HomeAuthor InterviewsInterview with Herta Nava

Interview with Herta Nava

Herta Nava is the author of The macOS User Administration Guide, we got the chance to sit down with her and find out more about her experience of writing with Packt.

Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?

Herta: IT Operations, Apple Technologies, Google Cloud, Localization, CMS

Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?

Herta: I was contacted by one their content editors, asking me if I was interested in writing a book on Apple macOS, which is one of my areas of expertise.

Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?

Herta: Not much, I knew the topic pretty well before starting the book. However, I did research which other similar books were available in the market.

Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?

Herta: Time. It is hard to write a book when you are also working full time.

Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?

Herta: Macs are here to staty, so as long as there are Macs , there will be an operating system to manage. macOS will only improve and provide more speed and performance as Apple invests in technologies such as the M1 chip. I believe we have macOS for a long time, with continuous improvements being done for it to go hand in hand with the hardware improvements.

Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?

Herta: This provides as many scenarios as possible, it includes many more graphic aids than other books do, and many years of personal experience managing macOS and teaching about it. If users want to become certified as ACSP, this book can help them a great deal to increase their chances to suceed as it includes my personal experience as ACSP and it follows the content suggested by the exam guidelines.

Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?

Herta: After reading this book, readers will have a complete panorama of what’s possible with macOS in terms of its features. Also, readers will be able to manage a Mac with macOS at an advanced level. Finally, readers will be in a better position to help other users with troubleshooting issues as well as guide them on the most essential tasks on macOS.

Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?

Herta: Apply what you read to real life. Practice while you learn. Get hand-on with what you just learned.

Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?

Herta: Not yet, I’m preparing it.

Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?

Herta: https://discussions.apple.com/, https://developer.apple.com/forums/, https://forums.macrumors.com/

Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?

Herta: It’s been a great experience. I had a lot of support from the editors and reviewers. I definitely recomend it to aspiring authors.

Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?

Herta: Joomla Community, Transifex Community, GitHub, stackoverflow

Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?

Herta: TechCrunch, PCMag, CNET, MacRumors, ZDNet

Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?

Herta: We set up a plan for drafts, reviews and final chapters, with realistic dates, altought they needed to change depending on my job’s workload.

Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?

Herta: Set up a schedule and follow it. Dedicate at least 1-2 hours to writing, except weekends.I was usually too tired to write on weekends.

You can find Herta Nava’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here

The macOS User Administration Guide Available on Amazon.com