2007: "Most Influential" Writing

Looking for some good reading over the holiday break? Try starting with John Bracken's blog posting on The Most Influential Media Writing of 2007, and continue on to the source material he's so helpfully linked into the post. I'd not heard of John's blog before this post was mentioned on Farber's IP list, and many of the authors and blogs he cites are unfamiliar to me. This is, in my world, a good thing, as I'm always seeking to expand my repertoire of context. Every social circle is going to have its own "Most Influential" list-- what's yours?

APODizing the Cosmos

Saturn's Rings and the moon Tethys (via APOD) I've been getting tired of the Cosmos lately. No, not the actual Universe, but the lovely yet small set of astronomy pictures in the Mac OS X (Tiger) screen saver "Cosmos". I knew that there would be gorgeous images like I'd like to branch out, see more nifty stuff... like the image above, of Saturn's rings and the moon Tethys, Astronomy Picture of the Day page, and even more at APOD's archive site. Enceladus' Ice Volcanoes (via APOD) If I were into scripting on the Mac, I could have written a script to fetch new content from APOD, but instead I simply grabbed a few dozen of my favorites via the archive site. Now, how to get them into my screensaver? The net is mighty-- I soon found out how to diddle with /System/Library/Screen Savers/Cosmos.slideSaver to get what I wanted. Copy it into another directory (after authenticating to unlock it), and rename it APOD.slideSaver. Select it, right-click for a menu, and choose "Show Package Contents". The "Contents" folder contains a "Resources" folder full of slides. NGC 68888 (via APOD) Remove the ones in there, substitute your own, and then copy back into /System/Library/Screen Savers/ to deploy it. You'll get a dialog about not being able to copy it, with an "authenticate" choice to let you do so. Or just use the command line and sudo. Ta-dah, I get an APOD option in the Screen Savers section of the System utilities. And now I have more shiny galaxies to watch, and to light my livingroom with when I'm sitting quietly and petting the kitties in the evening.

Both books are now shipping!

It's been a long year, but the fruits of various labors are now available for harvest! I co-authored one book and contributed a chapter to another: The Practice of System and Network Administration, 2nd Edition (Limoncelli, Hogan, Chalup)

Handbook of Network and System Administration