January 2005
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierThis month, I'll introduce ManEdit, which is a very useful tool for sys admins and *nix developers who need to create manual pages for their programs. Whether it's a popular open source program or a homegrown set of scripts for systems administration, good documentation is essential.
Ed SchaeferHow many people writing code actually have a computer science degree? If you are programming without benefit of formal training, or if you lack the aegis of a mentor, Randall Hyde's (The Art of Assembly Language) Write Great Code series should rouse your interest.
Joe "Zonker" BrockmeierIn November, I began covering Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) with Snort. This month, I'll describe a Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) with Samhain.
Kristy WestphalAt first glance, the crimes in High-Tech Crimes Revealed don’t seem to be very current. Some of the first cases that Branigan mentions are a little dated (cell phone cloning?). However, after reading further, I realized that the author starts with older cases, progressing through cybercrime history towards more recent cases. The author details cybercrime cases from their roots in cellular phones up to the more current threat of phishing and identity theft and explains how cybercrime is handled from the law enforcement perspective. In addition to explaining what the interests and procedures of law enforcement are, he discusses corporate incidents, giving a broad perspective of computer forensics in practice today.
Peter SalusDan Lynch once said that "Comer's volume 1 drastically changed the course of networking history." Looking back over 15 years, that wasn't mere rhetoric. RFC 753 (March 1979) describes the "Internet Message Protocol." RFC 760 (January 1980) describes the "DOD Standard Internet Protocol."
Jeffrey L. TaylorMambo Open Source (MOS) is a Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP4. It has two plug-in APIs: modules and components. Modules are small applications that display around the edges of a Web site page. Menus, monitors (e.g., weather and number of users), and entry points for components (e.g., calendars) are typical module uses. Multiple modules can be active on a given page. An earlier article covered Writing Mambo Modules. Components display in the middle of a Web site page. Only one component is active at a time. This article is the second in a series of three on writing Mambo components. Part one covered the Writing Mambo Components, Part 1. This article introduces pagination and sorting of item lists, item checkout and checkin, translations, and some debugging techniques.
Ed SchaeferIn 1985, Marc Rochkind, inventor of the Source Code Control System, wrote the nascent commercial text on Unix systems programming, Advanced Unix Programming. (Before Stevens, there was Rochkind.) Before continuing, I must admit to a bias regarding this book; I landed my first real Unix job partly because I learned to fork and exec system calls from this book.
The 1st edition covered System III, System V, (at the time, ATT's latest release), and Xenix. Rochkind stated that the information provided in his book "will be of great benefit to the legion or programmers using the IBM PC AT". We've come along ways since 80286 technology.
Now, 19 years later, the author has published the second edition of Advanced Unix Programming. This book is for the expert "C" programmer, or at least for somebody who intends to become one. If low-level "C" programming gives you the jittery jimjams, you can stop reading this review and avoid the book.
Russell DyerUpgrading from one version of MySQL to another is easy to do and usually doesn't cause any problems. Typically, more features and stability are added to each version. Very rarely are items eliminated or changed in a way that will cause trouble. However, if you can't afford to risk a reduction in the quality of service for your database, you can test a new version by running it on a different TCP/IP port. To do this you will need to install the new version in a different directory, make a copy of your data for testing, and make a few other alterations.
Peter SalusI think you can get The Cult of Mac even if you don't use one. Perhaps not. I'm not a member of the cult. But I have used a Mac, and I've even authorized purchases of cubes for folks working for me. But this book is fun, even for a guy like me.
Emmett DulaneyThe CIW (Certified Internet Webmaster) Foundation exam has recently upgraded to version 5. This vendor-neutral exam is at the core of all the CIW offerings, as outlined in a series of articles that originally started in June and July of 2002. This is the only exam you must pass to become certified at the Associate level, and it starts you on the path toward the higher-end CIW certifications such as Master CIW Administrator and Master CIW Enterprise Developer.
Ed SchaeferOne of the newer Unix shell is the Z Shell. If you're not familiar with Zsh, it resembles ksh, but has many enhancements; it's the ksh on steroids. This month, Bart Schaefer introduces his Zsh suite of "keeper" functions.
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