About a year ago, I was left with the unenviable position of having to replace myself. Apparently, college jobs really can’t be held after graduation… Unfortunately for (I think) me, all of the potential replacements had little to no Unix knowledge. This meant that I was forced to train whomever was hired. Seems easy enough, right?

I like many Unix people my age am self taught; I never had any “formal” introduction to the operating system. Without an effective framework that was taught to me, I had no real strong concept of how to teach someone else. What I found was a method that helped force the student to really work to understand underlying concepts.

My system does have a few requirements for the student:

1. He must have a strong understanding of a basic computing concepts
2. He must be comfortable with internet resources (Google and such)
3. He must have a free computer in which to work

If those requirements are met, feel free to use my system to help teach Unix concepts. Also, these exercises should take about a week to complete.

There is only a handful of rules:

1. The student can use any resource outside of the work environment but none within the work environment.
2. The student must document in a plain text file exactly how he or she completed the task

Caveat: Please do not exclusively use these exercises to teach. The student must be able to ask questions outside of the scope of the exercise.

Exercise 1
Installing Linux
For my training system, I chose to install Gentoo. I do this so that the student is exposed to the internals for the start of training. Plus, this way, the student can not use X11 at the start. Can you imagine a later project? This should probably take more than one day, but I feel that it is a good start in teaching Linux.

Exercise 2
Turn on SSH and create user accounts
At this point, a normal user account should be created for both the instructor and student. Both users should have the ability to use “su”. Also, ssh should be turned on and work as advertised.

Exercise 3
Create a Message of the Day Without Using a Text Editor
This exercise forces the student to learn basic Linux (and System V) file system organization and basic text file manipulation available within the OS itself.

Exercise 4
Kill a Runaway Process
In order to test this, you need a script or application that has an infinite loop flaw. The instructor needs to run aforementioned script on the students machine and (depending on load), either tell the student look for a program that is taking over the system processes or give the name of the looping program. Below is an example I have made that should bump usage way up (however it will be under sh and not the name of your script; again I leave it to you):

#!/bin/sh
COUNTER=0
while true;
do
let COUNTER++
done

Exercise 5
Fix Problems in User Configurations
This exercise is the most work for the instructor to date, but shows the student how to perform simple administrative tasks and shows how profile information is stored. Change the user profile for the student in two ways:

1. Change the student’s password.
2. Change the default shell to something non-existant

Next time, intermediate concepts include software installs and configurations.

Your Own Personal Internet (wired blogs)

I sually avoid politics on this blog (part of the reason why I have not yet stepped into the whole netneutrality nonsense), but I have a few excerpts from Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) that I would like to address so bear with me.

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

So, because you, Sen. Stevens, do not consider your job commercial, those with jobs that would follow such a consideration cannot use the internet?  Regardless of the elitism that you so quickly espouse, there are other problems with your argument here:

1. Unless the United States Government is using phone lines to route governement traffic, I can personally assure you as an IT professional that your email wasn’t delayed due to being “tangled up,” but due to poor management by your System Administrator.  For once, you can blame IT.
2. Also, unless you never visit eBay, Amazon, Fox News, or any other non-government web site, you are actually using the “commercial web.” How would you feel if you had access only to Cox Communications Bidding and couldn’t from those on Verizon Bidding?

And some more…

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can’t afford getting delayed by other people.

Amazingly enough, the tubes isn’t that far off, but let’s simplify the metaphor even further.  The internet is a network of roads.  This metaphor allows me to really explain it fairly well.  Your ISP is, say your automobile manufacturer. 

So, let’s say that you drive a Ford and want to meet me at a McDonalds off of 95.  McDonalds is owned by Ford’s parent company (sounds odd, but this is common with media companies), so you have no problem driving there.

Now, I happen to own a Chevy and their parent company also owns Burger King.  The parent company wants me to eat at Burger King, so they make it so that I can’t drive on 95 to McDonalds.  They make me drive the backroads with express cut offs every mile to Burger Kings.  If they are nice, I will get to McDonalds at some point, but it will take me a whole lot longer than you, with much more work.

The internet is a commercial net and an individual net.  It is a wonderful tool, allowing for people to communicate without regard to borders, race, age, or anything that would divide us elsewhere.  Limiting access is an act of tyranny, pure and simple.  We call it that readily when it is a government that would do such a thing, such as the Great Firewall of China.  Why is it any different for corporations?

