Monday, May 28, 2007

A Linux Success Story

I'm working on a marketing letter, and I'll be using one of my favorite success stories which is about Russ, owner of a small Internet service provider (ISP) providing web hosting, e-mail, and related services to his local community.

Once upon a time, I would listen to Russ complain of problems with his proprietary e-mail server, then I would suggest he let me set up a Linux server running open source software, and Russ would sigh, “Yeah, I really should...” but he could usually get his e-mail running again without too much help and everything would continue as before.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Managing Line Endings

Moments ago I was asked to help figure out why a simple bash script was producing a "Bad interpreter" error on a Linux box. After checking that the bash interpreter was indeed where the script believed it was, I deduced that the problem was none other than the invisible gremlin that has plagued electronic text for over thirty years: line endings.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Digital Photography with Linux

Argus During the summer of 1982, I borrowed a 35mm camera from my father and enrolled in a photography workshop; I took surprisingly decent photographs with that old Argus C3 and found that I very much enjoyed working in the darkroom as well. Still the oldest camera I own, the Argus has long been retired to my camera collection in favor newer models, most recently a Canon Digital Rebel XT. Today I am writing from the perspective of one fortunate enough to enjoy the intersection of two interests.