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Excellent Article

aicra - Saturday July 02, 2011 04:07 PM: Great article. Someone finally said it! I have had the unpleasant circumstance of taking classes with incompetent instructors and have worked with so many incompetent people. I had one course where I received a 99 because the teacher had limited knowledge of random number generation. Now, argue the point? Well, the problem was, I got a 99. Try to get the teacher to understand that she had a lack of knowledge, maybe not the best academic career move. This may be why they never are challenged. I asked one instructor what the difference was between Pagemaker and InDesign. This was in a graphic IT course. I was hoping for several additional features, etc. She stated, \"Companies use InDesign\". As I further inquired of her, I came to realize that she really did not know... anything at all. There are so many incompetent instructors out there. I left my last position at work, mainly because my coworker was promoted over me and he was absolutely unqualified and I refused to report to him. In that position, I was supposed to review a document he created. Throughout, he used the term \"infinity loop\" instead of \"infinite loop\". Now, there is an infinity loop, but that was not what was meant. He refused to make the edits and the company published this guide with every instance of \"infinity\" included. This same \"engineer\" did not know C at all and was coaching others. OMG, it was horrible to sit there and listen. Finally, I stated to them that there was no need for the last else because it goes without saying - just do the action. He argued that I was incorrect. They didn\'t know ANSI standards or even basic practices. During a dry run, the naming conventions were completely wrong on the TITLE page! Yes. This guy was teaching C at a conference and even made the cover of Make Magazine with one of his \"projects\". I am not lying. It was disgusting. I am glad you wrote this. Not that it will help anyone but maybe myself... I was starting to consider offering interactive training and certificates for elementary level GNU tools/utilities/etc. as I noted that noone offers such a thing. And while I am not really fond of certificates or... a piece of paper to prove, I was hoping that at the very least, I could avoid ever hearing again, \"Can we move the bin directory somewhere else?\". Great article!

WOW

spie2len - Monday August 16, 2010 05:55 PM: All I can say is WOW!! You have stunned me with the amount a valuable reading here

Interesting

Dave - Thursday June 22, 2006 01:58 PM: This is a very interesting site...

None

Miller - Thursday June 22, 2006 04:48 AM: Looking for information and found it at this great site...

Excellent

Ron - Wednesday June 21, 2006 10:31 PM: Excellent site, added to favorites!!

amanda

inde - Friday May 12, 2006 08:26 AM: thanx man... i folowed ur howto and got it working .. no probs... but, what i still dont really understand is how to configure the back up cycles... any comments r appreciated. anyway... thanx a lot. inde

Thanks so very much

obsrev - Saturday March 11, 2006 02:37 PM: Thanks so very much for taking your time to create this very useful and informative site. I have learned a lot from your site. Thanks!! I think you have done an excellent job with your site. I will return in the near future.

Quick Start Guide to Amanda

Ed Herderick - Wednesday May 18, 2005 07:30 AM: Very well done. A must for anyone using Amanda for the first time.

right on!

PLanning - Wednesday January 28, 2004 08:10 PM: Well spoken my lad!

installation oracle 8.1.7 on redhat linux 9

rahi - Sunday January 04, 2004 06:14 AM: am tring to install oracle 8.1.7 redhat linux 9, but facing many problem. the error become GLIBC_2.0 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link references (libzip.so) unable initialize thread can not find the class. am facing this problem last 5 days but not solve please help me. regards rahi

NT Services

CEM - Tuesday December 30, 2003 10:43 AM: Can NT Services be stopped and started in a script? My administrator thinks not. I need to stop a service, rename a directory, create a new directory, restart the service. This seems trivial to me. Is it not?

Excellent article

Terry - Monday December 01, 2003 11:26 PM: Excellent articles on the use of the net command.

Good Work

julien - Thursday November 06, 2003 01:03 PM: Thanks for the informative articles.

RE:Should P2P file sharing be blocked?

