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Email Brian Bilbrey

Orb Grafitti is sometimes a conversation, sometimes a soapbox. I use Linux most often, and I write about that and related software frequently. I also have a day job working as a dogsbody for a small manufacturing firm here in the SF Bay Area. Tom Syroid and I have co-authored a Linux Book. It was cancelled by $LARGE_PUBLISHER, so we're posting it online, here and here. Have a looksee! I'm glad you've come to visit, and always happy to hear from you.

EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so, I'll pay attention to your wishes.

Anti-SmartTags meta-tag applied to some pages, as follows:

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If you get a smart tag on one of my Grafitti pages from here on out, then somethings broken or wrong, so please, let me know. Generally I don't play link fest with my site, because I generally figure you know where to get the news you're interested in. I only link ... basically for myself, as an extended bookmarks system with contextual information. Perhaps you find some of these useful too. Hope so, anyway...

Good morning, and thanks. Yes, I took yesterday off. I think that's the third intentional non-posting day I've had (not counting vacations and such) since I started this gig a couple years ago. I brought Apache up on the DSL line in July of 1999, and I've been steady since September of that same year (see the Site Index for all the gruesome details). Thanks for dropping by and helping make this little corner of the web what it is.

Yesterday, we went realtor teasing. That is, we went house hunting. But since right now the stock market would allow us to take a European vacation rather than buy property... we're rather in a bind on that front. The bummer, of course, is that we saw a cute little number a few blocks away that was well within our range, if only we had the down. Marcia said that we wouldn't be doing any more house-hunting until we could actually afford one.

Couple of public notices: Carroll O'Connor, a fine actor, and as Archie Bunker, every week as I was growing up - a role model of what I didn't want to be. John Lee Hooker, excellent blues ax man, been playing ... probably forever. I used to joke that John Lee hooked up with the disciples and put together a traveling show after Jesus moved on. He's been such a fixture in the Blues landscape. I saw him play once or twice, back in my bad old days. Good bye, gentlemen - you made the world a better place.

Last night, we watched, finally, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Excellent, excellent movie. Not quite sure I understand all of the cultural imperatives going on, but a good story, and some excellent acting. Normally I am not a fan of sub-titled flicks, but this one works for me.

So, to wrap for the moment, welcome to Monday. Have a lovely day - let's see where the journey takes us. Later!

Good afternoon. Let me state categorically that what the rest of y'all may regard as chores, like laundry and cleaning and such, well... That is my form of exercise. It was a half day for wages today, so I came home and did five loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and sterilized the bathroom. I am thus implying that I put a lot more work into the latter, rather than saying that I would eat off of any surface therein. But still, overall, a workout that kept my behind out from behind the keyboard for a few hours. Not too shabby.

Next-ish, Dan Bowman wanted to know the source for the IE6 SmartTags avoidance meta-tag. I'll tell you what I didn't tell Dan - I just pulled it off of John Dominik's site and printed it as gospel. However, when Dan asked the question, I thought I'd best try and find at least one corroborating source - and find one I did, smack dab in the Microsoft Knowledge Base... Admittedly, it's difficult finding answers on the Microsoft site while using Konqueror (the KDE browser). Apparently MS webgeeks only validate against the most recent version of IE. I mean, they wouldn't intentionally break webpages for non-MS browsers, would they? Oh, the other link for the SmartTag Killer is here.

Also, I've had some more mail on the topic of loyalty and employment and such...

Subject: Harry Browne book link
From: Eric Wayte 
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 00:44:27 -0400 (EDT)

Brian,

You might have a hard time finding Harry Browne's books in stores (well,
Stacey's might have it).  Anyway, here's the link to order them directly:

http://harrybrownestore.com/index.html

I haven't read How I Found Freedom... yet, but I had Harry sign my copy
last year during his campaign stop in Orlando, FL.  He was tired from
campaigning all day, and wrote the wrong date in my book!  He apologized,
but said that would make it all the more memorable.

As for Chuck's ideas on careers - I think he's dead on.  I work at my alma
mater with my wife and while the pay isn't what I would get in industry, I
have other intangibles that more than make up for it - ability to take
classes (M.S. in Comp. Sci.), flexible schedule and a great campus setting
to just get out and walk around when you need a few moments away from the
desk.

In my previous job (in industry), I was working long hours with a hectic
commute and for what?  Working at the university gives me a great sense of
purpose as I watch the young ones grow and eventually leave the nest.

