my animals and other friends
On the weekend I committed quite a bit of material for my book (my publisher and I use a subversion repository for communication). We're about half way through with the first review (there will be at least one more), and I feel pretty good about it.
[Thanks, Nic]
My editor warned me that I'd get a heart attack when I saw the results of the first "pass", and I admit I almost did. My beautiful text, lovingly written, now smeared in red ink:
I got over the attack rather quickly, mainly because not all pages looked like the one above; most changes involved moving bits of text up or down, and the result of the editing is a much better text. I think I'm beginning to understand the value of (and the difficulty involved in) editing. As such I am tremendously pleased to have such a good editor.
When the iterative editing phase completes, the book will be read by a copy editor. I don't know her personally, but I'm sure she'll have some say as well… 
Irrespective of whether my content is good or not, there is one thing I'll be sure of: the result will not be like this.
Photo: Franck Olivas
Our friends at Symas are great. They have generously set up a Web site for readers of my upcoming book, where readers will be able to download a working package of Symas OpenLDAP (the product formerly known as Connexitor Directory Services.)
Readers who want to set up one of the DNS servers with an LDAP back-end, will be able to do so with the least possible bit of hassle and concentrate on getting their DNS server working.
Very much appreciated, guys!
Being faced with the task of thinking carefully about whether or not to deploy thin clients on a customer network, I read Linux Thin Client Networks by David Richards (Packt). The book is thin, in both respects of the word; on 150 pages, the author splashes us with product names, program names, and protocol names, in a "strange" order. But, first things first.
A short overview of thin clients and their types is followed by a cost analysis and a chapter called "The People Issues", in which the author attempts to show me how to set up an initial meeting to discuss implementation of thin clients. In "Implementing the Server", we learn on a few pages about the server portion of thin clients. In the shortest section on Authentication Methods I've ever seen in a book, Richards writes: "The simplest method is to just use passwords found on the server itself". Oh.
Next comes an utterly useless chapter called "Implementing the User Software", where Richards discusses a few programs (with page-filling screenshots) which work on thin clients. Wow. In the same chapter is a discussion of MySQL and other databases, but I failed to find the connection to Thin Clients.
The book's index is lacking: I looked up "VNC" (which is mentioned in the book) and it isn't listed. XDMCP is. Apropos XDMCP: as with most of the other topics, its technology isn't explained. What is explained is how you set up your own graphical login screen…
This is a book you will want to give your manager for his birthday to impress him (he won't read it anyway). Unless you are very experienced in Unix/Linux services and networking, this book will not teach you a "step-by-step implementation of your thin client network".
IKEA plans to sell cars, albeit to experienced customers only:
All the required tools are included in the package:
Thanks, Nic.