L0S7 - Tuesday September 23, 2003 07:27 AM: You recommend that ISP\'s block Kazaa from going through their firewalls. Fileshares are adaptable though and have found a way to get out on the firewall\'s http port. Check it out. http://www.iprisma.com/kazaahttp/

VNC Terminals

BHTooEFR - Saturday July 12, 2003 09:31 AM: The review of the Axel VNC Terminals left out one important point: They have an RDP version, and the VNC version is the RDP version PLUS VNC.

Re: BHTooEFR

Chris Campbell - Saturday July 12, 2003 09:31 AM: BHTooEFR, The Axel VNC Terminal article was from two or three years ago and I do not believe those options were available at that time.

Unix analyst

Tim - Sunday May 25, 2003 03:06 PM: This article is excellent. I need to find a way to write an app to measure the increase of STREAMS memory in a system over time and this article is the ONLY beginners doc I\'ve found so far. Thank you.

addings routes in Windows NT

Mike Baril - Friday May 23, 2003 11:14 AM: Does anybody another way to add routes in Winnt besides using a command prompt. I need to be able add a route when I build my embedded NT OS.

Installing Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat 7.0/7.2

Manish Jain - Tuesday May 20, 2003 10:37 AM: I am running Redhat 7.0 and 7.2 on my computer. Your article suggests that I should include the following line in my .bash_profile : . /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh The problem is that the above shell script exists neither in my 7.2 installation nor the 7.0 installation. In fact, there is no bin subdirectory at /usr/i386-glibc21-linux. The only subdirectories available at /usr/i386-glibc21-linux are \'lib\' and \'include\'. All the compat rpm\'s suggested in the article have been installed. So can anyone please suggest what I should do ? Thank you

Thank You

Doretha May - Tuesday April 08, 2003 10:11 AM: I am a recent Network Administrator. I appreciate the information given. God Bless You.

Power Commands: Not Breaking The Handle

Shawn L Reed - Thursday April 03, 2003 05:38 PM: Emmett\'s article on overcoming the oversized log files was just what was needed, and I\'ll also follow his advice and go back to drinkin\' :-)

David Coursey

Robert Payne - Friday March 28, 2003 04:30 AM: I use Windows but for a short while I had A Linux computer also.I enjoyed it.This is about COURSEY.I have been a member of ZDnets list for a long time.I used to love Anchor Desk.Ever since Coursey was put there I hate it.I almost never read it.He never backs up anything he says with facts so do not feel like he singled out Linux.He just sucks.

Problem with Solaris 8 in vmware

Miroslav Ludvik - Sunday March 02, 2003 05:19 PM: I have problem. For me it is need test some application under Solaris 8. When I install Solaris 8, I response for some questions and installation wizard booting kernel from cdrom and computer rebooting. Vmware say me, when guest OS send some instruction in DMA mode. Now OS will make corectly rebooting and after rebooting vmware say me when hasn\'t bootable medium. I thing, when vmware has hide cdrom. When I do RESET instalation begin again drom first point. Please advise me.

Connecting to W2K terminal services from XP pro over VPN

Tom Gape - Tuesday February 11, 2003 05:34 AM: I have recently tried to set this up, using XP pro sp1 clients connecting to a server running w2k server sp2. I cannot, whatever I do, get the terminal services connection to work into the server: it looks like it is connecting and then hangs on a blank screen. I can connect to the server from a W2k pro client, and between two XP pro machines one of which is connecting via the VPN. There seems to be a fundamental incompatibility between the remote desktop function in XP pro and W2K server terminal services... if anyone has seen the same problem and managed to find a solution, I would love to hear from you!