Only you can decide when to pull the ripcord and bail on a job that's
giving you fits.  Just remember the frog in the boiling water and don't
wait too long to jump!

Take care,
Eric Wayte
University DBA
Univ. of Central Florida

Hi, Eric,

Thanks for the link and the encouragement. The current joint is darn
near perfect as a place for my skill set and temperament. I choose
the hours, work from home when I care to (infrequent), get to do IT,
writing, design and more than most of today's specialized job
descriptions would allow. The people are *great*. So the only
problem is operating in raw corporate survival mode ALL the time.

There are lights on the horizon, if we get there... but yeah, I am
paying attention to the waters and the storm, and the distance to
land.

Subject: feel right.
From: Sjon Svenson
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 23:31:29 +0100
 
>   But it didn't feel right for me, right now.

I think it does feel right. What Chuck says is true and You don't
actually have to read those books to come to that conclusion, though
reading them probably won't do any harm .

What I see him telling is that you must look for your own well being
first. While his example is about payment he does not imply that money
is the key to everything. I guess that if you leave your job and
colleagues and than spend nights wondering and feeling guilty of
'stabbing them in the back' that just means you didn't take the right
discussion. Your consciousness must be weighted against money sometimes
and usually the money loses in such an argument.

Of course one should always be ready to open the door for opportunities.
When they knock they usually knock softly and singularly.
So I would say do as your consciousness advises; but sleep lightly.

--
Svenson.

Mail : [email protected]
Site : www.swijsen.com

While I suppose that Jan meant "conscience" (he hasn't replied to me on that one yet), I will observe that I am sleeping better than I was previously. That's a pretty good indicator for me, and yes, the better night's sleep schtick started for me before the recent heat wave subsided, or yeah, I'd be suspicious, too. Of course, I am always open to more feedback on the issue, and if you have a million dollars burning a hole in your will, please mail me for the particulars you'll be needing to put in so that I can't lose out in probate <grin>

Now to go move that last load of laundry over to the drier, then get on with the next bit of life. That's right, over 100 emails since noon. Why am I doing this again? Heh! See you tomorrow, where we'll discuss IRC ports and APC software, and using game interfaces to build software configuration tools. Take care!

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Good morning, and a fine clear sunny morning it is too. Now normally that's not remarkable in lete June in California, but as I was writing yesterday afternoon's post, it was clouding up outside, and by 5:00 or so, it was raining. It rained through the evening, never really hard, but continuously. The weather liars claim that not only is it likely to remain partly cloudy and temperatures no higher than the mid-70's in our area until the end of the week, but that more rain is possible tonight through tomorrow (though more likely in the North Bay areas, rather than down where we are). Still, it's a nice break.

Last night, I made some significant progress on Chapter 18 - Scripting for the conversion of The Linux Book that Tom and Brian Wrote to HTML. I am not quite in the home stretch for this process, but I can see the light, and I want to get the rest of the material into your hands and out of my hair.

Yes, I saw that Caldera has decided to change their "licensing" policy, though I don't yet know how they plan on enforcing that when so much of what they're selling includes the right to redistribute as a part of the fundamental license. There must be something I am missing from this picture - perhaps it's support related or something.

On the topic of IRC ports and APC uninterruptible power supplies, I have a little story to tell. It's been a long time since I audited the internal network - Marcia's Win box has up-to-date AV protection from an unmentionable company, and all the boxes are behind a two-tier protection scheme. But the other day, in the wake of all the recent hoo-raw about DDOS attacks and Steve Gibson's red exclamation points in 300 point type, I decided to see what I could see.

I pulled down a recent copy of nmap, and ran it against each machine on the internal network. No surprises on any of the Linux boxen - I know what I run on those. But I was startled to find ports 6667 and 6668 open on Marcia's Win98 box. Very startled.

I wasn't much worried, since I am firewalled three ways from Sunday against lots of things, and there's no way anyone could log into an IRC server on Marcia's box from the outer world, period... Unless there's something I don't know (and there are LOTS of things that I don't know), and... and... So, I started by updating sigs, then running a full AV scan, all files, on Marcia's drives. Next I shut down services, one at a time, to see which (if ANY) of the visible services were creating the IRC server. That was a longish process, because I worked from the top of the TaskManager list down, and broke Win98 several times in the process.

