Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella Book Review

Satya 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Satya Nadella goes on to explain that the companies mission statement was outdated to say a computer on every desk has already happened and the company needed a more modern mission statement and goal to strive four in the changing landscape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 great at giving a great history of Microsoft since Satya Nadella has been with Microsoft for over 20 years. This is a great book for anyone in need of advice for even rebuilding their own company or seeing how the internet has changed in the last 10 years. I would recommend this book to any internet startup or anyone who is a Microsoft enthusiast I loved it and would read it again.

Guidebook To Computer and Smartphone Security

Guidebook To Computer and Smartphone Security

Security Information For Everyone

My goal with this book is to provide security knowledge that everyone should have to keep themselves safe in the technology age. The purpose of this book is to educate and teach computer and smartphone users about safety and security online.

I am a Certified Comptia Security + professional helping users and companies secure their computers, networks and smartphones across the country. The purpose of this book is to educate and teach computer and smartphone users about safety and security online.

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Kindle / LeanPub

Amanda Palmer The Art of Asking Book Review

I have watched the TED talk The Art of Asking several times. I never really knew who Amanda Palmer was I knew she was a musician yes but not her real background. I did some Googling to find out Amanda was not only an indie musician and lead singer of The Dresden Dolls but an artist, blogger, frequent exhibitionist and now author. Her army of adoring fans follow her every move; her detractors are ready to pounce on her every public misstep, which she provides via the simple expedient of rarely filtering anything she thinks, says or does.

This book could alternatively be titled How Amanda Made a Million Dollars by Saying Please. Yet, it’s about so much more than that. It’s also about being human and about the trials and tribulations of a professional artist in today climate. While her music may not be for everyone, her story could bring almost anyone to tears and laughter.

First Amanda tells about her first job as a living statue in a public park. How that performance made her fall in love repeatedly. It also brought loneliness and harassment. Little did she know at the time she was getting a real education on how to be a professional musician.

Soon she does work full time with her band and even gets signed on with a record label. However, even after selling thousands of copies of her release they considered her a failure. Surprisingly, Amanda Palmer thought of them as failures. She was mad at her record company.

The remainder of the story tells how Amanda did it right -she asked for help. Her and the band raised money through crowd-funding with Kickstarter. They twittered when they needed a place to sleep on tour, or asked for food when hungry.

Amanda Palmer knows how to keep an authentic relationship with her fans. She formed thousands of friendships full of honesty and based on trust. Instead of some large record label marketing schemas of make the audience pay for it, Amanda asks how do we let them offer money?

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. This book helps me to remember to be humble and to ask for help when needed, to go ahead and release the shame and the fear around what the answer may be. The book is yes a biography but could be consider a business or even self help book. I am still not a huge fan of her music but I am a fan of Amanda Palmer the business women and person.