Random .NET Ramblings

As I said in my post "OK Its Official Now". When I was unemployed and between Microsoft and Neudesic I set some simple commitments to keep me motivated and more importantly to simply ensure I got out of bed each day. One of the commitments was to read a non-technical book a day. I came across some great reads during this time and I would like to share them with you. So, in no particular order here is a list and a few comments.

	Software Product Management Essentials ~ Alyssa Dver
	Software Requirements: Practical Techniques for Gathering and Managing Requirements Throughout the Product Development Cycle. ~ Karl E. Wiegers
	More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice ~ Karl Eugene Wiegers
	Infoenza: Why Projects Fail And How To Fix Them ~ Troy Malone Troy is a buddy that started Pelotonics a cool project & group management site. He produced this book which is a very cool short read.
	Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project ~ Karl Fogel This was an interesting read and changed how I would run any project.
	This Man's Army ~ Andrew Exum I am not much of a fan of ?war? books but looking to get some perspective on our current conflicts I picked this one up. Andrew provides some terrific insight. A second book in this same genre that provided additional context was The Middle East ~ Bernard Lewis.
	Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain ~ John J. Ratey , Eric Hagerman
	The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich ~ Timothy Ferriss Wow is what I say, each time I read this book. I can?t believe how much I get out of it! Note: it looks like there is a new and expanded version of this book but I have not read it but if you are getting it new I would check it out.
	The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference ~ Malcolm Gladwell
	The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller That Changed The Way We Do Business ~ Clayton M. Christensen This is quite an interesting read. My father had given it to me a while back but I had not found the time to sit down and read it until now. I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to implement something new inside of an existing organization.
	The Definitive Book of Body Language ~ Barbara Pease
	Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity ~ David Allen All I can say is from the day at BarCamp LA where Heather introduced me to this book in her amazing session on GTD I have tried to live the GTD way (often failing). This book has helped me tremendously!
	The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life ~ Erving Goffman I can?t say enough about this book. I read this book for the first time when my wife was getting her sociology degree. In fact, I read all of her books when she was in school and this one and one from her Fundamental Forms of Religion class were the most interesting books from her four years at school (for me at least). I reread this one every few years to simply remind me why we humans do the stupid things we do!

So feel free to let me know about your favorite books. I want to keep up my reading momentum. Now that I am not receiving hundreds of emails a day I have much more time to read.

This last Tuesday I had the pleasure of giving a talk to the San Diego ASP.NET group about developing a web site for mobile clients. The talk did not have a lot of code but we did look at the difference of how simple HTML renders vs. using the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit. I should have pointed to the asp.net web site for it?s mobile support http://www.asp.net/mobile/ as there is some good resources there including a good article from Scott Hansleman ?Mobile Web Sites with ASP.NET MVC and the Mobile Browser Definition File? from his MIX09 talk.

If you were there I hope you enjoyed the talk and I look forward to giving more in the future!