The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use Review

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The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use ReviewLinux may be cool, but the documentation is horrible. There are tons of inconsistent HOWTO files, out of date FAQs, and a bunch of programmers that don't really see the problem. Whenever you want to do anything with Linux, you usually have to read every piece of documentation out there, and basically reverse-engineer a solution.
Most commercial Linux books for beginners (or at least for people who don't dig through C++ on a daily basis) are not well laid out. I should know - I wrote several chapters in one a few years back. They are usually organized by major system - a chapter on installation, one for video, one for sound, one for networking, and so on. But what if you want to write a book? Or record an album? Unless you can dig around on the web to find someone else doing the same thing, you are out of luck.
I'm glad that a book like this is out there. First, it is much more theoretical and philisophical than most approaches. That means it doesn't matter if you have RedHat 7.0 or 7.1 or whatever. It's just like if you are using a cookbook to make food - it doesn't matter if you use fresh-squeezed orange juice or Minute Maid orange juice, other than the difference in taste and texture - the basic lessons still apply.
I haven't seen other No Starch books, so I don't know if the look and feel is specific or part of the series, but it works. It's not a glossy, corporate taste - it's easy to flip through and fun to use. After reading a few pages to solve a problem, you're suddenly reading for hours and realizing that there are a lot of other things you could be doing with Linux - and that's the point. People don't need to be programmers to use a computer, and people can use their computer for more than email, web browsing and minesweeper. It's like you wanted a recipe to make some hamburgers, and you find a dozen new dishes you'll want to try for the next few weeks.
Great approach overall, and it's also very cool that you can download the entire thing for free at dsl.org, if you want to check it out first, or just have a copy on your local hard drive. I wish more books did this.
Overall, very excellent! Now I just need some more time to try out all of the things I've seen in here...The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use Overview
The Linux Cookbook shows Linux users at all levels how to perform a variety of everyday computer tasks such as: printing stationery; converting and managing files; editing and formatting text; working with digital audio; and creating and manipulating graphics. The quick-reference, "cookbook"-style format, includes step-by-step Linux "recipes."


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Linux Timesaving Techniques For Dummies Review

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Linux Timesaving Techniques For Dummies ReviewEven though it's a bit beyond where I am right now with Linux, I was impressed with Susan Douglas and Korry Douglas's book Linux Timesaving Techniques For Dummies (Wiley). There are a lot of gems found in these pages...
Chapter List: Making The Desktop Work for You; Getting the Most from Your File System; Good Housekeeping with Linux; Tweaking the Kernal on Your Linux System; Securing Your Workspace; Networking Like a Professional; Monitoring Your System; Serving Up the Internet and More; Backing Up Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry; Programming Tricks; The Scary (Or Fun!) Stuff; Index
In many ways, this reminds me of a Hacks-style book. There are 62 techniques outlined here that you can use to make sure your system is running at peak efficiency or to save you time during normal administration chores. It's targeted for Fedora Core 2, SuSe, and Mandrake, so if you're running one of those distributions, you should be able to benefit from the information. So what are some of the techniques? #44 helps you get a MySQL server up and running quickly. #24 helps you learn how to customize your Linux kernel if you're really into that sort of thing. #22, Spring Cleaning Essentials, is also very beneficial both from an efficiency standpoint (fewer active processes) and a security standpoint (fewer potential paths into your system). All the tips are like this... very practical, and well documented.
And if you've had the impression that Dummies titles are majorly dumbed down, this volume will squelch that opinion. There's nothing in this book that pertains to "dummies". I consider this a good read for someone who has a few months of active Linux experience under their belt, and they want to start exploring a few topics that start to wander from just the basic commands. I'll be keeping this one with the rest of my Linux titles, and hopefully about six months from now I'll realize the full benefit from it.Linux Timesaving Techniques For Dummies Overview
Formerly known as Red Hat Linux, the Fedora Core distribution is an excellent, no-cost alternative to Windows, Solaris, and other expensive operating systems
Red Hat currently controls an estimated seventy percent of the Linux market in the U.S.
This book gives experienced and first-time Fedora users sixty concise, step-by-step, timesaving techniques to help them perform tasks with Fedora more efficiently
Organized by topic, the techniques are presented in the friendly, easy-to-understand For Dummies style, with a minimum of technical jargon
The techniques run the gamut of end-user, system administration, and development tasks, ranging from desktop, file system, RPM, and database tips to Internet server, e-mail server, networking, system monitoring, security, and Linux kernel tricks
Covers the latest release of Red Hat's Fedora Core distribution


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Palm webOS Review

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Palm webOS ReviewIt is a good book, but the errata is just too much. You can't even get the first few lines of code to work because they won't fix the file names. Basically, WebOS made an engine change in their file naming schema after the book was published. Therefore the entire book uses naming conventions that won't work. I've spent hours trying to find all the instances of incorrect file name reference to no avail.
Wait for another book to come out or until they fix this one.Palm webOS Overview

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The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition Review