Finally I got down to PowerChute - the monitoring software for the APC UPS. That's the culprit. I mucked about a bit with it, tried to log into the ports, nada nothing. So I sent an inquiry off to APC, asking about these errant IRC ports. Here's my question, and excerpts from the answer that is clearly cut from a knowledge base of some kind. Take note that there is no data about the PowerChute software using IRC ports for network communication anywhere on their website.

Question
-------------------------------------------
---- 06/23/2001 03:51 PM ----------------------
I did a network scan to see if we have any errant ports open 
on machines on the internal network - surprised to find 6667 
and 6668 open on my wife's Win98 box. After much hair-
tearing, I determine that PowerChute monitoring is running 
those ports. How do I disable these external listeners, while 
continuing to run the monitoring software?

regards,

.brian
Question Reference #010623-000136

Suggested Answer
------------------------------------------
At 06/25/2001 02:34 PM we wrote - Dear Brian,

Thank you for contacting APC on June 23, 2001.

Powerchute Plus uses those ports to monitor the network for 
other attached UPSs. This allows authorized users remote 
access over the network to other UPSs. The only time that 
Powerchute Plus opens these ports is when the GUI 
(Graphical User Interface) is open. When the GUI is closed 
then the ports are closed.

The ports are hard coded into the software an cannot be 
changed.  If you wish to keep these ports shut, I would 
recommend closing them with a firewall. You would still 
be able to run Powerchute plus on the local machine.

I hope this helps answer your question. Should you require 
any more assistance or have any other questions about 
APC products in the future, please do not hesitate to 
contact APC again.

I have enclosed my APC personal page link at the bottom 
of this e-mail. There you can view current specials, 
participate in auctions for APC products, and even take 
advantage of the APC Trade-UPS program where APC 
will give you up to 40% off of a brand new APC UPS if 
you trade in your other UPSs. This even includes UPSs 
made by our competitors!

Best Regards,
<name of "service rep" omitted>
Customer Solutions Team

Notice that, aside from informing me that my only recourse is to firewall the ports in question, the message is really a sales brochure. Mmmmm. I don't have this problem with the UPS monitoring software that I use in Linux... heh. Ah, well. At least it isn't sub-seven or something equally nasty, this time. But how secure is the PowerChute software, and why don't they tell people that they need to protect their systems from external attack if they run PowerChute software? Mmmmm. Sounds like it's time for another email to APC.

Time to head into the office. Have a lovely day. See you later with the second topic of the day (as I mentioned yesterday afternoon, grin). TTFN

17:25 - Good evening. First to finish out my leftover topics from yesterday. How many people here remember the old Adventure game? Hands, please? Good, good. In that case I commend to your eyes and funny bone the following excerpt from the Kernel Dev mailing list...

Kernel configuration. It's not just a job, it's an adventure! 
From: Eric S. Raymond ([email protected])
Date: Sat Jun 16 2001 - 21:27:09 EST

Various people on the Linux kernel mailing list and elsewhere 
have been heard to opine that CML2's user interface is too 
oriented towards nontechnical users. In response to these 
complaints, I have implemented a fourth CML2 front end with 
an interface style expressly designed for the serious, hard-
core hacker. A transcript of an example session follows: 

--------------------------------------------
Welcome to CML2 Adventure, version 1.6.1.
You are in a maze of twisty little Linux kernel options menus, all different.
The main room. A sign reads `Linux Kernel Configuration System'.
Passages lead off in all directions.


> n 
 The arch room. A sign reads `Processor type'.
 A passage leads upwards.
 

Choose your processor architecture.
A brass lantern is here.
There is a row of buttons on the wall of this room. They read:
X86, ALPHA, SPARC32, SPARC64, MIPS32, MIPS64, PPC, M68K, 
ARM, SUPERH, IA64, PARISC, S390, S390X, CRIS
The button marked X86 is pressed.
> take lantern 
 Lantern: taken.
> look X86 
 Value of X86 is y.
 This is Linux's home port. Linux was originally native to the Intel
 386, and runs on all the later x86 processors including the Intel
 486, 586, Pentiums, and various instruction-set-compatible chips by
 AMD, Cyrix, and others.
> up 
 In main room.
> nearby 
 The arch room. A sign reads `Processor type'.
 The archihacks room. A sign reads `Architecture-specific hardware hacks'.
 The buses room. A sign reads `System buses and controller types'.
 The pm room. A sign reads `Power management'.
 The mtd room. A sign reads `Memory Technology Device (MTD) support'.
 The x86 room. A sign reads `Intel and compatible 80x86 processor options'.
 The policy room. A sign reads `Configuration policy options'.
 The generic room. A sign reads `Architecture-independent feature selections'.
 The block_devices room. A sign reads `Block devices'.
 

