Examining the AIX Certifications 
Emmett Dulaney
AIX is IBM's version of the Unix operating system. While highly regarded in many circles as a robust OS, its certification programs remain a secret to many. One of the reasons for this is that IBM does not parade its certification programs with the same fervor as other vendors, and another reason is that the program offers so many options that it's confusing. In this article, I will look at the AIX-related certifications that are available from IBM and examine some of the information you should know if you are considering adding them to your resume.
Tue, 1 Mar 2005
Shell Corner: Finding Abusive Users with netstat
Ed Schaefer
This month, Todd Neal explains (in bash script netstat.ss) how the netstat command can identify abusive users who are accessing your server from the Internet.
Tue, 1 Mar 2005
Regular Expressions: Resource Management
Cameron Laird, Kathryn Soraiz
Resource management is a big subject. When we write about Lua (as we did most recently in May 2004), or testing methods, we make a point of mentioning applicability to low-power or restricted-memory or other constrained environments. Although most people who work with software don't think first of high-level programming languages for industrial automation or other situations that require high reliability or resource thriftiness, languages like Rebol and Tcl and Ruby work well for us, and we'll discuss some of their advantages in this article.
Tue, 22 Feb 2005
Open Road: Using Fink
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
This month, I'm taking a slight detour. I was going to talk about setting up Nagios, but I've been spending a great deal of time working on Mac OS X this past month, and wanted to write a bit about the Fink project instead. I'll return to the topic of Nagios next month.
Sun, 30 Jan 2005
Book Review: The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
Somehow, I managed to miss The Linux Cookbook on its first go-around, so I can't say what has changed between the first and second edition. However, Randy Reames noted that the book "seems to address old Linux features and leave out newer, more common ones" when reviewing the first edition for UnixReview.com back in 2001.
Tue, 15 Feb 2005
Book Review: The Mathematical Century: The 30 Greatest Problems of the Last 100 Years
Cameron Laird
When I read The Mathematical Century, I wanted to tell my software colleagues and friends about it. That's why I'm reviewing it here for UnixReview.com, although it has nothing direct to say about such usual UnixReview topics as network programming, project management, or $CLASSPATH.
In fact, The Mathematical Century not only includes no recognizable computer program, but it boasts barely a dozen mathematical formulae — most of them such familiarly classic icons as Euler's identity or the standard roots of the quadratic equation. Despite this, the content is of high rigor and illuminating for those who work with computers.
Tue, 8 Feb 2005
Book Review: Knoppix Hacks
Peter Salus
If you get Red Hat's Enterprise edition, you've got 4 CDs to install. And, unfortunately, most installs just aren't fun. I even get complaints about Mandrake.
But Knoppix runs right off its single CD — no installation required. And that also means that you can "play" with it without disrupting your setup. Because Knoppix boots from the CD, you can use it to repair mal-performing systems, whether Linux or Windows.
Tue, 8 Feb 2005
Shell Corner: Disk Space Checking with SNMP
Ed Schaefer
diskchecker.sh
by Marc Skinner
This bash script — diskchecker.sh — is an SNMP poller that polls the SNMP OID of the disk partitions defined in the snmpd.conf file on Linux boxes. It polls the disks of hosts defined in the diskchecker.conf file. You can specify the drive and the minimum percentage you want free. Once the percentage is exceeded (e.g., a partition is set for 25% and suddenly only 20% of the partition is free), an email is generated.
Wed, 2 Feb 2005
An Updated Look at CIW Certifications
Emmett Dulaney
Last month, I covered the newly updated CIW Foundations exam. Taken alone, this exam earns you certification as a CIW Associate, but it is also the cornerstone exam upon which almost all other CIW certifications are built — you must pass it in order to obtain almost any other CIW certification.
This month, I'll take an updated look at the other certification offerings from CIW, and what the requirements are for each of the vendor-neutral, Internet-related certifications they currently offer.
Tue, 1 Feb 2005
Writing Mambo Components — Part 3
Jeffrey L. Taylor
Confession may be good for the soul, but it's bad for the career. I confess I've violated the first principle of professional programming — be sure you can deliver before you promise anything. Mambo does not have a mechanism for updating plug-ins. So there may be a Part 4 in this series on writing Mambo plug-in updates. In the meantime, there is a workaround. It pushes more work onto the site administrator than is ideal, but it preserves data and is reasonably robust.
Before jumping into the code changes, here are a couple of administrative details. One reader has asked to use the Part 1 code as a starting point for his own module, but his employer isn't comfortable with GPL'ing the result. After thinking over what I am trying to accomplish with this series, I've decided to make the module and component code available under either the GPL or the Artistic license. Both licenses are included in the whereis.zip package.
This article assumes you have read Part 1 and Part 2. Where changes are small, only difference listings are shown (e.g., Listing 1). The full code is in the whereis.zip package.
Tue, 1 Feb 2005
Review: Power Messaging with CommuniGate Pro
Emmett Dulaney
Are you unable to stomach the cost of purchasing and managing Microsoft's latest version of Exchange Server? Do you want GroupWise functionality, but don't want to use NetWare just for that? Do you want to convert to a totally Linux shop, but are uncomfortable with the thought of devoting your life to sendmail? Stalker Software's CommuniGate Pro messaging server is the answer you're looking for.
Thu, 30 Oct 2003
Shell Corner: Introducing rcut
Ed Schaefer
The cut command is one of the “arrows” in the shell programmer’s “quiver”. This month, Anton Gorshkov presents bash shell script rcut that performs an anti-cut operation. Rather than including columns, rcut excludes them.
Sat, 30 Oct 2004
The Open Road: Network Troubleshooting Tools — Part 2
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
Last month, I started discussing network troubleshooting tools. This month, I'll discuss sniff and ngrep.
Tue, 29 Jun 2004
Tool of the Month: Netwox and Netwag
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
The featured tool this month was sent in by Laurent Constantin, maintainer of Netwox and Netwag. Netwox is a "network toolbox" that contains a wide variety of network testing tools — as well as a few miscellaneous goodies that might come in handy. Netwag is a GUI front-end for Netwox that makes Netwox even easier to use.
Fri, 30 Jul 2004
Tool of the Month: Kuake & XBindKeys
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
This month, I have a couple of interesting tools you might want to add to your software toolbox. The first is Kuake, a console application with a twist. The second is XBindKeys, a program that you can use to create hotkey combinations to launch your most-often used applications and scripts in X.
Fri, 30 Jan 2004
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Mac Pioneer Dies
Jef Raskin, who initiated the Macintosh program at Apple Computer, died at the age of 61.
Mandrake to Buy Conectiva
French Linux vendor Mandrakesoft has announced its intention to acquire Conectiva, a Linux distribution based in Brazil.
BEA, Sybase Join Eclipse
The Eclipse Foundation has picked up two new "strategic developer" members: Sybase and BEA. Sybase proposes to sponsor and lead a new data tools project at Eclipse; BEA is leading the Web Tools Platform project, proposing a new Language Development Tools project, and working to merge its open source AspectWerkz project with the Eclipse AspectJ project. BEA also says the next version of WebLogic Workshop will support Eclipse.
ICFP 2005 Programming Contest Announced
The ground rules have been laid for this year's International Conference on Functional Programming contest. The problem will be announced on June 24, and initial entries are due by the 27th; then a change in the problem will be proposed, and contestants will have one day to adapt their programs to the new specification.
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Sys Admin and The Perl Journal CD-ROM version 10.0
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