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The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition ReviewGood sysadmins know the technical details. They can resurrect a dead server, understand the intricacies of sendmail or the Windows registry, and recite all of the types of DNS records by heart. They own copies of the UNIX System Administration Handbook and refer to them regularly. They are good sysadmins, and will contribute solidly at an intermediate level.
Great sysadmins know all of that and what is in this book. They are the ones who go on to become the senior sysadmins and consultants, have fabulous careers, and are respected by their bosses, co-workers, and customers.
There is much more to a technical job than simply the technical skills. Don't buy this book to learn how to run a system or you will be disappointed. Do, however, buy it to learn how to be an effective professional systems administrator.
It is also useful for a manager of sysadmins who is either non-technical, or has never been a sysadmin himself, as it is a good introduction to the issues and concerns that sysadmins need to face.
Limoncelli and Hogan cover many topics, including:
- Trouble ticket systems
- Desktops and Servers (how they're the same, differ, etc.)
- Administrative networks (why bother?)
- Requirements (gathering, tracking, etc.)
- Standards and centralization of services
- How to do debugging (not "you see this problem, do this" but rather learning the process of doing good debugging)
- Fix things once, not over and over again
- Security policies (including management and organizational issues for a variety of organizational profiles)
- Disaster Recovery (again, not how to backup data, but why you'd want to, legal issues, etc.)
- Systems Administration Ethics
- Change management and revision control
- Maintenance windows: what they are and why they're good for both you and your users
- Centralization versus Decentralization
- Helpdesks: sizing, scope, processes, escalation, etc.
- Data centers (many physical facility concerns that sysadmins don't often think of, including how to move a datacenter)
- Managing non-OS software (commercial and free)
They will help you answer questions like
- Does server hardware really cost more? Do we go with a few expensive servers or many cheap ones?
- What does "redundancy" actually mean?
- Why would we spend money on backups? There's never been an outage...
- What do I do when asked to do something illegal?
- How do I communicate and schedule large system changes?
- How do I do a safe server upgrade?
- They want to decentralize the sysadmin group -- what do we do?
- How do we move our datacenter?
- What sort of policy issues are there with email?
- How do I deal with my customers abusing printers?
- What do we have to worry about if we're implementing remote access (e.g. dialup modem banks) for our users?
Finally, they close with an entire section on Management:
- How to deal with cost centers, management chains, hiring, customer support, and outsourcing.
- How to manage your customers perceptions and your team's visibility
- How to manage your own happiness (time management, communication, professional development, managing your manager, etc.)
- How to be a technical manager, how to work with non-technical managers, manage your own career growth, etc.
- How to hire good sysadmins, recruiting, interviewing, soft skills, technical skills, employee retention, etc.
- The special concerns around how to fire sysadmins (often problematic, given their higher level of access)
They even have a chapter for non-technical managers who are in charge of sysadmins (this entire book would be very useful to give to a non-technical manager who doesn't really 'get it'.)
The book closes with three appendixes:
A. The Many Role of a System Administrator
B. What to Do When...
C. Acronyms
Appendix B is particularly useful, answering a wide variety of questions with solid, practical answers.
The skills and concepts in this book are the make-or-break in many careers. They turn you from just another sysadmin into a star performer, sensitive to your customers and the business, able to interact with a wide spectrum of people.The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition Overview

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Greasemonkey Hacks: Tips & Tools for Remixing the Web with Firefox Review

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Greasemonkey Hacks: Tips & Tools for Remixing the Web with Firefox ReviewGreasemonkey (GM) is an extension (arguably one of the most useful) for the Firefox browser. GM is an agent that allows the dynamic alteration and manipulation of web pages via scripts which run after the page is loaded but before it is rendered to you. GM opens the Document Object Model (DOM) of other people's web pages up to client-side access, which gives you the power to add, remove and change the content of that web page to suit your tastes and needs - almost exactly if you had written the web page yourself. GM, however, is only the hosting engine. All the real work is performed by implementing JavaScript files, that you or someone else has written.
Greasemonkey Hacks is a great read and a valuable "ideas" asset, but only if you fit into the niche it is written for. As GM is nothing more than an interface host for dynamic scripting, not a lot other than an overview of the extension, where to get it, and a how to use its few dialogs can be written about. Indeed, it already has been covered before and is freely available on the extension's home page (Greasemonkey dot Mozdev dot Org). As GM makes the DOM available to custom JavaScripts, unless you only intend to look for and run other peoples scripts (which is quite doable as UserScripts dot Org makes hundreds of thousands of them readily available, some of which appear in this book), a working knowledge of the DOM and JavaScript is needed. The author does not spend much time covering what GM is, and very little time covering any JavaScripting or DOM objects; you are expected to already understand what you see. What this title does give you is hundreds of pages of ideas, accomplished by presenting recipe script after recipe script complete with discussions and explanations.
The book is well written, and entertaining to read. The information presented within ranges from novice to advanced (if you're into scripting) and is never dumbed down or made overly complicated. If you're really interested in writing your own web browsing "hacks", this is an excellent read as it provides a great guided introduction into the topic, beyond what you would get if you just threw yourself into the GM-related websites. If you find the possibilities tantalizing, you won't be sorry you purchased this book. But, as this is not a how-to or learning book for the DOM or for JavaScript, I couldn't recommend it above the GM websites to the casual Firefox user or those who do not script.Greasemonkey Hacks: Tips & Tools for Remixing the Web with Firefox Overview

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