You'll do well to read the AdSense for Feeds Terms of Service pretty darn closely. I did, and I sure didn't like what I read therein, as I explain on my own weblog, whose RSS feed doesn't include any advertising.
Just a quick note to say "Thanks" Kevin for your fair and unbiased review, and for the rest of you slashdotters to check out the sample chapter from the book on the O'Reilly site before you conclude that the man pages (which are quite typically incomprehensible, as they've been for years and years) are sufficient for folks to get up to speed on the command line.
Curious about other writing I've done? There's some useful free info online at 404 error page, particularly for Apache admins, and another book that slashdotters will appreciate is my Wicked Cool Shell Scripts. And, yes, Virginia, the latter includes specific scripts for Mac OS X too.
so email me and let's talk about this. I'm interested because, among other things, I'm tech editing the next edition of Linux for Dummies, as it happens. You can get to me through my contact page on my Web site.
I dunno about that: the "for dummies" concept is one that I rebelled against for a long time until it dawned on me that it's not an insult to the reader, but a description of the approach taken. Contrast it with "for the complete expert", which would clearly be a different book (and series) entirely!
As the review says, Solaris 9 for Dummies is most definitely NOT a book about system administration (though it includes some basic sysadmin stuff) and it's also NOT the same book as John & Margy's Unix for Dummies. Solaris 9 for Dummies has considerable coverage of both the Common Desktop Environment and GNOME: it's the first Solaris book I know of that covers both the old and new school of GUI interfaces.
In addition, as a Unix and Linux book author too, I can tell you that Solaris is, um, a different beast, so it is most definitely useful to have a book focused specifically on the Solaris environment for neophytes and people seeking to get a quick head start on their Solaris knowledge.
Finally, another topic that's covered in some level of detail but isn't mentioned in the review is Open Office (aka Star Office): rather than focus on the sysadmin-y sort of things and have lots of geeky command line stuff, Solaris 9 for Dummies is just as much about the GUI and how to be a productive USER of Solaris: competing titles are all about how to be an admin, but there are plenty of Solaris folk who aren't admins, don't want to learn how to administer their system, and just want to be productive.
Learn more and read a sample chapter to see what's what:
I teach courses for the University of Phoenix Online (Web and Unix stuff, so far), and wouldn't consider myself too far behind the times, technologically. But I agree that the logistics of delivering meaningful courseware and a valuable educational experience for a widely varied audience can be difficult.
Hi slashdotters. Just a quick note that those of you who are asking "is this book really sufficient for you to become an expert sysadmin": the answer is, of course, no. I'll quote the introduction:
What This Book Isn't
I'd like to state my intent with this book up front, while you're still browsing in the bookstore: This book is not intended to be the only system administration material you ever study. Indeed, this book grew out of a course I have taught, an introduction to Unix system administration. The reason for this distinction is because there are a number of very good reference works on administration (that typically run 800-1,100 pages) that offer a cookbook approach of "if this is wrong, do this to fix it." That's very helpful, and I have these titles on my reference shelf, but they don't teach you how to approach, diagnose, and solve problems the Unix way. That's a major goal for this book.
When you finish exploring this book, you will know how to think like a good system administrator, regardless of what variation of Unix you encounter. You'll learn how to hypothesize about problems, dig through man pages and configuration files, postulate solutions, then test and verify that they've worked. And have fun in the process too!
In the same vein, this book isn't 1,001 ways to fine-tune your Unix installation. In fact, we're going to gloss over the question of installation, because for most users the system is either already installed (like Mac OS X or Solaris), or has very good installation and configuration documentation. (Red Hat and Mandrake Linux distributions are standouts in this regard.)
I hope that clarifies things. Other questions? Send me email, or, of course, post them here at off-topic chaos central, um,/.
Don't get me wrong--it's an excellent book. But in the past year or so, I've already outgrown it's content.
Right, but that surely is a mark of success with a Learning title? As the lead author, I look at it this way: I want to prepare the reader for their future journeys into Unix. Jerry and I did our best to ensure that we explain potentially foreign Unix concepts clearly, enlighten readers on the philosophy of command lines, flags, pipes, redirection, and other weird Unixisms that are a long way from Mac OS 9 / Windows interaction, and generally push everyone in the right direction so that they (you) can learn more and shed the book!