Singles Sales in the US

Chris - Wednesday January 15, 2003 01:21 PM: The comment on the singles sales is true as far as it goes, but there\'s a bit more to the fact that they\'re no longer made. With a CD, regardless of what you print to it, it\'s still the same cost. 2 cents or whatever is the baseline, plus distrobution and shelf space. Since tapes are no longer sold, singles cost as much to produce as full albums, take up the same space on the shelf, and provide far less revenue. Now, labels (or disti\'s? anyway) pay for placement of prime product on the store shelves at major chains. They stopped doing this in the case of singles because they wanted them to phase out to put a crunch on smaller stores (to whom this was a major, up to 25% in some cases, source of revenue) and streamline the channel to provide them with more profit margin. It\'s also hypothesized that singles sales were starting to rise drastically as albums contained less and less \"quality\" music. If you figure out the sheer quantity of singles that were being produced, then factor that out of the numbers of records being produced over all, it may explain decreased total sale volume in recent years. But that\'s a discussion for another day ;).

Brian Quinn's Email Servers Article

Christian Lipsett - Monday October 28, 2002 11:39 AM: Just a quick thanks to Brian Quinn for publishing his article on Email servers, from a novice administrator looking for what to look for in an email server :)_

LogMon

Andrew - Tuesday October 22, 2002 10:49 AM: Your link from your Linux section is linking to an extremely old version of LogMon. It would probably be better to point to the LogMon home page (as well as the link for portsentry) rather than to the programs themselves. Or at least update your links occasionally.

VNC & Zebedee

Mike - Tuesday August 20, 2002 09:44 AM: If you don't want to deal with Cygwin, VNC can be encrypted and compressed with Zebedee. It's a small program that sets up secure tunnels with Zlib compression and Blowfish encryption, using Diffie-Hellman key exchange to authenticate. There are decent instructions in the manual on the zebedee website at: http://www.winton.org.uk/zebedee/

Re: rdesktop on OS X : Can't start X

Chris Campbell - Wednesday July 17, 2002 11:59 PM: Ok, I did a test run of the install and you don't have to start it from the console - look under your applications folder and there should a Red X icon that you can start the system from as well - give that a try and let us know how it works out.

rdesktop on OS X : Can't start X

Raymond Nichols - Wednesday July 17, 2002 11:59 PM: I think I've followed your instructions properly but when I run StartX -- -rootless I get the following error: OK? startx -- -rootless? yes xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): no server "/usr/X11R6/bin/X" in PATH Use the -- option, or make sure that /usr/X11R6/bin is in your path and that "/usr/X11R6/bin/X" is a program or a link to the right type of server for your display. Possible server names include: XFree86 XFree86 displays XDarwin Darwin/Mac OS X IOKit displays XDarwinQuartz Mac OS X Quartz displays XDarwinStartup Auto-select between XDarwin and XDarwinQuartz giving up. xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error. Any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong? My Linux experience has all been Red Hat so I'm afraid I don't fully understand dselect and apt-get. As far as I can tell all the X11 stuff is installed. Thoughts Questions Suggestions?

Re: funny and mostly true

Soup - Saturday July 06, 2002 05:18 PM: Kruptos: Thanks for the positive comments. I wanted to comment: i don't think that the article was intended by the author to be anti-newbies as perhaps you have read it mean; I think a good contrast would be: "Imagine if you went to the hospital for surgery and there you found only interns because the hospital administration decided that full doctors are too expensive!" Now, in line with that example, imagine being the *one* full doctor left at that hospital and being responsible to clean up after the trainee doctors . . . (thanks to Kimberwolf for the example.)

Your article on DHCP is very useful.

Shashi Divekar - Wednesday July 03, 2002 07:35 PM: Hi , I am trying to set up a test DHCP Server and your article was very useful. You have described the the things simply and clearly in this short article. It's really useful to start with DHCP Server Build. REgards. -Shashi

Funny and mostly true, though one-sided.

kruptos.visum - Saturday June 22, 2002 05:09 PM: Greetings, Amusing post :) Having been a sysadmin for a smaller company that 'spread its wings' across North America, I do find much truth in your post, but it all seems quite one-sided. Actually, correction, sounds more like a long rant. While I agree, more and more inept administrators seem to pour forth out of 'compu-college-whatevers', there are a few admins that are more than competent. Unfortunately, they're a little more pricey because of their skills. I think that employers need to better screen possible employees/contractees to find the best 'bang-for-the-buck'. If they choose not to, then they will have to learn to accept the learning mistakes of an inexperienced admin. Luckily, there are employers out there that will take the risk. (How else would any of us gained any experience?) Anyhow, I'm just rambling now... :)

AMEN!!!

