Practical PowerShell Exchange Server 2016 aka Writing a book

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Some of you may have wondered why I was somewhat quiet. The reason was that during the last year (and a half?) I was writing a book with MVP Damian Scoles. That book is now available as an PDF and Apple iBook! The physical paperback is now also available in our shop and includes a PDF and ePub version. Other eBook formats (Amazon, Kobo, Nook etc.) will follow soon as well.

Damian and I decided to keep the whole process of writing the book in our own control. Which meant a lot more than just writing content, but also formatting, book things like copyright and ISBN numbering, securing technical reviewers, marketing and advertising, setting up a web shop etc. etc..

This was an extra challenge for the both of us. Although I had some experience being a Technical Reviewer, I hadn't been an author let alone a publisher/marketer etc. at the same time. Things you don't have to bother with when using a publisher. However, doing every bit ourselves keeps us in control and keeps us economically independent (i.e. we decide whether we update the book and not the publisher based on sales and revenue).

When it finally was published (starting 1st March 2017 with the PDF) it was very gratifying to see the results of all that hard work (most of which Damian has done; if you need an InDesign and ePub expert ðŸ˜‰ ) and all the feedback. I certainly didn't do it to add income, although it would be nice to get at least our investments back. I did it for the experience and that was very educational. Not only on how to write a book etc., but also gained some personal insights. Hard to put a pricetag on that.

The focus at the moment will be getting the book available in physical form (currently already available!) and on several other ebook platforms. After that we will probably take a little break to re-energize us so we can fix errors and potentially add content for an updated version. We do not have any further details to share about that at this time, but be sure to sign up for the newsletter at our Practical PowerShell site!

One comment

  • Pedro Guedes

    Hi Guys
    Congrat for you 4 Exchange Pros on the book Exchange Server 2016 Second Ed.
    Full of good ideas.

    Anyway there should still some writing on:
    1)
    Upgrading from one CU to another and how to do it since it is said that cleans every setting you
    have changed. You need to start from the beginning?
    Since customization is the sum of all the powershell commads, and there are so many, you have done this is unacceptable.

    2)
    Did not mention using Public Folders for company shared contacts, probably the main reason for Public Folders.
    After so many books on Exchange and googling the net I am still unable, apart fom the subject, to get the fields (email, phone) from the
    ItemType IPF.Contact on the Public Folder
    This is as far as I can get
    Get-PublicFolderItemStatistics -identity "\Escapetravel\Clientes – EscapeTravel" | select -First 1 | fl *

    What the hell is this kind of animal?
    Still to be known for me.
    If you know how to do it a post would be much welcome.

    3)
    Good practices in put Exchange in the net.

    With all url redirection is impossible o change from port 443 to another.
    OWA got to complex.
    Changing port would stop a lot of unwelcome visitors since most visiting are
    automatic. Security by obscurity but it works to a high %

    The only thing I could do was to
    New-OwaVirtualDirectory -WebSiteName OWA-FrontEnd
    Then active and require SSL user certificates on it since user certificates
    unable to be done on Default Web Site and Exchange Back End

    Then activate and require hostname an SNI.
    Finally activating Ip Address and domain restrictions for only
    IP intranet & localhost for Default Web Site and Exchange Back End.

    This stopped all the unwelcome visitors

    Reply

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