> go generic 
 The generic room. A sign reads `Architecture-independent feature selections'.
 A passage leads upwards.
 

There is an option named MODULES here.
There is an option named NET here.

* * * * *

Hhhhehhehehheheh. The whole thing is found here, at the archives. I spent hours in Adventure, and find this to be a real hoot. Bravo, Eric! (Eric blames credits Rick Moen later in the thread... Hmmmm)

Next, I finished up the formatting for Chapter 18, Scripting, this afternoon. Yes, Jackie, I've updated the TOC, too. <grin> Now to water the Patio Farm, prep chicken and veg for a late supper (Marcia's in hyper-productivity-mode, due to end-of-quarter), and who knows what all else. Niece Natalie is coming to visit for the weekend, and we have planned a whole bunch of NOTHING to do. We may have Pat and Nathan over as well on Saturday, and burn some animal flesh on the barbecue.

Have a nice evening - see you tomorrow.

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Howdy. Welcome to hump day, that roadblock that stands between Monday and Friday, leaving me equidistant from relaxation and leisure in either direction on the time axis. Ah, well. I'm making a slow start of it this morning. I finished off the formatting of Chapter 18 on Scripting yesterday afternoon Marcia worked late, and I made a chicken stir fry for supper - we ate about 7.

Then I took the evening in that other operating system, playing Myst III - Exile. Gosh what a lush, beautifully designed game. I finished two worlds, and it's time for the final one, but I didn't even start it, because I would have been up FAR too late, instead of just 11:15 or so...

As it is, my lovely Marcia was already gone to work by the time I dragged out of bed at 6:05. As I noted, it's end of quarter. Her region of responsibility is the South East US, and she had a conference call at 06:30 to put yet another deal to bed. Way to go.

Now I'll finish up here and head into work. Y'all have a lovely day. Later.

18:00 - Hey. Welcome back. No mail today, no new chapters from The Book yet. But I do have a few pictures to share...

We first have a neighboring Palm tree, under the rainy skies from two nights ago. Then we have a closeup of some ripening fruit, and a variety of new angles. Look closely - you can see lots and LOTS of green tomatoes. It'll be serious salad and salsa days before very long. Now good night. See you tomorrow...

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Good morning. Hey! We're definitely on the downslope to Friday, I can feel it. Well, I did very little yesterday evening except finish out Myst III: Exile. Fun. There's a story, and there's the game design, and there's the play. Sure is pretty. I have a couple alternate endings that I want to explore, but essentially the game is done. I've paid lot's more to be entertained far less - If you want a gorgeous, fun Win or Mac game that doesn't require reflexes, but does require thinking, then pick this one up - I think you'll enjoy it.

Now isn't that interesting - first, VA Linux Systems is exiting the hardware business. No big surprise there - margins are razor thin in the commodities gig, and you either have to be really big to gain the proper economies of scale, or you have to be good enough to charge extra for what you do. And you have to keep your support costs from eating you alive. I think (emphatically, I do not know) that it is that latter point that proves to be the kicker for these small Linux hardware firms. Fortunately (perhaps) for VA, they have picked up enough external bits that they have what MIGHT be an exit strategy from the hardware side - keeping the online properties and the software business. But as someone noted yesterday (and I paraphrase), "It's indicative of the times that to survive, VA is heading INTO the pure dot com arena." We'll see what shakes out.

Here's an interview on O'Reilly Net, with David Stutz of Mickeysoft, on the "Shared Source" parts of dotNet, and the platforms they've chose for implementation. Most intriguingly, they've selected FreeBSD for their demonstration of cross-platform compatibility. Some in the community consider that what MS is doing is pitting the FreeBSD license and community against Linux and the GPL. OK. So? We know that considering their public stance on the topic, they couldn't very well use Linux as a basis, now could they. But still, as in this excerpt:

Tim: There's a lot of skepticism about the subject of Microsoft 
and standards. Just for example, recent moves, such as changes 
to the SAMBA protocol are actually patented, so that people 
can't reverse engineer it without running into patent infringement. 
These are the kinds of things that make people say, are these 
really standards, or are they just standard when you can't get 
people by the short hairs?

