Endorsements of Aleksey Tsalolikhin from his colleagues

To start the day off on a positive note, I decided to post my LinkedIn endorsements on my web site. Here are a few: “It was always a pleasure working with Aleksey at Earthlink. His dedication to projects, technical knowledge, and interpersonal skills are only a few of his many attributes.” (December 25, 2005) –…

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Things that rock: PXE Booting Acronis

I’m doing some work on fixing up our build and provisioning environment, and found the following blog post for booting Acronis via PXE: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/network-administrator/pxe-aka-pre-execution-environment-and-acronis-part-2/ I ended up using the kernel and ramdisk from the Acronis Universal Restore CD which seemed to work just fine. Sadly, my wifi at home is acting just funky enough that…

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How to remove IPv6 on Red Hat nodes

Picked up this tid-bit on how to disable IPv6 (which aligns with the general sys admin philosophy of “if we are not using it, remove it or turn it off to simplify the system and increase security”: (1) Edit /etc/sysconfig/network and set NETWORKING_IPV6=no. (2) Issue the following command as root: ‘chkconfig ip6tables off’. (3) Reboot…

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Dreaded question from friends and acquaintances #568: “What kind of computer should I buy?”

macallan wrote:

As an educational IT guy, I am frequently asked about when to buy a new machine. My advice is always: buy when you need a new machine, and get the “best” one for your needs at that time. There are lots of separate discussions about what the “best” machine for any given user will be, but I never advise people to wait more than a week, since there is always something better[1] coming soon[2]. Most people are constrained by the lead time on a new machine, or some other deadline, so I say just buy something already.

1] that’s what marketing calls every new thing
2] marketing will have you believe it’s going to be here tomorrow

I think that’s right; when I’m asked about “what computer should I buy?” I generally tell folks it’s best to buy based on:

  • When you need it, at the latest
  • What you need, at a minimum
  • What you can afford, at a maximum

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An odd thing…

With CES and MacWorld behind us, I’ve noticed something: people who last month were saying, “don’t buy one now, they’re announcing new models soon” are now saying, “don’t buy one now, let them shake out the bugs first”.

Suppose announcements were more frequent than they are now. Is there a point at which product announcements would become so frequent that such people would never buy one? Maybe they’d start buying models as soon as they’re announced. Or would they buy the current (soon-to-be prior) model only once they hear an announcement is coming?
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Leopard Preview cropping weirdness is driving me crazy

Something—I’m honestly not sure what—has changed in Mac OS X Leopard in a subtle way that has totally derailed my workflow for making presentations involving code samples. I give a lot of Keynote talks that are very heavy on code samples. For years, I’ve had a workflow for creating code-sample slides that’s worked pretty well…

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Research Study

Dear System Administrator, My name is Nicole Velasquez, and I am a researcher at the University of Arizona. My colleagues and I are conducting a study to examine the factors and qualities that motivate system administrators to use or not use software applications, and we would really appreciate your help. You are being invited to…

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