Zyglow - Friday June 21, 2002 01:44 AM: I'm really glad to see an article about the industry that really hits the nail on the head! More and more each day in the business relm I see users becoming "customers", and administrators becoming "support staff". Also, many companies becoming disgruntled about sysadmins for the simple fact that they do not want to pay for quality people, nor do they test an individuals knowledge.

Re: Alan Turing

Chris Campbell - Wednesday June 05, 2002 08:44 PM: Marc, Unfortunately as our writers are also Sysadmins, there are other priorities that sometime get in the way. Summer is particularly busy for Sysadmins at Universities such as where Mr. Jones works. In response to your question though, "It is coming."

Campbell's Dirty Job

Karin - Wednesday June 05, 2002 11:02 AM: Very informational with laughs!!

Alan Turing

Marc A. Ellis - Tuesday May 28, 2002 01:10 PM: Hey Guys, what ever happened to part two on Alan Turing and Charles Babbage?

Charles Babbage

Cris - Wednesday May 15, 2002 09:20 PM: Great site, good and complete information

VNC is developed

Mats Karlsson - Tuesday May 14, 2002 03:55 AM: Hi, I would like to recommend the ThightVNC instead of the original VNC. check www.tightvnc.com

Load Balancers

Crusty Unix Wizard - Thursday May 09, 2002 09:40 PM: I run a Fortune-100 website by day. DNS-Round-Robin is an excellent customer-facing load balancer. Especially on top of a hardware (Cisco,F5,Hyperflow) solution to make the individual Virtual IP's a little more reliable. Of course good UNIX hosts run for 500 days, no problem.

Regarding the Truncation of Files.

Crusty Unix Wizard - Thursday May 09, 2002 09:38 PM: cp /dev/null can be unreliable. Most shells will allow '> ' to truncate a file, depending on the 'NOCOLBBER' environment variable. You might also mention Vic Abell's excellent utilitiy lsof(1) that will list open files. It's handy for finding the run-away process that won't stop spewing.

a better way if "Not breaking the handle."

William - Friday April 05, 2002 02:55 PM: The suggestion for alternative logrotate could be improved if rather than copy to /opt and the compress, had it been done all at once, like: compress -c /var/log/daemon.log > /opt/logfile/daemon.log.Z or even better: gzip -9c /var/log/daemon.log > /opt/logfile/daemon.log.gz Also, rather than coping /dev/null on top of the original daemon.log, you could have have simply trunicated the file by doing the following from the shell: > /var/log/daemon.log No need to even invoke an external command. :-)

The History Section

pT - Wednesday April 03, 2002 12:51 AM: When will Part 2 of "Alan Turing - Towards a Digital Mind" be posted? I really enjoyed the history section and would like to read the sequel. Thanx

RE: Where are the links to parts 1,2 and 3 ?

Chris Campbell - Sunday March 24, 2002 01:58 PM: Thanks for the tip Peter! We've adjusted the articles accordingly! ~Chris

Where are the links to parts 1,2 and 3 ?

Peter J. Nicol - Sunday March 24, 2002 01:57 PM: Guys, interesting story ... and your site looks good and informative. But there are no links to the first 3 parts. This would make your whole site much easier to navigate, methinks.

Installing Oracle on RedHat 7.0 and Up

Michael Weston - Monday February 04, 2002 03:02 PM: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Elmo's article brought together every piece of the puzzle needed to FINALLY get the Oracle 8.1.6 installer running. Rad Hat's and Oracle's websites were mostly useless (esp. O), and other articales about the same thing kept leaving little pieces out that this newbie couldn't figure out. Yours listed the exact RPM files and steps needed. After a month of pain on Linux, just to start learning more Oracle, I was about to give up. Now I can get on with the pain of Oracle, which at least is more familiar territory than Linux was.

