A hard headed lesson learned

Man, you all know how to write a script. I’m seeing a lot of interesting, useful and just plain fun scripts for the upcoming series on shell scripting. Remember that this series will be written by users. Don’t hesitate to submit you favorite, most esoteric, most useful script for publication the week of February 4.

I’m glad that I occasionally learn a hard-headed lesson from my own mistakes. With the return of the laptop to Torus this week, I realized I’d need to re-configure my desktop as a dual-boot system. My wife just doesn’t like Linux, you know. Having learned from the catastrophic crash of a month or so ago, I’ve been backing up my files with an attitude that can only be described as zealous. And, it really paid off. I was able to re-install RedHat and return the system to its formerly tweaked state within an hour. Need I say more about the importance of backups? Alright - be sure to read the GnomeCORE section in today’s Penguin Shell for some useful commands for creating exactly these types of incremental backups. Just when you think it may never pay off to back up, it does.

Several of you wrote wondering about the “former employer” comments in the previous Penguin Shell. just so you know, I have, indeed, left the telescope company for purely economic reasons. I’m going to stay on with them as a contractor, doing work on a project-by-project basis. That allows me some time to focus hard on my own company, as well. Thanks to those of you who sent me information on potential positions with your own companies. I’m looking through them all and will be following up this week. The departure was, by the way, and amicable one. They’re still doing important and interesting work. I hope to be able to continue to contribute.

Finally, a quick update. I did, in fact, hear from Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows. Unfortunately, he asked that his comments not be published. I’ll respect that request. I will say, however, that my position on Lindows remains unchanged by those comments. By the looks of this article and others I’ve seen, it looks like my opinion is not unique.

Tony
Steidler-Dennison