May 2004
Ed SchaeferThis month, Chris F.A. Johnson presents Bash script mfilter, which retrieves and deletes email from a POP3 mail server. Chris also presents a short tutorial on communicating with a POP3 server.
Ed SchaeferAssociative arrays are a staple of Unix productivity tools, as well as the modern ksh-style shells, ksh, bash, zsh, etc. This month, Charles Leonard discusses associative array usage in Python, Perl, and Awk.
Peter SalusAlexis de Tocqueville observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
So there's a painful irony when we're forced to recognize the validity of de Tocqueville's remark in a May press release from the head of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Ken Brown.
In fact, Brown has agitated me sufficiently to devote time and space to trying to counter the FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — that is being propagated.
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierThis month, I'll present a few system tools that can be helpful when trying to diagnose your Linux system's health, improve performance, and so on. This installment is intended for users who are newer to Linux, and who might not be familiar with, or aware of all the utilities that are already available at their fingertips.
Cameron LairdThere's a lot to LDAP. That can be disconcerting, even frustrating — the idea of LDAP is just that we often need "directories", that is, special-purpose databases of personal "yellow pages" information such as name, address, and privileges. How much can there be to say on such a subject?
Quite a bit, in fact. Gerald Carter's LDAP System Administration (LSA) and The ABCs of LDAP (ABCs), by Reinhard E. Voglmaier, fill almost 300 and 400 pages, respectively, yet don't aim to be encyclopedic on the subject. What should you know about LDAP, and how well do these two books help meet that goal?
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierThis month, I 'll cover a couple of tools that I've found useful lately. The first is EasyTAG, a program for viewing and editing the ID3 tags of MP3s, Ogg Vorbis files and other files that use ID3 tags. The other application is retawq, a text-mode Web browser with some interesting features.
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierEven though I'm not a biologist (nor do I play one on TV), I found this book to be an interesting read. As you'd expect from the title, Tisdall explains advanced Perl features that are of interest for biologists. Specifically, Tisdall covers features of Perl that can be used for DNA sequencing and similar applications.
The book does not go into great detail about bioinformatics. Tisdall assumes that the reader wants to learn Perl, not bioinformatics. It's a shame that there aren't more books of this nature for folks in other fields who want to learn Perl or other languages. It's much easier to grasp the specifics of Perl when the examples used apply directly to the problem that you're trying to solve. I prefer titles that demonstrate how to solve real-world problems rather than simply explaining features of a language in a way that is abstract rather than applied.
Marcel GagnéYes, I admit it. I love gadgets. Add to that a weakness for all things Linux and you could easily imagine me picking up Empower Technologies' PowerPlay Vs combination PDA, voice recorder, and MP3 player. In fact, I was having lunch with one of my readers next door to the store when this combined gadget/Linux weakness overcame me.
The PowerPlay Vs is a handheld PDA running LinuxDA, an embedded version of the popular open source operating system. LinuxDA is also available for other Palm-type devices through the company's developer site.
Cameron LairdTake a look a Lua.
We write that every few years (most recently in May of 2002) because the Lua programming language is underappreciated, and because it continues to advance despite the comparatively small number of people working on and with it.
This spring, though, is a particularly good time to jump to Lua (the Portuguese word for "moon"), because Version 5.0 and The Lua Book are both better than we expected them to be.
Russell DyerDyer describes authentication and how to control user access.
Emmett DulaneyI sometimes scratch my head and wonder why I, or someone else, didn't think of something that suddenly seems quite obvious. This happened to me when I bought the new book by Angela Orebaugh. Ethereal is a multiple platform protocol analyzer that needs a book to accompany it, and yet, to the best of my knowledge, no one else has written one. After reading the book, I was delighted to find that it is extremely well written; if it were not the first to market, it would assuredly still stand out as the best to market.
Emmett DulaneyIn February, I discussed how Novell went on a Linux buying spree last year and is now betting the company on the open source operating system. The focus of that column was on the CLE (Certified Linux Engineer) certification that Novell was creating. This month, I will examine the certifications – yes, plural – that Novell is creating around the SuSE flavor of Linux. These certifications were previously expected to be released beneath the United Linux umbrella, but that project seems to have fallen through.
Mulyadi SantosaOne way to build a cluster is with off-the-shelf hardware, particularly IBM PC-compatible with an x86 processor. Linux clusters (utilizing Linux and other open source tools) are increasingly popular for migration from an existing cluster or for creating new ones. OpenMosix is one open source clustering middleware, and two new modules have entered the scene: a distributed shared memory patch (MigShm), and a checkpointing module (CHPOX).
OpenMosix is a GPL'ed fork of the MOSIX project. In early 2002, MOSIX turned into closed copyright code and Moshe Bar (current openMosix project leader) modified the code and released it as an open source project. OpenMosix (and MOSIX) is preferred by many administrators, institutions, researchers, and others users because of its transparency in load balancing and process migration. Unlike other clustering tools, openMosix goes right into the kernel code and extends it.
Russell DyerLast month, MySQL AB of Sweden (the creators and copyright holders of MySQL) held the second annual MySQL Users Conference & Expo in Orlando, Florida. Although it was only their second gathering, there were more than 600 attendees. People came from more than 20 countries, including Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. Most attendees were developers, but they were of varing levels of skills and experience. There also were corporate executives in attendance to learn more about MySQL before committing their company's resources and switching from MS SQL or Oracle to MySQL.
Ed SchaeferDaniel Singer usually works in Bourne shell, with occasional forays into other languages. This month, he takes the ksh plunge, and provides us with the timer script, which demonstrates basic ksh and ksh93 features.
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierAs more companies ponder using Linux on the desktop, the competition to provide a suitable replacement to Microsoft Windows is increasing. Sun's contribution is the Java Desktop System, a distribution based on SUSE Linux. I recently evaluated the system to see whether it's a serious contender to Windows, or other Linux distributions.
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