I'm quite delighted to read your comment, Spencerian, actually. I wish that all my readers came back a year later and said "thanks for getting me started. I don't need your book any more!":-)
You definitely do not have to do any such thing; you can work happily in Aqua and never even know about the Unix "lurking" underneath. However, when you start having to download freeware apps to do things like a simple file renaming that can be accomplished in a three-line shell script, you might just wonder about what kind of capabilities there are "under the hood" in this new operating system world.
And then there are the Unix people who never got into kernel hacking or the GNU-patch-of-the-day club, but are still excited about having a beautiful GUI and all those greate Mac applications and a powerful Unix underneath....
For me, OSX is terrific because I can work for days without using the command line, and when I feel the urge, I can launch Terminal.app and program, write shell scripts, ftp/curl new apps, fly through editing tasks with vi, and generally cause mayhem to my heart's content. I think Mac OS X is a phenomenally cool melding of my two favorite computing environments!
Just as an example, I find sftp the fastest way for me to interact with my secure server, even more so than RBrowser (etc). Sure beats the pants off Netzilla and my weekly puzzling over why it (Windows XP) can't seem to handle a simple ssh connection. But that's another story!
It wouldn't be a bad idea if those people who've read the book and have ideas about what should be added to the next edition (focused on 10.2 and, um, perhaps beyond) sent me a note about it!: taylor at intuitive dot com
Pardon my vent, but give me a break, anon. Even the best techies, hackers, what-have-you started out somewhere, and that somewhere was probably with zero knowledge. I can remember the first time I saw a Unix command line (late 1980, at UCSD) and thought "WTF?" Then the first time I used a Mac (1985, while doing some contract programming for The Well) when I scoffed and said "right, can I have a real computer to work with, please?"
I am baffled by this sort of mindless macho agressive attitude. Hey, it's totally okay not to know something. Look at it this way: at least the people reading the Teach Yourself and Dummies books are learning, and isn't that better than either thrashing (typical hacker way to learn things!) or bailing and saying it's stupid?
On the other hand, it must be very cool to be omniscient, so you know what you want to know, and have no reason to learn anything new. Hmmm...:-)
Very good! A dogcow would have been great, but I surmise that there just isn't a good woodcut in the graphics library that they use at O'Reilly.:-)
By the way, I have to say that authors are definitely NOT allowed to know about the animal that'll be on their cover until publication. It's quite a mystery, and I felt lucky to have a relatively normal critter rather than something, uh, weird or peculiar.
You're right. Golias - the point of this book wasn't to have an exhaustive document about Unix or Darwin (there are man pages and some great Web sites with that information) but to address the market of people who migrated to Mac OS X (perhaps from OS9, perhaps from Windows) and suddenly had this nifty new capability of the Terminal.app and the shell. If the reader wants a more comprehensive book for learning Unix, well, of course, there are a variety of O'Reilly titles, and there's always my Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours, which, contrary to some mindless slams earlier in this discussion, is actually a very pleasant way to go from embarassed newbie to Smart Person Who Gets This Stuff. If I say so myself.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Check it out: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/google_has_adsense_fo r_rss_any_risks.html
Clueless Sun complains IBM isn't porting apps to Solaris 10
Quick summary: Sun should pay IBM to port the apps or adopt Linux wholeheartedly rather than further splinter the Unix marketplace.
Curious about other writing I've done? There's some useful free info online at 404 error page, particularly for Apache admins, and another book that slashdotters will appreciate is my Wicked Cool Shell Scripts. And, yes, Virginia, the latter includes specific scripts for Mac OS X too.
so email me and let's talk about this. I'm interested because, among other things, I'm tech editing the next edition of Linux for Dummies, as it happens. You can get to me through my contact page on my Web site.
As the review says, Solaris 9 for Dummies is most definitely NOT a book about system administration (though it includes some basic sysadmin stuff) and it's also NOT the same book as John & Margy's Unix for Dummies. Solaris 9 for Dummies has considerable coverage of both the Common Desktop Environment and GNOME: it's the first Solaris book I know of that covers both the old and new school of GUI interfaces.
