Live With Ani

the IT Girl's Guide book on Facebook

For those of you who have not yet had a chance to see my fan page on Facebook, check it out, and if you like it become a fan!

The book's out and I am looking for wonderful people to try the book and let me know what they think. I am super excited sine this is the 2nd book in the series and am looking for ways to get the book out to those who can benefit.

We began this journey with Wiley publishing in 2005 and the first book was about blogging with Moxie, which came to market in 2007. The book I authored was published on Aug 25th 2008 (this year) and I am looking for ways to promote it. My goal is to reach as many non-technical women as possible and to encourage them to learn Excel. Excel is one of several software products in the family of Microsoft Office, and I would love for women to try it, then go out and put Excel to use, in their everyday lives. If you want to go from being a stay at home mom to an office job, a minimum wage job to an office role, or if you want to keep track of your Christmas gifts, or just put your recipes in order, Excel is a great tool to know. No matter what you enjoy doing everyday, this is a fun way for you to learn Excel.

The goal that is near and dear to my heart is to be able to make these books accessible for women in homeless shelters who can learn this skill as a starting point to go from being homeless to holding a job, if that's what they desire. I would also love to see this book in the hands of many girls in high school and college, sharing with their friends the cool things they've learned about Excel and how they can use it to present their projects better in class.

Listen ladies, one day I hope to have many more women developers who I can work with in my role, until that day, this is a starting point. We hope the series will continue strong to help you learn about technology!

I hope to hear many stories about how women have been able to use Excel to help them in their everyday lives.

See you soon!

Who coined the term software bug? (there is a bug in our software)

A pioneer in data processing, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (shown in the photo below) received credit for creating the first compiler in 1952. Hopper helped to develop two computer languages and to make computers attractive to businesses. One of the most prominent women in the computer industry, Hopper died in 1992.

In 1946, when Hopper was released from active duty, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II and Mark III. Operators traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book September 9th 1945 [sic]. Stemming from the first bug, today we call errors or glitch's [sic] in a program a bug. ^[4]

Who Knew the first bug was an actual bug, and a moth no less.

Where did the LiveWithAni chick go?

It's always important to spend time with family event if the work life seems like it just can't allow it. I am very thankful to work on a team where everyone works hard and we all make sure to pay attention to important things such as family and playing hard too. If I work hard, I gotta play hard and make time for family, otherwise I'll be pretty dull.

So I have been in Denver, CO visiting my family. And while there I have been writing the "dedication and thank yo section of my book." This has by far been the hardest part to write since I have spent the most time writing and re-writing it. I started with 2 pages of thank you, then went to 3 then 5 and finally I have it down to 1.5 pages and I think I am happy.

This part was also the most fun since I had to reach out to people to make sure they were going to feel comfortable about me including their name in the book. So I connected with people I had not spoken with like my 6th grade ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and a family friend I had not connected with for the last 3 years.

I think the "Thank you" section is finally done, thank God! and the layout work still continues. I thought I was done when I sent all the chapters in for layout, but I was Wrong! I am now working with the layout editor who pings me about little things thru the chapters that have to do with layout like fonts, and case sensitive words and some mistakes that have been left behind from the three rounds of editing I have gone thru so far. I have to say without all the great help Wiley publishers provides, writing a book would have been a daunting task.

So now I have one more iteration of edits to go thru, except now I have to turn things around in 24-48 hours. And I thought I would have time for sleep. HA!

Status on my book - IT Girl's Guide to becoming an Excel Diva

So for those of you tracking my book, I have some great updates for you. The chapters are all in and have gone to layout, which is the next step after several iterations of reviews. Then I will see the full book in a pdf format one last time before print. At this time, I am told my book will be out Aug 11 2008. However that date might change. You can always look up: "IT Girl's Guide to becoming an Excel Diva" on Amazon.com for updates. And as of now, you can pre-order the book on Amazon. I am so excited to be the 2nd book in this series targeted toward encouraging and helping more women take more steps towards technology.

I am so very excited I have been able to meet this deadline and will be celebrating with a warm cup of coffee with friends at my favorite coffee spot in Seattle today!