Category: Books

The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Book FAQ

I’m getting lots of questions about the release of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide.  I’ll deal with them all here.

9781118486498 cover.indd

The Kindle version of the book is available now and the paper version is out in the USA, with release in Europe coming soon (please see Amazon with 1 mouse click instead of emailing me).

Is System Center Covered In The Book?

No, it is not.  The book is 600 pages long, not 6,000.  There is already enough in WS2012 to fill an above-average-size tech book (which it did) than to include the massive System Center products.  This book gives you the fundamentals that are essential to understand for designing and managing a Hyper-V cloud, even if you’re hiding it under System Center.

I Found A Typo

We do our best to eliminate these but the editing process sometimes introduces errors, e.g. we submit our graphics, it gets re-drawn, we ask for changes, and sometimes those things get missed.  A chapter might be written with a correct scalability limit before RTM, and then a new limit is announced at RTM time.  These things happen.  Please contact Wiley directly.

Are The Scripts Available To Download?

No.  Some of the scripts in the book are quite long and detailed.  People have asked if there is a download somewhere.  There is not – and this was my decision.  Wiley asked if we would like to share the scripts online.  I decided that I didn’t want a person who didn’t buy the book to get value from our research and work.  Once they get shared online … they’ll appear all over the place, no matter what copyright you put on them.  So take the time to type them out – maybe you’ll understand the code a little better, and maybe you’ll improve them!

Does the book include a PDF?

The book does not include a PDF.

Can You Give Me A PDF Because <Insert Story Here>?

No.

Will there be a Kindle, Epub, etc, electronic version available?

E-book versions will be released.  Usually that is at the same time or soon after the paper version of the book.  See the Wiley site for more details.

What About O’Reilly?

I have no idea.  Contact O’Reilly.  Same for their pricing; it is nothing to do with me.

Why Can’t I Get The Book In My Country?

I don’t know.  Distribution is handled by the publisher.

Why is Amazon charging more for the Kindle version?

There is a small chance that Amazon will continue to sell the paper book at the pre-release discount price for a short time after the release.  That happens sometimes.  And for a brief period, the Kindle version is more expensive.

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I’m looking forward to the release.  The project started a long time ago and a lot of man-hours went into it.

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook by Leandro Carvalho (MVP)

Congratulations to fellow Virtual Machine MVP Leandro Carvalho on the publication of his WS2012 Hyper-V book, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook.

"Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook" is a practical cookbook packed with recipes showing and explaining all the features and components of Hyper-V. You’ll learn from best practices, tips and tricks and examples of how to automate daily and common tasks.

Mastering System Center 2012 Operations Manager

Congratulations to the authors of Mastering System Center 2012 Operations Manager, particularly to Irish System Center MVPs Paul Keely and Kevin Greene.  I know this book was an odyssey for the guys, but they probably feel like champs now that the book is on sale.

I expect that it’s going to be a very detailed book. Kevin and I have chatted about what he was writing over the months and I know he was digging deep.  Go check it out for yourself!

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By the way, how many of us Irish are now writing technology books? There’s me (MVP), Damian Flynn (MVP), Kevin Greene (MVP), Paul Keely (MVP), and John McCabe (former Lync MVP, and MSFT PFE) is joining the ranks in a 2013 update to the Mastering Lync book for Sybex.  And those are just the people that I’m aware of.  We Irish are certainly punching above our weight in the technology writing biz.

Pre-Order Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide

The new book that I am working on, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation and Configuration Guide, has recently appeared on Amazon.com.

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I’m going to ask for the “small-medium business” bit to be changed.  Trust me, we’re writing this for the SME and the big enterprise deployments.  What Damian is currently working on is definitely big enterprise, trust me!

You can pre-order the book now.  And yes, the March 13th date is a complete shot in the dark by Amazon.  All I can tell you is that the last of our draft deadlines is in November (that’s me), and I’ve already done reviews on the first 3 chapters I’ve written, am finishing my 4th, and have 2 more left after that.

A Trojan Horse Was Shipped To My Kindle And I Don’t Want To Remove It!

Mark Russinovich’s new book, Trojan Horse, is now available.

It’s two years post-Zero Day, and former government analyst Jeff Aiken is reaping the rewards for crippling al-Qaida’s attack on the computer infrastructure of the Western world.  His cyber – security company is flourishing, and his relationship with Daryl Haugen intensifies when she becomes a part of his team.

But the West is under the East’s greatest threat yet. The Stuxnet virus that successfully subverted Iran’s nuclear defense program for years is being rapidly identified and defeated, and Stuxnet’s creators are stressed to develop a successor.  As Jeff and Daryl struggle to stay together, they’re summoned to disarm the attack of a revolutionary, invisible trojan that alters data without leaving a trace.  As the trojan penetrates Western intelligence, the terrifying truth about Iran is revealed, and Jeff and Daryl find themselves running a desperate race against time to reverse it – while the fate of both East and West hangs in the balance.

I won’t get a chance to read it for a while; I have a chapter due for the new Hyper-V book.

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New EBook by Mark Russinovich

Another gem turned up on my Amazon suggestions a while back and I got a notification overnight that my Kindle reader was updated:

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Operation Desolation: The Case of the Anonymous Bank Defacement is a new 64 pages ebook by Mark Russinovich available on Amazon.com for the Kindle. The price is $0.99.  It’s showing as pre-order but I got a delivery notification last night. The books is described as:

A thought-provoking new story from the acclaimed author of Zero Day. Challenging Anonymous is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But the CEO of a major investment firm has done just that, and now cyber security expert Jeff Aiken has to try to protect the company from its leader’s mistakes. The timing couldn’t be worse, as Jeff is scheduled to appear at a conference that has invited an Anonymous representative as well. And Jeff’s about to discover that the hacker outfit plans to bring their fight offline–and into the real world.

