my other sites
new photos
Lisbon, Portugal
Two Days in Libon
Madeira, Portugal
Three Days in Madeira
Venice
Finally made it to Venice.
MySQL Articles Moved
My articles on MySQL and related documentation have moved to a separate site: mysqlresources.comIn Chinese
Much to my delight, the second edition of MySQL in a Nutshell has been translated to Chinese. I knew this was being done because I had traded emails with the translator, Hongjun Li, while it was being translated. He had had some minor questions. Otherwise, I would have known nothing of it. My publisher doesn’t include me the on-goings of translations. However, I received recently a report from my publisher showing an increase in sales of traslated books. So I searched the internet for a while and discovered my book in Chinese. With the growth of the Chinese market so broad and strong, I’m hoping we’ll sell my books in this market.
My Novel is on Amazon
Finally, I have managed to get my novel on Amazon’s web site. It took some doing. If you’ve been reading my web site regularly, you know I had originally used Lulu.com to print my book—publishing it myself. That started out well, but after getting an ISBN number, the price per book went to twenty-four dollars. What’s worse is that despite their assurances, it never made it to Amazon’s web site. I don’t expect to sell many copies of my book, but I would like it on Amazon’s site. I wanted to go through the experience of writing a novel and publishing it, to learn about all of that is involved. I also wanted to be able to point to it when trying to get an agent for my second novel. So, a few weeks ago I moved my novel to CreateSpace.com, a subsidiary of Amazon. Since the size of the book is different, about the size of a DVD case, I had to adjust the cover layout and the text. Once that was done, I uploaded the new layout and all and waited for my proof copy. It looks pretty good, so I approved the proof. A few days later, today it hit Amazon’s web site. Click on the image of the book cover here and you can buy a copy if you would like.
My First Lasagna
When I was a kid, my grandmother would make occasionally a wonderfully tasting lasagna. She has since died and I have been trying to find lasagna similar to the way she made it. I’ve tried lasagna at many restaurants over the years, even tried to find it here in Italy, but have not come close to finding it. So, I finally decided to try to make it myself. A couple of months ago I started practicing making a tomato sauce similar to hers, but more to my liking. I have also worked on learning to roast beef, one of the key ingredients of my grandmother’s recipe. Feeling ready, I made my first attempt this past night.
Musings
Below are recent musings of mine. Click on an entry heading to read its full text. Click on the musings tab at the top left to see all of them.
Basic Comforts
Enjoyng simple comfort foods when I’m feeling a bit down can be difficult for me in Milan. I look for comfort food when I’m feeling stressed. Unable to get exactly what I need, but something somewhat close to what I can get so easily in the U.S., doesn’t always comfort me but frustrates me more instead. Although life’s getting easier for me, it’s not always easy living in Milan.
My Books
Below are a couple of my books that have been published and are still in print. Click on the book cover image to go to a site where you can buy my book.
In Search of Kafka
This is my first novel. It’s what I call a hi-tech comical thriller. It’s not about Kafka, incidentally. It’s about a computer programmer who inadvertently breaks into a Starbucks’ computer server and gets into trouble as a result. Throughout the novel he’s being hunted by Homeland Security.
MySQL in a Nutshell
This is a reference book (the second edition) which I wrote on the computer database software, MySQL. It’s not an interesting read, but it’s useful if you’re a MySQL software developer. If you’re interested in this topic, you should also check out my web site on MySQL Resources.