I suspect that I have had a career change, or at the very least a career refocusing. I’ve come to this conclusion quite suddenly, although it could have something to do with the complete lack of sleep I have had as of late. I have been a web developer in one form or another for quite some time. I suppose the change began during my senior year in college.

It started with my thesis for my Writing minor, “Conversations: Social Computing and Collaboration in Online Writing Labs.” All of a sudden, I was pulling Web 2.0 (of course, before the term was created and trademarked) content into an academic environment. My professor was rather impressed and I had no problem getting a nice strong grade in the class. I thought that was the end of my social computing forays, but I was wrong.

Aside from this site, which is in its third incarnation, I have had a number of blogs (some before the name was common) beginning in ‘99. Again, having a personal presence on the internet has been something I’ve been proud of (despite a strong desire to change some of my early opinions), but I always kept that stuff out of my professional work.

My web development work has an interesting subtext; I left the field just when table-based design was beginning to catch on and returned as standards-based design was taking off. My return to the industry had me reading Zeldman, Hicks, and others. They also had blogs, so I learned that this personal soapbox of mine could be used for more professional ends (it took me awhile to figure out a strong implementation - hence, 3rd incarnation). It still didn’t make it into my work, but some concepts started creeping in.

I created the building manager log where I worked. It was a blog without many features, but pretty much had all the standard features (minus commenting). Today, I went back to help after the webserver had crashed. The database would need to be rebuilt and a couple of files were not in any production-level shape. We installed WordPress. It’s a bit much, but it does what is needed.

This is a situation I have found myself in time and again as of late. A problem is presented, and I modify WP to fit the need. At my current job, I built a WP-powered internal CMS just a couple of weeks ago. Thinking on all of this has led me to one question: did I accidentally become a Blog Designer/Developer?

On the project I am currently working on, I have a specific singular instance where I have one page on my CMS that needs to push content into a sidebar. Unfortunately, I am only able to directly affect the main content div, so a dirty solution was needed.

At first, I simply tried to add the content into the sidebar, a beginner mistake I know.  That worked, but left an unwieldy space within the main content div. So, I needed to try something else.

Next, I floated the material to the right. I knew that this plan had some flaws, but I wanted to see if it would work, as the sidebar itself is empty within these pages. That worked pretty much exactly as planned, so I needed to tweak it. I figured out the width of the content I needed within the sidebar and created a negative margin matching that. I tested my solution in Safari and Firefox. Everything worked. I took a break. Changing display to block didn’t make any difference.
I came back and tested in IE. It was as if the material never existed in the first place. Now, I’ve given up on pushing the content outside the main div. So, once again, thank you IE very much for making my life exciting once again.

In a democracy, if a significant minority, not even a majority of the population does something, then it is immoral to legislate against it. If that something is theft, then perhaps instead of legislating a significant minority into felons, a better system should be implemented.

The internet is interesting due in no small part to the international communications it enables. For example, I know that I have readers from all over the world (including places that if you had asked me, I would have said they didn’t even have electricity let alone internet access). I and many others like me believe that this cross-cultural discussion battles ignorance and xenophobia.

If during discussions (active or otherwise), a television show or music artist is mentioned or recommended, I want to experience what is being spoken of. While the United States is probably the single biggest producer of media content, we are far from the only producer of such content. In fact, an unfortunate side effect of our massive production is that there is a great degree of inertia regarding other counry’s content, an issue most apparent in television.

It is through the internet that I discovered a number of clever foreign television programs: The I.T. Crowd from the UK and ReGenesis from Canada. Out of desire to view these wonderful programs, I was forced into using a now siezed bittorrent tracker site, known as ThePirateBay. I tried to find other avenues in both cases, but there weren’t even DVDs sold in the native countries (although I would be breaking other laws by viewing those DVDs).

It’s not that I want to deprive the actors, producers, and crews of these television shows. It is that I wanted to experience exactly what they had to offer and bask in the experience. I enjoy movies, TV, and music. I spend a great deal of money on all three (about half of my income). It is not that I begrudge them really anything, except that I do find myself thinking about the repercussions of my purchases more and more. Can I ethically support and finance organizations that work to remove
and hamper my cross-cultural experiences.