Stutz: Tim, I would point you to the book you recommended to me, 
Cass Sunstein's book, Republic.com. He talks about this concept 
of deliberative discourse. And I think that's a great word to use for 
standards groups. Standards bodies don't exist just to stamp an 
existing implementation. They exist so that the members can 
actually work out consensus among themselves. And that is 
something we have been very good for the last n number of years. 
Certainly since the web services stuff has come up. We've really 
tried to create a basis based on standards coming from recognized 
standards organizations. I think that it's not fair to characterize us 
as someone who's not playing by the rules. We're definitely trying 
to be a good citizen when it comes to participating in these 
standards bodies, and now in granting our intellectual property 
into them.

I see the same old Mickeysoft behaviour. Weasel words and evasion to straightforward questions. It's political, it's "business as war", it's nasty, and Wall Street loves that trash. I think it sucks. Sometimes the 'Softies try to break down the walls, but their essentially feral nature eventually surfaces. Do go read the whole article and judge for yourself - there is progress of sorts, theoretically. But essentially I see Microsoft continuing to co-opt technologies and standards to meet their own need and desire to be the only game in town. Gosh, I'd sure like the Appeal Court to back up Judge Jackson at this point. What about you?

I also have some thoughts for you on the new Caldera licensing scheme, but they're not fully formed yet, and I need to do some research first, so that I am not talking out the side of my neck. In the meantime, you have a great day, check out the Patio Farm pix from yesterday, and I'll see you later today. Hasta!

17:00 - Bah

June 28, 2001

Farmers Insurance Group of Companies P.O. Box 94001 Long Beach, CA, 90809-4001

Re: Your Opt-Out policy

To whom it may concern,

I personally find this form of corporate activity to be reprehensible, and worthy of searching for a new vendor of insurance services, one who acts ethically with respect to customer information.

Let me quote from your form: "If you decide to opt out of our sharing your consumer report information with our affiliates, except as permitted by law, you may do so only by returning this Opt-Out Form." May I suggest that the correct way to do business with customers where TRUST is your only stock in trade, is by keeping private all information, except as required by law. Then you may offer to let me OPT-IN to specific programs, based on benefits to me, the "consumer" or as I prefer to term myself in this interchange, your customer - you know, the person who sends you money to provide a service, pays your salary, things like that?

With regard to the current information that you have on file regarding myself or my wife (see attached "Opt-Out Form"), you most emphatically DO NOT have our permission to share our information with anyone unless required by law.

I request that you send by return mail a confirmation of your receipt of my Opt-Out Form, and use your own postage, as your required me to use a stamp to Opt-Out in the first place. If I am not in receipt of this confirmation within 30 days of posting this letter which accompanies the Opt-Out Form, I must assume that you have disregarded my request, and are selling my information to third parties and affiliates without my consent. In that case I will take up this matter with the appropriate governmental agencies.

Sincerely,

Brian P. Bilbrey

Feh! Bastards. Their accompanying literature says that every time their opportunities or privacy policy changes, we will be offered a brand new chance to opt out. If I ever meet them in church, I'll ask them if their parents want to be married.

I see that in response to my mention this morning, the Appeals Court handed down it's decision pitching out Jackson's Findings of Law and Remedies. Please note that they did not strike the Findings of Fact. For an interesting, non-hysterical take on the gig, take in Dan Gilmore's blog.

Now for some anonymous reader mail...

Subject: A Linux basic concept
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 08:48:39 -0500

Brian,
I have been quietly reading your site for several months.
I am a FreeBSD user, and have recently installed Mandrake 8.0
on a second hard drive. Used the expert install and all went well.
My question is about the proper way to add software to a Linux box.

In FreeBSD, there is a ports collection.  You cd into the directory
for the software you wish, type make and it'll fetch the software
from the internet.  Then a make install will get you going.  I'm
a bit stumped on how to do the same on Linux.  I am trying to get
ibcs installed for a test, and frankly haven't found a description
of the technique.

I assume its something like:
1.  download the rpm file. (where do you get it?  Does Linux distro matter?)
2.  run some application in Linux to add it to the running system.

If you have a free moment, and could provide a pointer, I would
appreciate it.  Even a RTFM would be fine, provided you identify
the FM.

Hi -

There are at least two approachs, first, for packages that are
available from the publisher, I often use RPM.

First, let me check an assumption, by ibcs you mean iBCS, the Intel
Binary Compatibility Standard software, correct?

OK, anyway, to continue...

If your software is available from Mandrake, then by all means,
install it via RPM. I often use the Mandrake mirror at Sourceforge,
it's often faster for me than digging out the right CDR from the
stacks and stacks. I don't see anything called ibcs in the mirrors.