History

CTM - Tuesday January 29, 2002 02:02 AM: Hanging out for Turing part 2 ...

Alan Turing

Gordon M. Ditto - Monday January 21, 2002 04:31 PM: I thought the article was great. I became an Alan Turing fan after I saw a special about the Ultra Enigma and how Mr. Turing broke the code on it during WWII. I would like to be on your e-mail list for future articles on this great mathematician. Thanks, Gordon

Install Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat 7.2

Tim - Wednesday January 02, 2002 02:40 PM: Thank you, Elmo, for providing the information, but I still cannot install Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat 7.2. After I did the preparation acording your instructions. I ran the installer, I got a message: Initializinf Java Virtual Machine from ../stage/Components/oracle.swd.jre/1.1.8/1/DataFiles/Expanded/linux/bin/jre. please wait... Nothing happens afterwards. No install program pop up. I would appreciate it if you can give me some ideas. Thanks, Tim

getting oracle 8i to work with rhl 7.x

Vinu Moses - Friday December 21, 2001 08:53 PM: Thanks Elmo! It worked. Installed oracle 8.1.7 on a redhat 7.2 box.

Thank you

Justin Seiferth - Wednesday December 12, 2001 09:03 PM: Mr Turing cannot possibly receive enough acclaim and acknowledgement for his efforts and inventions. I and many others here in the United States and elsewhere owe our existence- through his efforts which likely saved the lives of our fathers to Allan Turing and we should ensure he's not forgotten. Perhaps our consideration of his eventual fate will encourage us to be more tolerant today and recognize the contributions of all shapes and persuasions of society.

Reusing Older Macs

Mike Edwards - Wednesday December 12, 2001 06:58 AM: Nice article on older macs, though it really does bear mentioning that Linux is a great use for these seemingly dead machines. I have a 7300 with a processor upgrade that I use as a web and CVS server. I also have a Beige G3 that works beautifully as my main desktop computer. These models, from NuBus on, are still in generous supply in attics and storerooms. With Linux, they make great additions to a home or SOHO network for next to nothing.

Turing Biography

Jim Irrer - Wednesday December 12, 2001 06:42 AM: A wonderful treatment of the subject. I am looking forward to the next installment.

For more info on Turing:

Christopher Holland - Tuesday December 11, 2001 10:49 PM: For those who may want more information about Alan Turing, may I suggest the book "Alan Turing: The Enigma." The book is incredibly detailed (he doesn't even get to King's until page 100 in the book) and it is a good read. Decent amount of tech,math, and philosophy in the book. ISBN: 0-671-49207-1 or (paperback) 0-671-52809-2

Gratitude. Much gratitude.

Aldis Lusis - Tuesday December 11, 2001 09:25 PM: Thank You. Thank you for a site that INFORMS. Thank you for a site that is clean, fast and visually appealing. Thank you for, SystemToolbox, for well,... just being YOU! I'm particularly happy about the history articles. I just can't wait to see the ending ;) -Aldis Lusis

Reusing Older Macs

dg - Tuesday December 11, 2001 08:03 PM: Interesting history and note of which old mac's & OS to use for file or print servers. Information for applicability (speed) requirements such as feasiblity as an mp3 server, concurrent connections, or router/firewall ? Altnernate hobby uses such as distributed.net or SETI clients, security/home automation, web cache, or Linux would also make good follow-ups for the "at home" portion of the article.

Turing

Arctic Avenger - Tuesday December 11, 2001 07:49 PM: I was bummed out that this ended, and yes I realize it was only part one. I want more. I want it now.

Great article

mark hawrylak - Tuesday December 11, 2001 04:46 PM: I really like your work.. keep it up!!!!

Alan Turing - Towards a Digital Mind: Part 1

Gary Dolan - Tuesday December 11, 2001 04:29 PM: Love it so far. Turing has always fascinated me, and his fate should be instructive (although it never will be).

