Vagrant and Ansible are tools to efficiently provision virtual machines, also called VMs, or in Vagrant terms, the word "boxes" is often used. We begin with a short discussion…
If you look at the evolution of the IT landscape over the past 30 years, you see two distinct trends: the continued growth of the IT dinosaurs (mainframe computing and…
Open Source Careers A collection of articles about jobs and careers in open source. I have been working in the computer business for over 40 years, but the best years have…
Like many, I was surprised-but-not-really when Pamela Jones announced that she would be retiring original content on the legal analysis site that grew to fame within and…
Last week, my friend Greg DeKoenigsberg posted an article about Jaron Lanier's negative comments regarding open textbooks. At almost very same time, I happened to stumble upon…
Here's a trick question for you: Which of the following are files? Directories Shell scripts LibreOffice documents Serial ports Kernel data structures Kernel tuning parameters…
Linux and Unix systems have long made it pretty easy to run a command on boot. Just add your command to /etc/rc.local and away you go. But as it turns out, running a command…
Without solid storage, the data of the cloud lives only in the moment. Within OpenStack, storage comes in two flavors: object storage, which stores chunks of information, and…
Object storage with OpenStack Swift gained an important feature in yesterday's 2.0 release with the addition of storage policies. John Dickinson, Swift Program Technical Lead…
ownCloud is a self-hosted open source file sync and share server. Like "big boys" Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and others, ownCloud lets you access your files, calendar…
Recently, a client of mine asked me if I had any experience in how to optimize how they send swag out to people. The scenario was a common one: the company made T-shirts…
Human beings are inherently playful creatures. From birth, play has an important function in our lives—from skills acquisition, to competition and beyond. We continue this…