Kind of interesting (accidental) timing considering the morons who made headlines last week for trademarking the Anonymous logo and slogan in France.

Note that there is another Russinovich full length novel coming soon called Trojan Horse: A Novel.

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Book: Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez

I decided to take tonight off from writing due to fatigue so I was screwing around on my Build slate PC and found a news story that caught my attention in one of the apps.  It appears that the US Navy is working on drone technology that promises a “pilotless future”:

Drone

“Holy crap!” I thought.  I’ve been reading about this stuff in Daniel Suarez’s new book, Kill Decision. I raved about his past two books, Daemon and Freedom ™.  He manages to do something that we techies think is impossible; he writes believable tech thrillers.  There is no clicking on magical Pi symbols, there is no Matrix (well … there is … sort of . in those two books).

Several months ago the the new book, Kill Decision, appeared on Amazon as a pre-order.  I clicked, and a few weeks ago I got an email to say that it was downloaded to my Kindle – I love that!

Kill Decision isn’t a sequel to the other two books. It’s a whole new thread, in a world where drones are being used by the enemy.  I’ll say no more, but if you’ve read the previous books then you know there will be tech, it will be believable, and the plot will be interesting. 

I’m reading it at night when I go to bed, and I’m about 60% of the way through, enjoying it greatly.  I wasn’t going to mention it until I’d finished, but I was watching Windows Weekly and Paul Thurrott mentioned that he was enjoying reading it on his vacation.

Read this book, and then go back and read about the US Navy X-47B.  Sca-ary!

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Book – Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide

Patrick beat me to it, but the timing is appropriate given the RTM announcements of earlier today:

This is the project that I’ve teased. This is the cover to a new Hyper-V book, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide.  Let’s call this post the Developer Preview, seeing as I don’t have an Amazon or Wiley page to link for you Smile

The authors are:

  • Me, obviously, a Virtual Machine (aka Hyper-V) MVP
  • Patrick Lownds (HP UK, Virtual Machine MVP), and past co-author on Mastering Hyper-V Deployment and Microsoft Private Cloud Computing. Patrick works this stuff for a living in big sites around Europe.
  • Michel Luescher (Microsoft Consulting Services Switzerland), who I worked with on the site from hell, and I came to respect his knowledge/skill. He’s new to writing books in English but he has a lot to share.
  • Damian Flynn (Lionbridge Ireland, Datacenter & Cloud MVP), past co-author on Microsoft Private Cloud Computing.

Wait … a cloud MVP?  Yeah … this is a cloud operating system after all, and I wanted to get the best man for the job involved.  If you get the chance to talk to Damian or hear him present, you’ll understand.

When we got together to talk over who would be the technical editor, there was an instant unanimous choice. He’s not on the cover, but I guarantee his influence will be there when you eventually read this book.  Hans Vredevoort (technical reviewer of Mastering Hyper-V Deployment and co-author of Microsoft Private Cloud Computing)  is already making this a better book, and that was evident in the amount of changes I made to my first chapter after his review.

Here’s what you’ll get: deep down, how it works, how to use it, how to tune it, how to troubleshoot it, and all the very best and latest information we can give you with the real world firmly in centre state.  This is going to be the deepest technical guide we can make.  Oh yeah: PowerShell is everywhere.

How deep and how technical?  I’ve written 2 of my chapters and I’ve gone way over the allocated pages.  I’m writing the second chapter now.  I’m about 60% done and it’s already gone over the page count before I get to the practical stuff.

I’ll put it to you this way: I’m going to have court orders against me because I’m chasing people all over the place with questions. The front matter will end up being 50 pages long because we’ll have to credit so many people.

The writing started around 6 weeks ago. We wanted to wait for (a) at least RC code and (b) until we had as much information as possible, without waiting until next year to start. Because of this, expect the book very early next year.  I know, some will want it quicker, but it takes time to write, edit, review, and all that stuff; this book isn’t a series of blog posts where mistakes are made or only have the information is given.

So watch this space for more news!

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Book – Windows 8 Secrets

It’s a very different operating system and it’s one you will want to learn how to teach to your users.  “Be a leader, not a follower” is a phrase going about recently.

Windows 8 Secrets is a book that will be out very soon by well known Windows/Microsoft journalist Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera.  Yes, it’s by the same publisher that I work with, but this is a book I’m sure will be great to learn about using the OS. 

Microsoft is introducing a major new release of its Windows operating system, Windows 8, and what better way to learn all its ins and outs than from two internationally recognized Windows experts and Microsoft insiders, authors Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera? They cut through the hype to get at useful information you’ll not find anywhere else, including what role this new OS plays in a mobile and tablet world.

Regardless of your level of knowledge, you’ll discover little-known facts about how things work, what’s new and different, and how you can modify Windows 8 to meet what you need.

– Windows 8 is the exciting update to Microsoft’s operating system
– Authors are internationally known Windows experts and Microsoft insiders
– Reveals tips, tricks, and secrets on the new features and functionality of
– Explains best practices for customizing the system to work for you
I- nvestigates the differences between Windows 8 and previous versions of Windows
– Helps you go from Windows user to Windows expert
– Windows 8 Secrets is the ultimate insider’s guide to Microsoft’s most exciting Windows version in years.

EDIT: It’s going for just $20.65 right now!  That’s nothing for a tech book.

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