History

Frank B. Adams - Tuesday December 11, 2001 01:01 PM: G. James Jones is a great asset to System Toolbox. He has provided two wonderful history lessons that all computer junkies should know.

Re: Ronald

Chris Campbell - Monday December 10, 2001 08:58 PM: Well, Ronald, how you would want to do the network would be dependant on a great many factors. What is the structure like? Is the network content to be extremely secure? What is the budget like? What is the existing equipment like?
It's probably best if you email me personally on this; soup@systemtoolbox.com - I'd be glad to offer whatever help I can to help you sort out your network - and capitalization issues.

RONALD - Sunday December 09, 2001 02:18 PM: I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO CREATE A NETWORK WITH A 155 USER WITH FOUR FLOORS.

Booth Bunnies

Soup - Friday November 30, 2001 07:33 AM: Sorry about the temporary lack of access to the photos - we've been rearranging some backend stuff. They're back:
http://www.binaryfreedom.com/~systool/bfarticle.php?content_id=16
Click and enjoy!

Booth bunnies

David Montgomery - Friday November 30, 2001 07:32 AM: No Pictures?

Administration and Documentation

ckleiman - Wednesday November 14, 2001 02:16 PM: While on the surface Iplanet 5 seems like a reasonable email solution, the learning curve is extremely steep, the documentation is incomplete, inaccurate, and vague. Filtering is based on a beta version of the SIEVE language, and implementation of multiple relay servers is problematic. I recommend exim over iPlanet 5 Messaging server. I recommend EXCHANGE over iPlanet Messaging server, which is saying quite a lot, being a unix bigot.

.NET

David Chaskelmann - Friday October 19, 2001 05:38 PM: Good article...Like it a lot. .NET Profit...exactly.

How wonderful! Tell me more!

John Bethencourt - Friday October 19, 2001 02:45 PM: I liked this article very much. I hope you will post many more articles about the great pioneers of computer engineering / computer science. Like the script kiddies mentioned in the article "Adventures in Babysitting", I know very little of the heroes of the past. This is a tragedy. I want to learn as much as I can about Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace and all the people whose names I don't know. As an aspiring computer scientist, I need role models.

VMWare and Solaris

Anonymous - Thursday October 18, 2001 07:05 PM: Use Vmware on linux to do the initial installation. - I suspect that you're trying to do it in NT. NT can't handle the filesystem - do the install on linux and then move the dsk file(s) to the NT install. (Create a new configuration and point to the disk file from the Solaris install.) It'll work.

Solaris on vm ware?

Frank Hellerman - Thursday October 18, 2001 06:57 PM: In the article you said about running solaris 7 in vm ware to test it. I can't get this to work. What do I do? I am an NT administrator now and I want to use a real Unix but I couldn't get solaris to work on my machine so I thought a vm ware would be better. How do you do this?

Windows NT Scripting - Episode III

Jim Jinkins - Thursday October 18, 2001 10:19 AM: Good enough that I would liked to have seen a link to the earlier episodes.

[Babbage]

Nicholas Bodley - Thursday October 18, 2001 09:21 AM: I know something about thistopic, and the article, except for a few distracting typos, is a gem. Very well-written. I'm extremely disappointed to read that todays geeks don't care about history.
Fwiw, I was a midnight hacker (totally non-malicious) in 1960, after a stint as a mechanical analog computer (and radar) technician. Also was one of the first eight electronic desktop calc. techs in the US (at least, for a US-made calc.; dunno about maybe one or two others...). Was the Friden EC-130. I also took apart clocks and a record changer as a kid.

Amongst other things

Bernard - Thursday October 18, 2001 04:53 AM: Another (indirect) contribution to computing was his work on codes, he was (as much as is certain) the first person to break the vinegrea <- spelt wrong I think - cypher. To put the cypher in context it was conceived sometime in the 1500's for the Vatican and it spread across europe and like many codes thought unbreakable. Charles Babbage broke it to get a rise out of one of his 'aquaintences' that he didn't really like 300 or so years later. He hadn't realised what he had done and this was lost for around another 50 years, it is only recently that this came to light. You could say he was also a competent hacker!

