June 17, 2008 (Businesswire) Santa Clara, CA - Recently, when Jonas Yuan and I were able to discuss the release of "Liferay - Enterprise Portal Intranets," topics like working in a NASA Data Center to ancient golden rules were discussed. The book on the other hand is relatively straight forward. He walks you through streamlining an organization's intranet utilizing the Open Source portal solution Liferay.
Below are excerpts from our interview:
About the Author
Dr. Jonas X. Yuan is a senior technical analyst at CIGNEX. Jonas holds a Ph. D. in Computer Science from the University of Zurich, where he focused on Integrity Control in Federated Database Systems. He earned his M.S. and B.S. degrees from China, where he conducted research on expert systems for predicting landslides. Jonas is very experienced in Systems Development Lifecycles (SDLC). Previously, he has worked as a Project Manager and a Technical Architect in Web GIS (Geographic Information System). He has extensive, hands on skills in J2EE technologies. Specifically he developed a BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) Engine called BPELPower from scratch at a NASA Data Center. Furthermore, he is an expert in Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Liferay, Alfresco, LDAP and SSO.
1. What was the greatest influence in writing "Liferay - Enterprise Portals Intranets?
"This book is a practical guide with a very user-friendly approach. In the book, I used a virtual enterprise as an example on how to build a corporate intranet. I wrote this book for System Administrators or experienced users who are looking to utilize Liferay on their teams without dealing with complex code."
2. How does this book differ from other books on Liferay?
"The book is for beginners of Liferay and "Do-It-Yourselfers" who want to develop a simple but powerful corporate Intranet. The book assumes technical confidence but does not require specialist administrator or developer skills."
3. 10 years ago, did you think you would be the author of a book about an Open Source Portal Solution?
"I didn't think so."
4. What sort of reception have you received from the Open Source community following your book launch?
'Someone said to me "A good, time-saving book - especially for people who just want to get Liferay functioning, this book gathers together some significant time-saving research so that people can spend less time digging and more time getting on to something else. It is written in the first instance for people trying to make an organizational intranet, but the majority of the content should be a timesaver for people using Liferay for other purposes."'
5. Are you at all affiliated with JOnAS?
"Not yet, but will be soon."
6. What have you learned from writing "Liferay - Enterprise Portals Intranets?
"I have learned a few golden rules from writing this book."
a. "I hear and I forget."
b. "I see and I remember."
c. "I do and I understand."
"In essence, I applied the aforementioned golden rules when compiling this book and encourage readers to do the same."
7. To close, any other writing projects in the works?
"Yes, such as writing another Liferay book for developers."
About CIGNEX:
CIGNEX is the leading provider of Open Source Enterprise Content Management solutions for businesses and government agencies. Using industry-standard platforms, CIGNEX develops applications that are less expensive, more extensible, and easier to support than the alternatives offered by proprietary vendors. By combining a range of consulting, development, training, support and ongoing maintenance services, CIGNEX offers multiple solutions that can be rapidly optimized for each client's requirements. CIGNEX customers include Sesame Street, Activision, Medco, Cross Country Healthcare, Electronic Arts, Advantest America, Eli Lilly, Epson Electronics America, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and Oklahoma State. CIGNEX was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA. For additional information about CIGNEX please visit www.cignex.com or call 408.327.9900
