SSH debugging sucks
How much human productivity is lost every day due to the horrible debugging messages in SSH? I bet it is thousands of hours world-wide. It isn't just sysadmins: programmers, web developers, and many...
View Articlebash: Restart bash if old version detected
I write a lot of small bash scripts. Many of them have to run on MacOS as well as FreeBSD and Linux. Sadly MacOS comes with a bash 3.x which doesn't have many of the cooler features of bash 4.x....
View ArticleDrupalCamp NJ, Princeton, Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1 will be the 3rd annual DrupalCamp NJ on the campus of Princeton University http://www.drupalcampnj.org/. This is the first year with a keynote speaker - Brian Kernighan! Tickets are only $25,...
View Articleawk. How I missed you.
awk </dev/null \ 'END { for (i=0; i <13 ;i++) \ { printf("%02d:00-%02d:30\n%02d:30-%02d:00\n", i, i, i, i+1) }}' The output was pasted into a spreadsheet. I don't think this is how the creators...
View ArticleLOPSA-East - CFP deadline Jan 22, 2014
The call for participation deadline is Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014. LOPSA-East is looking for talks on system-administration related topics especially advanced techniques, DevOps stuff, and etc. I...
View ArticleLOPSA-East: CFP extended to Jan 31!
The LOPSA-East "call for participation" has extended the submission deadline to Fri, Jan 31. You have an extra week to send in your proposed talks. In particular, anything related to cutting edge...
View ArticleSeattle: CascadiaIT'14 Registration is OPEN
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your friends' neighbors and your neighbors' friends! http://casitconf.org/casitconf14/registration-is-now-open/ I'll be teaching "Evil Genius 101" and "Team...
View ArticleWe're hiring at StackExchange! SRE with Networking focus
Come join the team that runs ServerFault, StackOverflow, and over 100 other Q&A websites plus "Careers 2.0", the most awesome job site around. We have a great manager (I'm not just saying that...
View ArticleLOPSA NJ Chapter: Feb meeting is a dinner meetup
LOPSA NJ's February meeting is at two different restaurants, Northern NJ and Southern-ish NJ. The planned discussion topic is "What are some of the most challenging problems that have come up in the...
View ArticleSeattle: CascadiaIT'14 hotel discount ends Feb 8!
The hotel discount ends on Feb 8th so book your room as soon as possible! CascadiaIT is an awesome regional conference for sysadmins and devops. If you look at the schedule you're sure to see talks and...
View ArticleTime Management Tip: The Oscars
Do you marathon through entire seasons of TV shows in a weekend? You might want to check this out. AMC has an event where you can watch all the "best picture" nominations. It is pretty intense but...
View ArticleSysadmins that can't script have a choice.
Scripting is becoming more and more important. With everything from computers to networks going virtual, installation is becoming an API call, not a "walk to a rack/desk/whatever and plug it in" call....
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Tool Building Versus Automation
I make a distinction between tool building and automation. Tool building improves a manual task so that it can be done better. Automation eliminates the task. A process is automated when a person does...
View ArticleHow not to use Cron
A friend of mine told me of a situation where a cron job took longer to run than usual. As a result the next instance of the job started running and now they had two cronjobs running at once. The...
View ArticleSeattle: CascadiaIT'14 keynote: Æleen Frisch
I'm excited to see that long-time sysadmin and author Æleen Frisch will be the keynote of this year's Cascadia IT conference, Seattle, March 7-8! If you don't recognize her name, check your bookshelf....
View ArticleLOPSA-East schedule published!
The schedule of talks and tutorials has been published! Talks: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/lopsa-east-14-talks/ Tutorials: http://lopsa-east.org/2014/lopsa-east-14-training-schedule/ I'm glad to...
View ArticleAnti-Pattern: "The big project" that never ships
I was reminded of this excellent blog post by Leon Fayer of OmniTI. As software developers, we often think our job is to develop software, but, really, that is just the means to an end, and the end is...
View ArticleThe FreeBSD Journal: Read it even if you don't use FreeBSD
The first issue of The FreeBSD Journal has finally shipped! I got to read an early draft of the first issue and I was quite impressed by the content. It was a great way to learn what's new and...
View ArticleJumpy, nervous, jittery user interfaces reduce "user trust"
What's with the trend of making user interfaces that hide until you mouse over them and then they spring out at you? How did every darn company hop on this trend at the same time? Is there a name for...
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