New history section

Bob Salmon - Thursday October 18, 2001 02:10 AM: Thanks for your excellent history section. Knowing your roots is important. When you get to the usually controversial 'Who invented the first computer?' question, I suggest you answer 'It depends' - depending on what you define a computer to be (and on what your nationality is / which university you went to) you will passionately believe X, whereas others will believe Y equally passionately. Instead of plumping for one I suggest you let your readers make up their own minds: ENIAC, EDSAC, Manchester Mk 1, Bombe, Colossus, ...? I think it's a huge shame that Tommy Flowers is barely mentioned in computer histories, as people equate Bletchley Park with Alan Turing. Turing was the academic genius and intriguing character, but Flowers didn't exactly sit around doing nothing. (Something that a future article can address?)

ST's History Section

Robert Boyle - Wednesday October 17, 2001 09:14 PM: This article ROCKED. I am presently a Physics/CS student at Stanford University, and I absolutely love your idea of writing and maintaing a history of computing. I read the article written by Chris Campbell on his experiences with the 2600 meeting, and it really hit home. I know several ppl who consider themselves '1337' simply because they can substitute numbers for letters and maybe run some scripts or some such. I myself, having just missed the technology revolution of the recent era, am pretty ignorant of history, which is a shame as I would love to learn more about those that have made all that I now take for granted possible. When Chris Campbell wrote with scorn of those not recognizing the names he spoke of, I felt ashamed as I did not know half or more, and yet still considered myself computer-knowledgeable. That is precisely why this history section is such an awesome idea. No one can truly be learned in a field, especially computer science, unless he (or she ;) knows the history of the gods upon whose shoulders he is standing (to use a bad cliche). I found this first article awesome, and can't wait for the next one. Thanks! Rob

.Net is a .joke

Dave P. - Wednesday October 17, 2001 08:24 PM: How can Microsoft expect anyone to want to trust their security in .Net with security like this?

.Net

Seth - Wednesday October 17, 2001 05:41 PM: Or maybe it just means you will be left without a safety .Net!!!

a brilliant article

anonymous - Wednesday October 17, 2001 03:24 PM: Very good. i would like to see 20 more of these. appreciation.

History of Computing ...

Robert G. Werner - Wednesday October 17, 2001 02:40 PM: I really enjoyed your article on Computing History about Charles Babage. Please continue. Please do an artcile on Lady Lovelace too.
A question: didn't the Smithsonian build an Analytical engine in the last year or so? It seems that they also built a version of Babage's printer.

COMPUTER HISTORY

L.C.MATHISON - Wednesday October 17, 2001 01:49 PM: Not only is the history of the software interesting, it would be also very interesting if you could show some detail (can't you make this word wrap?) of hardware, such as (for memory) relay implementation, vacuum tubes, discrete transistor implementations, cordwood modules, bubble memory, ccd memory (a few devices were produced between 16k and 64k), plated wire memory, core memory. Mass storage devices (paper, disc, tape, cards). Power supplies, Linear, Ferro-resonant (IBM used some in mainframes), switching, energy control (auto shutdown). And the list goes on and on. You will very likely need to enlist the inputs and write-ups from a lot of people. Keep it up! LM

a few missing things...

Dave Cortesi - Wednesday October 17, 2001 01:47 PM: Your overview of Babbage's career is not bad, but I note two shortcomings. First, the idea of using punched cards to program a machine was NOT original to Babbage; he took it from the Jacquard Loom, a card-programmed weaving machine then used in France. Card programming was to have been a feature of the Analytical Engine, whose design was never completed. The Difference Engine was set up by manually turning dials. Second, you do your readers a disservice by omitting any references! If someone wants to follow up and get more detail on the life of this fabulous character -- he did many other things -- one possible source is "The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer" ($18 at Amazon) which is of special interest being written by the man who led the recent project that actually built a complete Difference Engine to Babbage's specs and ran it. A number of other biographies are out of print; do a search at www.bookfinders.com with title words "charles babbage" (or go to a brick-and-mortar library?) Dave Cortesi

References

Joshua Daniel Franklin - Wednesday October 17, 2001 01:23 PM: As someone interested in the History of Computing, what I really miss from this article is references to where the information came from. A short list of links/books/magazine articles at the end would be minimal, inline refs or hyperlinks would be better.

