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Posted On January 5, 2012
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Written By Masen Marshall
Earlier today I was reading Marcus J Raymuns Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security ( which is a fabulous editorial on it’s own ) and followed a link to a very old article by R.P. Feynman titled Personal observations on
the reliability of the Shuttle.
It details Feymans personal observations about the complex systems involved in the space shuttle and how reliability was achieved. It’s not written about modern day computer systems but it’s a great read and the message can be applied elsewhere.
Raymun says of the article “Unless your system was supposed to be hackable then it shouldn’t be hackable.” . This is only one of the really solid pieces of knowledge one can glean from the paper.
If you spend any time managing systems of any complexity this paper is a must read.
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Posted On December 25, 2011
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Written By Masen Marshall
I wanted to do a quick post to mention William E. Shotts Jrs upcoming book on No Starch Press ( Orielly Books ) titled Linux Command Line.
Shotts is the author for the site Linux Command which is a great collection of material on bash and the Linux command line in general. As someone who also hopes to some day cross the line from online writing to print I feel compelled to mention this book.
I’m excited for the release. According to Oriellys website the book will be 480 pages long covering everything from novice to advanced CLI usage and will release sometime in January 2012.
You can check out the prerelease page ( and preorder! ) over here.
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Posted On December 14, 2011
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Written By Masen Marshall
I spoke earlier about the huge help having a book can be in studying for your Red Hat exams. I’m using the RHCSA/RHCE Red Hat Linux Certtfication Study Guide ( Amazon.com link, definitely the cheapest option ) by Micheal H Jang.
Some things I appreciate about it are the very detailed labs it provides at the end of each chapter, a great table at the beginning showing where specific information for each certification objective are located in the text ( easy to read along with this series ), and overall clear and sometimes even amusing writing.
I would post a more detailed review on it but I don’t believe it’s needed. It’s a great buy for the price, it helped me pass my RHCSA and I’m already glad to have it while I study for my RHCE. Just like the actual tests it puts alot of emphasis practical exorcise and includes theory as more of a footnote.
Whether you’ll be following along with my series or not, if you’re working towards your RHCSA or RHCE I would wholeheartedly recommend you pick up a copy of this book.