Tim Abraham is the author of the book Metabase Up and Running, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: How long did it take you to write the book?
Tim: I started writing the book in March 2020 and finished it in September 2020. It didn’t hurt that we all had to spend 2020 sheltering in place. I had a lot of free time on the weekends to write.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Tim: Most of the research I had to do was just familiarizing myself with all the new features of Metabase. Since I try to keep up with changes in the product, it wasn’t too time consuming to refresh myself on the current offerings.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Tim: The biggest challenge was writing a book about a constantly evolving product. This is a problem when writing about any exciting and fast moving software product. Luckily, I had an excellent editing team and a fantastic technical reviewer that helped point out when something I wrote no longer matched the current software’s offering.
Q: What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Tim: Don’t be intimidated. There’s a lot to learn when it comes to software and computing, but take it step by step. A curious mind is really the most valuable gift.
Q. How do you keep up-to-date on your tech?
Tim: I definitely spend a lot of time on Twitter. I’m also lucky to work at Airbnb, a company that has an amazing reputation for technology. So I learn a lot on the job.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Tim: Sure! You can find my website at www.timabe.me
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Tim: You can find my YouTube data tutorials at youtube.com/c/TimAbraham. I have a few on Metabase there. Outside of that, for all things Metabase check out their amazing documentation, their blog at https://www.metabase.com/blog/, and their discourse page at https://discourse.metabase.com/.
To get Tim’s book on Amazon click here!