Nice Kick Off

Troy Holaday - Wednesday October 17, 2001 12:17 PM: Thanks for Genesis. Who/what will be the subject of Leviticus et al? Seriously, this is a nice bite-sized bit of history for people who want to be generally educated, but are not focused enough to go do the research. There is just enough in the article to spark interest, but not so much that it discourages the reader from investigating some of the leads farther.
As a 33 year old, whose father "fell" into a computer-intensive career (in the 1960's) after quitting college and spending some time slaving as a draftsman, I have a nice sort of nostalgia about things like punch cards, pc's that weren't 'point-and-clicky', video games that smelled like burning plastic when you played them too long, etc. To paraphrase an old, recurring SNL skit, "Computers have been very very good . . . to me."
My point is, I worry (as do all 33-year olds who become old farts before their time) about a generation that will take the current state of 'X' for granted (in this case X=computers). It never hurts to revisit the days when high tech was low tech and computations were crank started.

Very Well written and thought out...

Chuck - Wednesday October 17, 2001 10:44 AM: I applaud your efforts to teach "us" young ones to the very basics in computing history. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. On a side note, some constructive criticism : Would it be possible to add in some Pictures of Babbage's machines/notes/lecture items ? These would greatly enhance the work that you have made. Thank you for your efforts :) -Chuck (bIOHZRd)

Great Article

Aaron - Wednesday October 17, 2001 10:42 AM: I had heard of the difference engine before, and knew that the same person was the person that thought up the punch card concept. This definately helped fill in the blanks in that regard. I finally know why "The Plague" from the movie Hackers uses the name "Mr. Babbage" when he is escaping on the plane. Thanks for a great article! I look forward to the ones to come.

Babbage

Kevin Dahlhausen - Wednesday October 17, 2001 10:33 AM: Thanks for a wondeful article. Now, to go and read the Difference Engine....

Commercial Firewalls fro NT?

Rob Bilger - Sunday October 07, 2001 08:51 AM: Love the site. I'm looking for commercial reviews of Firewalls for Windows NT. I don't see any on the site. Do you have any or can you send me on the direction to a review site with firewalls? Thanks, Rob

Basic Network article?

Scott - Wednesday October 03, 2001 05:58 PM: Can you do a article on making a home network? I am what I guess you would call a linux newbe and I want to learn how to do a network.

Re:Why Bruce?

Chris Campbell - Wednesday October 03, 2001 05:53 PM: We just felt like putting him there. We'll continue to throw random images up when we feel like it. - If you want to submit an appropriate image, we'd be glad to post it. ~Chris

Why Bruce?

Anonymous - Saturday September 22, 2001 04:03 PM: Changes look good but why is bruce there?

Routing in Win 2 k?

Jason Helmig - Thursday August 23, 2001 09:33 PM: You covered firewalling in the latest article, but didn't specify anything about Win 2 k. How is routing in Win 2k? It was always a pain in NT because you could only have 1 gateway How about an article about routing in Win 2 k?

no name - Tuesday November 30, 1999 12:00 AM

no name - Tuesday November 30, 1999 12:00 AM

Power Commands: Not Breaking The Handle

Shawn L Reed - Tuesday November 30, 1999 12:00 AM: Emmett\'s article on overcoming the oversized log files was just what was needed, and I\'ll also follow his advice and go back to drinkin\' :-)

phpAdsNew Tutorial

jason - Tuesday November 30, 1999 12:00 AM: Turn your website into a \"cash-cow\" with this great tutorial from linuxhelpnetwork.net titled Easily install and configure phpAdsNew. A short read but they make the installation and configuration process a breeze by walking your through step by step.

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