I have purchased all of the software I use (that can be purchased). I have spent (as of this publishing) over $40 on media this week. And, yes, I am a pirate. But, to be fair, I was forced into the position.

First, there was the browser, and it was good. Then the browser got old, and something more was needed. People came up with a way to create easily, and it was good. Now, many create, yet not many navigate. Web 2.0 has difficulties scaling.

The concept of a portal page is very Web 1.0. A portal points (for the most part) to content that someone else has deemed important. At best, you have given the portal a list of things you like and dislike, and the portal tailors the options based on that. It’s not enough.

The portal personalization solution currently used focuses on metadata. It simplifies what you, the reader, wants down to a simple list. A list that you (generally) actively create. This same option is used in more Web 2.0 applications as well. When you read this, you will notice that I have placed this article in a collection of categories (or tags). I have assigned metadata to this entry for the simple fact that this metadata enables others to more easily reach my data.

I could wax on about metadata for quite some time, but the point has been made. People use it constantly, but they have to make it. Why? If I am writing a blog entry, why should I need to provide an “abstract” of what content exists in the entry? Because, the ways that people find my site are directly based upon that metadata. We live in a metadata age.

Metadata isn’t going anywhere for quite some time. I’m going to be so bold as to say that until metadata isn’t the primary way that people find and use content on the internet, it will still be the age of Web 2.0, regardless of what the actual label used is.

Web 3.0 is going to be immersive, not immersive like a 3-D environment is (that would be, at least at this point, unusable), but like a good conversation witha friend is. Web 3.0 will have the conversations of Web 2.0, but it will approach these conversations differently. Web 3.0 will be focused on data.

The actual content of this entry is important, otherwise I would simply have an entry that said, “I am currently thinking about Web 3.0, data, and metadata.” The comments would be metadata too. So, instead of “You are an idiot,” we would get “personal_comment.” What I am describing is unfair; labeling systems have been around almost as long as the written word. They aren’t going anywhere.

What I am saying is that the metadata should be almost invisible. An outside source should look at this entry (and not realize that it is barely coherent drivel) and determine what the article is about. It should see a reader that spends an inordinate amount of time looking at “big picture” discussions of metadata and data and recommend that the reader look at this entry. The reader shouldn’t have to say tthat he or she has an interest in metadata vs. data.

I suspect that something along the lines of what I am suggesting would not be a web application itself, but a modification of the browser. The browser should “learn” what a user likes (although it must have an “ignore this site” option somewhere) and present other sites that the user would find interesting without any intervention.

One web site ha sthe groundwork fairly done for the true “data” system, Google. If they were ever to come out with a Google Browse (and if they use that name, I want money or a job), I would expect it to work much like I’ve described.

I have done what I could. Not having a static page to actually present the material is a bit of a bummer, but I think the overall design should stand for itself. At this point, I have taken a look at the other entries (I had been avoiding it in order to keep my design “mine”), and I must say that some of them are truly impressive.

I hope the beeb views this whole experience as a success, because I have already seen a number of really creative entries. That said, I do feel that my design can hold its own. Regardless of the results, I do feel the experience was a nice creative outlet. I haven’t had the opportunity to stretch those muscles that much recently (except for here, but the content generally forces a fairly simple design).

Hope the other designers got as much enjoyment out of this as I did…

Oh yeah, you can take a look at my entry at http://bbc.billoday.net/.

And, from my entry:

My goal with this reboot was to incorporate two major features into a site that, simply due to its size is rather resistant to change. First, I wanted to include prototypical Web 2.0 content, which I feel I managed to do rather well with both the “From You” and the “My Places” panels. I also wanted to give a greater degree of customizability, which is evident both in the main page itself, as well as the within the “change this” page.

That said, my overriding goal was to implement these items while maintaining some degree of the “old bbc.co.uk.”  I think that anyone coming to this site would have little problem with making the adjustment, but would be able to take advantage of the new features.

Unfortunately, time has proven a bit of a problem in that I am submitting merely two images. I would much rather to present my design at least as a working static model of what could be done.  With an HTML design, I would be better able to implement a few other features that as of now will merely rest, never realized. An example of this would be barely increasing the text size of headings that large numbers of visitors click on, giving them precedence, much like the “glass” design has done.