercool thing. I have made an online shelf of most of the books that I have and made a wishlist of the books that I wanna buy. It can be accessed here.
This is a story about the King of Indian retail industry, Kishore Biyani. I just happen to come across this book while browsing Futurebazaar.com. As a part of the promo, first 500 people to order the book on the site got a book autographed by Kishore. I consider myself lucky to have got hold of one such paperback 
Coming back to the book, I have heard and read a lot about Mr. Biyani in news / business magazines and always wanted to know more about how exactly he started and went about being the King of Indian Retail industry. When he started he had almost nil capital and with no B-School degree but with high amount of passion and desire to do something great. Its a really inspiring story about how Kishore who was born in a middle class trading family, Kishore Biyani started his career selling stonewash fabric to small shops in Mumbai. Years later, with the launch of Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Central and many more retail formats, he has redefined the retailing business in India. It Happened in India features not just his words but insights and anecdotes from people who joined his roller coaster ride- academicians, former colleagues, investors, business partners, family member, and college batch mates.
It took three days of traveling from my house to my workplace to complete reading this book. There are very few biographies that one can read of great Indian head honchos and this is one is not worth missing. Do check it out !
The Afghan, a novel by Frederick Forsyth, is about Islamic terrorism its a chilling story of modern terrorism from the grandmaster of international intrigue.
Combining meticulous research with crisp narratives and plots as current as the headlines, Forsyth shows us the world as it is in a way that few have ever been able to equal.
And the world as it is today is a very scary place.
When British and American intelligence catch wind of a major Al Qaeda operation in the works, they instantly galvanize- but to do what? They know nothing about it: the what, where, or when. They have no sources in Al Qaeda, and it’s impossible to plant someone. Impossible, unless . . .
The Afghan is Izmat Khan, a five-year prisoner of Guantánamo Bay and a former senior commander of the Taliban. The Afghan is also Colonel Mike Martin, a twenty-five-year veteran of war zones around the world-a dark, lean man born and raised in Iraq. In an attempt to stave off disaster, the intelligence agencies will try to do what no one has ever done before-pass off a Westerner as an Arab among Arabs-pass off Martin as the trusted Khan.
It will require extraordinary preparation, and then extraordinary luck, for nothing can truly prepare Martin for the dark and shifting world into which he is about to enter. Or for the terrible things he will find there.
Filled with remarkable detail and compulsive drama, The Afghan is further proof that Forsyth is truly master of suspense.
iCon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business is an unauthorized biography by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon about the return of Steve Jobs to Apple Computer in 1996.
There is only one icon, only one legend, only one GOD of all things and he is Steve Jobs. This dude in his lifetime ( which is not over yet! You never know what’s next up his sleeve ) has changed the face in fact single handedly revolutionized 3 major industries. First with Apple Computers, then the Animation with Pixar animation studio and now the music industry with iTunes and to some extent iPod. This book tells us how unpredictable he is, how smart and charismatic leader he is now who once upon a time was a hippie and had come to India in his early 20s in search of Nirvana and stayed at ISKCON temple in Bombay because of free food!
This talks about how Apple started our from his garage, moved to Cupertino. How Jobs was chucked out of Apple by the very guys whom he had chosen to run Apple. How he started his next venture NeXT while he was away from Apple and how Pixar came into being. It was good that George Lucas divorced his wife Marcia Griffin! (Otherwise Pixar might not have been what it is now. Wanna know the connection? Read the book.)
Steve was given up for adoption soon after he came to his world and was brought up by the Jobs. A must read for everyone who knows who he is and for everyone else who doesn’t know what he is made up of. Some interesting quotes of this book:
Steve Jobs “When I was 23, I had a net worth of a million dollars. At 24, it was over ten million dollars. At 25, it was over a hundred million.“
Xerox venture capitalist Stevan Brinbaum said, ” Normally, a company provides us with a five-year plan as a part of investment process. The good companies accomplish the five-year plan in seven years. In the case of Apple, they had more than accomplished the eighteen months!” The Xerox investment of $1 million brought a return of “over 30 million”, Brinbaum said. To this day, he’s still impressed how two very young men without college degrees, money or experience” went on to build a Fortune 500 company in less than 5 years.
Steve Jobs to John Sculley “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?“
As per the guys who worked with Steve in Apple, they didn’t want to be called in front of Steve to do a product presentation because he might decide to lop off the product and the employee with it. They didn’t want to encounter him in a hallway because he might not like an answer one gave and would say something so demeaning that it could undermine one’s confidence for weeks. And they didn’t want to get trapped on an elevator with him because by the time the doors opened, one might not have a job! Some Apple-ites took to walking the stairs to avoid the possibility of an elevator encounter.
Steve Jobs “Pixar is the most technically advanced creative company; Apple is the most creatively advanced technical company.” Think over it, this sentence means a lot!
WikiQuotes on Steve Jobs
Do check out the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley which is based on how the computer industry was born. Really good movie and do I need to tell ya where to get it from ?
One more thing …. ( If you know what it means )
One really really cool site on all about Steve Jobs
Its been almost a month since I purchased my set of books for the month so decided to go to a bookstore on my way home from work and bought the following books. Hope to finish them by the end of this month and will write a short review after finishing each of them.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found - Suketu Mehta
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything - Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections - Paulo Coelho
Can start reading these only after I finish reading Gung Ho by Ken Blanchard borrowed from my office library. Used to finish a book in week’s time but these days get time to read only while traveling between home and work 
and seldom on weekends.
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