If you’re attending the 10th Annual Open Source Convention, I’ve compiled just a few tips for you on this, “day 0” of the event: Don’t check bags. Everything is slower if you check bags, and if you’re packing more than three shirts, you’re crazy, because if history is any indicator, you’re going to be bombarded…
Category: Sysadmin
A Quick Look at ElementTree (and a bit about ‘sar’)
I’m working on a new project that will be open sourced if I can ever get it to be generically useful. It’s called “sarviz”, and it’s a visualization tool for output from the “sar” UNIX system reporting utility. I know tools like this exist, but please read on, as I’m looking to do something a…
Show Me Your Python SysAdmin One-Liners!
Ah, the lazyweb. Today, I’m putting together content for a class I’m teaching on basic Linux administration, but during my meeting with a group of trainees to determine the scope of the course, they requested that I completely skip any coverage of “perl -e” one-liners, and show them the Python equivalents. Of course, I found…
Ugh – Syndication Gone Bad
My apologies to my friends at Planet Sysadmin!! I posted a personal post, did not categorize it as a “systems” post, and it wound up on planet sysadmin anyway. I’m really sorry about that. I *would* try to keep posts like this from being syndicated at *all*, but I also belong to local technology user…
Useful stuff – 2008 – first half
Having a Google account is sometimes useful in ways you hadn’t planned for. For example, at a few different employers I’ve been at, I’ve had to prepare for reviews by providing a list of accomplishments to my supervisor. One decent tool for generating this list is email, though it can take some time. Another useful…
Do I Even Care About the iPhone 3G?
Steve Jobs is one of the best presenters you could ever hope to see. He’s great at tapping into that part of your brain that makes you just want whatever it is he’s holding. But this time, it was a little different. You see, I already have an iPhone. I bought one in February. I…
Cloud computing hype overload
I’ve been working with what I used to call “utility computing” tools for about 6-9 months. However, for about the past 2 months, I’ve been seeing the term “cloud computing” all over the place, and there is so much buzz surrounding it that it’s reaching that magical point best described using Alan Greenspan’s words: “Irrational…
This is how I want all project web sites to look…
My brain has a set of rules that software project websites get tested against. Each time a project site fails to comply with a rule, I get ever-so-slightly more annoyed, and ever-so-slightly less likely to use the software in question (if there are alternatives, this is even maybe not so “slightly”). I thought I’d list…
Plug-ins: isn’t there a better way?
If there’s one thing that bothers me about using a ready-made solution like wordpress for my blog, it’s plug-ins. I hate software plug-ins. The first question every support engineer for any software product that supports plugins asks in response to a trouble report is “are you using any plugins?” And when you say “yep, I’m…
PyWorks 2008, November 12-14, Call for Papers Open!
Yes, the same folks who bring you Python Magazine and php|architect magazine (and several other things, like online training, a full line of books, and more conferences), are hosting our first ever Python conference! You can see more about it, and the Call for Papers, at the conference site. The hotel which once hosted php|works…