"Practical Liferay" Book Review

Practical Liferay is a non-technical book that explains the capabilities of Liferay and how to create a portal using its out-of-the- box components. It provides an idiots introduction to what a portal is and then takes you through the various admin screens and how to use the applications/portlets available. It does not discuss how to develop portlets and just briefly mentions how to extend Liferay with hooks.

I don't recommend this book because:

1. Already outdated – Although the book was published in 2009, it covers Liferay version 5.1 and there are already 2 newer releases (5.2 and 6.0) available. There are enough differences between the versions that make the step by step instructions useless.
2. No depth – The book provides little insight into the design or features of the Liferay that you can't pick up by exploring Liferay itself.

I think this is more equivalent to a Liferay for dummies and suited more for non-technical administrator who wants step by step instructions on getting a portal setup – of course it doesn't cover how to do this end to end. I would recommend starting with the guides Liferay provides: the Liferay administration guide and development guides.

Extended Business Trip

Finally home after nearly a month in Australia rolling out a new "game-changing" product to some beta customers. Being away from home and family for that long was really tough, but it was a great learning experience and I was able to meet and work with a number of excellent people. Getting in front of customers is something we all should try to do more of. I'm considered a SME (subject matter expert) for a lot of areas in my department primarily because of time served on projects with the company, but I have never been a day-to-day consumer of the applications I develop and it had been almost 2 years since I had direct interaction with our target users. Granted my job doesn't require frequent contact with customers - we have product owners who are responsible for that and these product owners serve as our customers we are trying to satisfy – but there is just no substitute for being thrown in front of actual users who depend on the application (especially if they are commissioned-based!) to bust a few of your assumption bubbles.

Australia wasn't too bad either – we averaged 12-hour work days but I had my weekends free, so I was able to experience a lot over my 3 weekends there. I didn't get to do as much diving / snorkeling as I had hoped – it was winter and the water was a tad frigid. And for anyone interested - LAX is still my least favorite domestic airport...can't even think of a close second.