I’ve found a great way to have fun with your linux server. First of all, install cowsay. If you use Ubuntu server or Debian, you can use apt-get install it:

sudo apt-get install cowsay

Now, you have to wait for another user to connect to the server via ssh. You can use the who command to see who is logged in. With two open terminals on my Ubuntu box, who‘s output looks something like this.

tudor@thor:~$ who
tudor    tty7         2009-06-17 20:31 (:0)
tudor    pts/0        2009-06-17 20:36 (:0.0)
tudor    pts/2        2009-06-17 22:21 (:0.0)

Let’s assume that the victim is the one using the first terminal, pts/0. Now, all you have to do is punch the following like in your terminal:

cowsay -f tux "I see you" > /dev/pts/0

…and his terminal will look like this:

Doesn’t this make you feel better about yourself?

Later edit: the party continues here!

This is an older pic from another – now abandoned – blog of mine, about statistics made at a linux symposium.
The sad truth:

via TechCrunch.

In this post I’m going to review the XK0-002: Linux + PrepKit from uCertify. Since I haven’t taken the real exam yet – but I intend to in the following months – I’ve evaluated the kit from the candidate’s perspective. Hopefully, in May or June, I will post a follow up and evaluate the kit’s performance from the point of view of a CompTIA Linux + certified engineer

Also note that the kit is not meant to teach you how to use Linux or to prepare you for a sysadmin job. Its stated goal is to prepare you for the CompTIA Exam, nothing more, nothing less. If you want to learn the inner workings of *nix operating systems, this kit isn’t for you, but if you already know how to use linux and want to get the ComTIA certification to prove your skills then using this kit to get acquainted with the exam’s requirements and methodology is a fairly good idea. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve said before, we’re living in exponential times. The motto of our lives will be “learn, learn, learn” as new jobs appear all the time. For instance, SEO specialist – a job that pays quite well today – didn’t exist 6 years ago. And all these new jobs require new skills. Either adapt or fall behind. And in the current economical climate, it’s a very good idea to have those skills certified. Just in case…Usually employers get tons of resumes when they post a job and if you want to step in front of the crowd, your resume should say more than the usual “hard working, very motivated person” yatta-yatta. And some well known industry certification might just do the trick.

Even if I work in a very prosperous company and it’s unlikely that the recession will get to me (by the way, we’re hiring – so have a look at our openings on www.zitec.com), I’ve decided to spend some time and bucks on my education this year. I’ve taken the Zend Certified Engineer exam for PHP 5 in January and I want to continue with the Comptia Linux+ exam. Today, courtesy of uCertify, I’ve received this Comptia Linux+ preparation kit for review. I haven’t got the time to review it yet, but I know now what I’m doing this weekend

Stay tuned!

I’ve bought a new laptop several weeks ago. A HP Compaq 6820s. Top specs, 2 gigs of RAM. Since it’s manly for home use, I tried to put Windows XP on it, thinking it would be a piece of cake. And it was, until Windows booted for the first time. And then hell broke loose. Microsoft’s OS needed drivers for most of the components. And getting those drivers from the HP’s site wasn’t as easy as one might imagine because HP’s designers never heard of Jakob Nielsen‘s teachings.

After about half an hour of searching, swearing and downloading, I had all the drivers on the laptop’s hard drive. But wait, they weren’t tested in Microsoft’s labs and those lame warnings kept popping out. “Are you sure you want to install this driver?” Well, the decision was this: either install the untested drivers and risk system failure, or use my laptop without a wireless connection, without bluetooth, without a decent screen resolution and so on. And since I’ve paid a lot of money for those extra features, I’ve chose to ignore the warnings which proved to be another bad idea (the first bad idea was installing windows in the first place). My system stopped working. Nothing was being displayed to the screen (possibly because of the untested graphics card driver).

So I’ve decided to leave aside windows for now and give the new Ubuntu a try. I was amazed. It had drivers for all the hardware and it worked right out of box. Without any lame warnings, without any boring EULA’s and so on…

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex – it simply works