Hacking the IT Cube: The Information Technology Department Survival Guide Review

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(More customer reviews)I am really glad that there are books written by people of my industry that share their professional experiences in them. This book is indeed one of them. Out of the whole book, the only chapters that fascinated me were chapter 6 and chapter 7. It talks about IT politics and career options that have assured me that I am taking a right decision in terms of my career life. I would recommend this book based on its last two chapters to others.

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Hacking the Cube is a straightforward and sometimes comical look into the everyday world of information technology. It answers questions that many IT professionals and newcomers ask about the tools and skills needed to survive one of the most complex career fields in the world. Most computer books deal with configuring software and do little to help you learn what you need to know to work in a network office environment. Most people are rarely prepared for the social, political, or psychological aptitude needed to survive the office workplace. Most computer books are software proprietary and never tell you what types of programs you will really need to know.Many of the topics in this book are situations based on my experience and the experiences of other computer professionals that you would not typically have access to without actually having a job in an IT department.It also contains notes sent to me from well-established IT professionals about their experiences.This book is a mix of fact and story, humor and frustration. So, if you are new to the field of computers, Hacking the IT Cube is going to give you a unique insight that only experience can teach. On the other hand, if you are a seasoned veteran, you will laugh and cry at familiar situations that have sent you to a place of liquid intoxication.

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Absolute FreeBSD: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD, 2nd Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)Almost five years ago I reviewed Absolute BSD, Michael Lucas' first book on FreeBSD. I gave that book five stars, back when several other BSD books provided competition. On the eve of 2008, I am happy to say that Michael Lucas is probably the best system administration author I've read. I am amazed that he can communicate top-notch content with a sense of humor, while not offending the reader or sounding stupid. When was the last time you could physically feel yourself getting smarter while reading a book? If you are a beginning to average FreeBSD user, Absolute FreeBSD 2nd Ed (AF2E) will deliver that sensation in spades. Even more advanced users will find plenty to enjoy.
One of the best aspects of AF2E is that it is modern and covers FreeBSD 7.x. The previous edition covered 4.x, and plenty has changed since then. I've used FreeBSD regularly since 4.1.1 (Aug 2000), and AF2E taught me a lot about my favorite OS. Michael's coverage of GEOM, NanoBSD, FreeSBIE, journaling, memory file systems, filesystems in a file, and other topics really opened my eyes. Michael delivers excellent line-by-line explanations of system output, using numbered references to guide the reader.
Another major reason I love AF2E is that it is a good system administration book that covers plenty of FreeBSD nuances. Michael shares many of his experiences running FreeBSD in production, and I always believe he is teaching the reader what he or she needs to use FreeBSD to support customers. For example, I liked the hint on p 221 about disabling hard drive write caching (hw.ata.wc=0 in /boot/loader.conf). I also liked hearing about netstat -m to see kernel memory used for networking.
The book is also very lively for a system administration title. One of my favorite lines appears on p 135:
"Ethernet has many device-like characteristics, and it's simplest for FreeBSD to treat it as a device. Leave this [kernel option alone], unless you're looking for a learning opportunity."
So far AF2E has received all positive reviews, but I'm sure there's some deficiency another reader will report. In an ideal world I would have read more on FreeBSD binary updates, especially those involving minor releases (say 6.2 to 6.3) and major releases (say 6.2 to 7.0). Those developments are too recent to have appeared in the book, but they appear in 7.0 and will provide exceptional power for many users. I think enough completely FreeBSD-specific chapters (performance tuning, /etc, and others) are present that it's easy to say this is an awesome FreeBSD book.
If you want more coverage of Pf (and found AF2E's material lacking), just buy a copy of the new title The Book of PF: A No-Nonsense Guide to the OpenBSD Firewall by Peter Hansteen. If you want more detail on installing certain applications on FreeBSD, buy Building a Server with FreeBSD 7 by Bryan Hong. Kudos to No Starch for publishing AF2E and these other BSD titles.

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FreeBSD—the powerful, flexible, and free Unix-like operating system—is the preferred server for many enterprises. But it can be even trickier to use than either Unix or Linux, and harder still to master.

Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition is your complete guide to FreeBSD, written by FreeBSD committer Michael W. Lucas. Lucas considers this completely revised and rewritten second edition of his landmark work to be his best work ever; a true product of his love for FreeBSD and the support of the FreeBSD community. Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition covers installation, networking, security, network services, system performance, kernel tweaking, filesystems, SMP, upgrading, crash debugging, and much more, including coverage of how to:

Use advanced security features like packet filtering, virtual machines, and host-based intrusion detection
Build custom live FreeBSD CDs and bootable flash
Manage network services and filesystems
Use DNS and set up email, IMAP, web, and FTP services for both servers and clients
Monitor your system with performance-testing and troubleshooting tools
Run diskless systems
Manage schedulers, remap shared libraries, and optimize your system for your hardware and your workload
Build custom network appliances with embedded FreeBSD
Implement redundant disks, even without special hardware
Integrate FreeBSD-specific SNMP into your network management system.

Whether you're just getting started with FreeBSD or you've been using it for years, you'll find this book to be the definitive guide to FreeBSD that you've been waiting for.

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Zenoss Core 3.x Network and System Monitoring Review

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(More customer reviews)System monitoring is a hot topic if you are trying to deliver a stable environment for your users or clients. There are many options out there that are capable of letting administrators know when a system is down or at risk for example Solarwinds is one of the popular monitoring applications today. But there are some new names in the ring and this time they come from the open source community so there is a free version for all to use, this is Zenoss Core a robust community driven snmp application. I just finished reading the new technical book on the latest version of Zenoss Core put out by Packetpub to see how well it does to get you running your own Zenoss Core server.
To follow along with the book Zenoss offers a downloadable VMware appliance with the application already installed and it comes for Windows, Linux and OS X. I downloaded the OS X appliance so I could have a sandbox to play with while reading the book, I would highly recommend this so you are able to get used to the user interface.
If you are thinking about installing Zenoss or already using it, this book is a must have to bridge the gap in documentation. I found the book had all the information I needed to help get my environment up and running and it was easy to follow. There are also more advanced topics covered such as ZenPack add ons. ZenPacks are one of Zenoss's most exciting feature, they are community derived and shared through the Zenoss website. You will find thousands of ZenPacks which are completely customized to monitor very specific devices, a couple of examples would be apache web servers, asterisk voip servers, and pretty much any server-based application or device else you can think of. Users create a ZenPacks then upload to share with the community, this is a great use of the open source community to help us all make sure our servers have the highest uptime.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a snmp application since Zenoss Core is an open source application and has the best price tag of all, free. Before starting to look at expensive snmp systems do yourself a favor and read this book to see how well Zenoss does with monitoring servers.

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The book starts by covering installation and configuration, before moving on to administration and dashboard usage. It contains step-by-step instructions for setting up and using a working, capable Zenoss system. This book is written primarily for network and systems administrators who are monitoring their IT assets with Zenoss Core or who plan to monitor them. In reality, this book will benefit anyone, regardless of job title, who recognizes the importance of proactively monitoring the servers, routers, computers, websites, and devices that connect companies to customers.

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