Entrepreneur Geek

Do you dream of writing a book? A technical one? Three years ago, I was creating my future plan and writing 6 books was one of the top items in the list. 

Today, I have two books already in print and have learned a lot on the way. One of the lessons is to get the right publisher. I am fortunate to have Packt as the publisher of both my books – Mobile Web Development and Open Source Content Management Systems: Beginners Guide. 

A wannabe author will have a lot of questions. They may include:

• How is the overall experience of writing a book?
• During the writing process, what issues/ difficulties I may expect? And how to deal with them?
• Does writing a book overshadow personal life?
• I have a full time job, how do I manage my time?
• What benefits can writing a book bring to my specialist area?

Want to hear my story? Go ahead, and read my answers to these questions! At the end, I have valuable tips from my own experiences too!

Choosing an Open Source CMS

My latest book – Choosing an Open Source CMS: Beginner’s Guide – is now available from PactPub, Amazon and others.

I have also created a special website for the book – www.cmsbook.info. The website is dedicated to readers of the book. I will be writing about choosing a CMS, tips, book excerpts and useful resources there.

• Subscribe to CMS Book’s RSS feed to get notified when it updates.
• Follow me on Twitter!
• Purchase it from PacktPub

Did you read the book? If so, post a comment! I would love to hear your feedback!

We shifted servers a few days back, but we seem to have some interesting problems. Right now, I see a two different versions of this blog in Firefox and Safari. Both point to same IP. Safari shows old version, Firefox shows new version.

Puzzled!

Solved it!

This took much longer to figure out, but it was a very interesting catch! Here are some notes.

• We were checking the site from same network, same internet connection, same DNS servers. Firefox and Safari on my machine showed different versions of the blog.
• Cleared browser cache – did not work.
• Checked DNS – no problem. Everything was pointing to the new server correctly. This ruled out the possibility of DNS cache causing the problem.
• Removed all site content from the old server and put up a blank index page. Interestingly, that did not show up. We continued to see the site. This confirmed that it is not really a DNS cache problem.
• Checked Apache access logs – all requests were going through the new server. But still showing different designs.
• We started thinking where else could the cache be? Now that the problem is on the server.
• And Eureka! Wordpress Super Cache was the culprit. I did clear the cache after setting up new design – as I suspected it first – but somehow the cache was not cleared. I should have manually deleted all cache files, rather than relying on the plugin to do it.
• Deleted all WP Super Cache files and folders and everything started working!

Thanks to everyone who helped. Sujeet reported the problem first, Akshay suggested a solution, Aamod commented on the design, Kunal reported a problem with comment posting and Alan from my systems team found the real cause. I am touched by your support.

And what more? R. Bhavesh even offered to redesign the template! Thank you!

These are the things on my mind right now!

• Finished writing Open Source CMS book. Submitted revisions to first drafts. Pre finals will be ready soon and book will be out in April.
• PlannerX is getting some good reviews. Especially ActiveCollab community (where it’s not yet launched) “loved it” – and I heard it from many people!
• Financial year end is coming near (31st March for India). And we are all pushing to close deals and get cash in at Magnet!

Exciting times!

Some notes from today’s Team Leader Training in Magnet. The topic was how can we train ourselves to be leaders.

• Leadership = People around you producing expanding results.
• First step is taking responsibility. Responsibility = Ability to Respond. You have ability to respond to any situation, any person. Responsibility is not a burden. It’s a grace you give yourself.
• How do we listen to our people? People show up as we listen to them. If I listen to someone as a loser, he will always do things like a loser. Are we listening to our people as if they are leaders?
• Be a lifelong student. This does not come easily, you have to practice and allocate time to learn. Not just to learn technical skills, but also leadership.
• Keep your battery charged! Disempowering conversations drain your energy. Replace them with thoughts that give you energy.