In addition, as a Unix and Linux book author too, I can tell you that Solaris is, um, a different beast, so it is most definitely useful to have a book focused specifically on the Solaris environment for neophytes and people seeking to get a quick head start on their Solaris knowledge.
Finally, another topic that's covered in some level of detail but isn't mentioned in the review is Open Office (aka Star Office): rather than focus on the sysadmin-y sort of things and have lots of geeky command line stuff, Solaris 9 for Dummies is just as much about the GUI and how to be a productive USER of Solaris: competing titles are all about how to be an admin, but there are plenty of Solaris folk who aren't admins, don't want to learn how to administer their system, and just want to be productive.
Learn more and read a sample chapter to see what's what:
I talk about some of these subjects from the instructor side on my own weblog, The Intuitive Life, in particular you might want to check out I thought students had lots of opinions? and Lazy students, a rant, both of which address the same basic question of student interaction.
If anyone has further questions that I can answer, please feel free to drop me a note!
Right, but that surely is a mark of success with a Learning title? As the lead author, I look at it this way: I want to prepare the reader for their future journeys into Unix. Jerry and I did our best to ensure that we explain potentially foreign Unix concepts clearly, enlighten readers on the philosophy of command lines, flags, pipes, redirection, and other weird Unixisms that are a long way from Mac OS 9 / Windows interaction, and generally push everyone in the right direction so that they (you) can learn more and shed the book!
I'm quite delighted to read your comment, Spencerian, actually. I wish that all my readers came back a year later and said "thanks for getting me started. I don't need your book any more!" :-)
You definitely do not have to do any such thing; you can work happily in Aqua and never even know about the Unix "lurking" underneath. However, when you start having to download freeware apps to do things like a simple file renaming that can be accomplished in a three-line shell script, you might just wonder about what kind of capabilities there are "under the hood" in this new operating system world.
And then there are the Unix people who never got into kernel hacking or the GNU-patch-of-the-day club, but are still excited about having a beautiful GUI and all those greate Mac applications and a powerful Unix underneath....
For me, OSX is terrific because I can work for days without using the command line, and when I feel the urge, I can launch Terminal.app and program, write shell scripts, ftp/curl new apps, fly through editing tasks with vi, and generally cause mayhem to my heart's content. I think Mac OS X is a phenomenally cool melding of my two favorite computing environments!
Just as an example, I find sftp the fastest way for me to interact with my secure server, even more so than RBrowser (etc). Sure beats the pants off Netzilla and my weekly puzzling over why it (Windows XP) can't seem to handle a simple ssh connection. But that's another story!
It wouldn't be a bad idea if those people who've read the book and have ideas about what should be added to the next edition (focused on 10.2 and, um, perhaps beyond) sent me a note about it!: taylor at intuitive dot com
I am baffled by this sort of mindless macho agressive attitude. Hey, it's totally okay not to know something. Look at it this way: at least the people reading the Teach Yourself and Dummies books are learning, and isn't that better than either thrashing (typical hacker way to learn things!) or bailing and saying it's stupid?
On the other hand, it must be very cool to be omniscient, so you know what you want to know, and have no reason to learn anything new. Hmmm... :-)
By the way, I have to say that authors are definitely NOT allowed to know about the animal that'll be on their cover until publication. It's quite a mystery, and I felt lucky to have a relatively normal critter rather than something, uh, weird or peculiar.
You're right. Golias - the point of this book wasn't to have an exhaustive document about Unix or Darwin (there are man pages and some great Web sites with that information) but to address the market of people who migrated to Mac OS X (perhaps from OS9, perhaps from Windows) and suddenly had this nifty new capability of the Terminal.app and the shell. If the reader wants a more comprehensive book for learning Unix, well, of course, there are a variety of O'Reilly titles, and there's always my Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours, which, contrary to some mindless slams earlier in this discussion, is actually a very pleasant way to go from embarassed newbie to Smart Person Who Gets This Stuff. If I say so myself. :-)