Next I'll check RPMfind.net (http://www.rpmfind.net/). No package
found of name ibcs. Ah, well. Had I actually found a good Mandrake
RPM for the software, (generally determined by finding 'mdk' and
'i586' substrings in the .rpm filename), I could have downloaded the
RPM and installed it as root by typing

rpm -Uvh /path/to/RPMfilename
 
man rpm for lots of details.

However, I can't find any rpm for the ibcs I think you're talking
about. So I head over to the iBCS for Linux website at
http://www.purplet.demon.co.uk/linux/ibcs/. Following the links to
the download site, I pull down the latest file, in this case it
appears to be ... wow ... old. Most recent is
iBCS-2.1-981105.tar.gz, published 11/05/98. OK, whatever...

I am going to build this package from sources. Here's excerpts from
a capture of the session...

------------------------------------

gryphon:/home/bilbrey# mv ibcs-2.1-981105.tar.gz /usr/local/src

gryphon:/home/bilbrey# cd /usr/local/src

gryphon:/usr/local/src# tar zxf ibcs-2.1-981105.tar.gz

gryphon:/usr/local/src# cd ibcs

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# ls
CONFIG.i386   CREDITS    MAKEDEV.ibcs  Patches  TODO   devtrace
x286emul
CONFIG.sparc  ChangeLog  Makefile      README   Tools  iBCSemul
COPYING       Doc        PROD.Patches  RELEASE  VSYS   include

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# less README

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# cp CONFIG.i386 CONFIG  

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# vi CONFIG  
   # CONFIGURATION FILE FOR iBCS
  # Edit, make clean, make install
 * * *

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# make clean

gryphon:/usr/local/src/ibcs# make
  * BARF *

---------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, this last step fails miserably. Looks like the world
moved on, and left this codebase behind...

There are other steps for compiling most modern Linux code from
sources - the basic routine is
 
fetch and unpack the sources
cd source_dir
./configure --help  # to see what options are available
./configure [options]
make clean
[make test]
make install

*******************

Hope all this helps. I'll publish it, probably this afternoon, as a 
bit of instruction for others.

Wish I could have been of slightly more help - I answered your
direct question, but don't know how you're going to get where you
want to be...

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Good Morning, more or less... Yeah, it's real early. Marcia's got another early conference call, and today I woke up, instead of staying in bed for the extra hour. Ah well, at least it's Friday. Huzzah!

Last night, in place of cooking, I took Marcia out for supper, since I couldn't know when she'd be home until she got here, and it was LATE - past 7. So off we toddled to Spoons, where she had a grilled chicken Caesar salad, and I had something that bore a faint familial resemblance to a Philly cheese steak sandwich. Not very thriling that, nor was the sandwich much good. I'll have to remember to stick with their burgers, which are generally top notch.

Before I leave you for the day, I'd like to point you to a good interview with ESR (Eric Raymond), primarily on the topic of VA's retrenchment, and a bit on the Microsoft/FreeBSD connection. Too early for anything more. I'll catch up with you later, perhaps. We have Natalie coming to visit for the weekend. See ya!

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Well, instead of doing anything interesting that I can write about here, I've spent time working with Chapter 19, System Administration from the Command Line. It looks to be about the same scale as 17, which was a biggie. Once past this, it's all downhill, with three small chapters left, then a couple of appendices. Although one appendix may be a formatting nightmare...

Good morning, anyway, have a lovely day - I'll slog on through, and return later - Marcia and Natalie are going to do some professional shopping, methinks, so I should be able to concentrate well on the work at hand. Later!

Well. Not very much else to report - Marcia and Natalie had a successful shopping. They're both dressed to kill, and tapping their toes impatiently as I tap out these few characters. We're out to supper in just a bit, and I won't be back to the computer tonight. However, I did finish up Chapter 19, System Administration on the Command line. It's the latest chapter from Tom and Brian's Linux Book to make it online, definitely in the home stretch now - a week or so should see it done. Enjoy, and thanks. See y'all tomorrow!

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Good morning. I've been slogging through DNS setups with Greg Lincoln for the last hour or so... I think we're making progress, or not. There's problems yet. In other news, I've gotten a little more feedback - Chapter 19 appears to be a hit. Thanks!

Now to get ready for this day. Back in a while - I haven't even done the email yet, and there's nearly a hundred of those, over Saturday night, sigh. Have a good'un.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.