Month: June 2010

I have a new job that I am pretty excited about. The one downside is that the amount of time I have available to dedicate to Ubuntu-related projects will be a bit more limited, especially as I get going. I’ll still be around, but I probably won’t be quite as quick to respond or as readily available.

I am thrilled that as of last week, I am the Senior Technical Documentation Specialist for iPlant Collaborative, a National Science Foundation funded project that is creating a new cyberinfrastructure to assist research in plant biology. My responsibilities include working with programmers and biologists to create the documentation for the project software, which requires some translation between those who are highly proficient in computer technology but not biology and those who are highly proficient in biology but not computer technology…which means I’m spending some time in intense study to learn about plant genetics. Fun stuff. 🙂

This is the fifth edition of a wonderful book about an excellent computer operating system, Ubuntu. The Barnes and Noble Special Edition (ISBN-13: 978-0137081318) has an extra chapter about Ubuntu One and a DVD with screen cast desktop lessons by me (will come out 30 July 2010…the B&N page will be updated soon…).

For this edition, I had the privilege of rewriting chapters 3 and 4, revising chapters 1-2, 7, 10-11 and the appendices, and wrote the new bonus chapter for the Special Edition. I also provided assistance checking the full manuscript, including the final proof, against the final release version of the software covered and was the lead contact during the copy edit, index, and final proof and author query stages.

Link to the Amazon.com page for the book.

I will be speaking at the Phoenix VMUG User Conference at the invitation of the Phoenix Area VMware User Group in just a few days. They are giving away 300 copies of VMware Cookbook. If you are interested in spending a day with people who use VMware and/or you want to learn more about this virtualization platform, this will be a great opportunity to do so. If you can’t make this one, there will be others (but I’m only scheduled in Phoenix as it is close to where I live).

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is a history of the beginning, growth and rise of the use of computers by people outside of the big businesses and governments that worked to create them in proprietary silos. This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy’s classic book retains its detailed and interesting chronicle of the events that brought computing power to the masses. It also records some of the problems, pitfalls, and failures along the way. Here you will find many names that computer lovers are sure to recognize from Bill Gates to Richard Stallman as well as many that are not as well known, but that deserve to have their victories recorded also.

I greatly appreciate that this book exists. To be honest, it wasn’t always a fun read. That isn’t a commentary on the quality of the writing, but rather on the ups and downs of the narrative. There were times when I found myself wishing I was there in the middle of the action and other times when I had difficulty knowing who to root for. There were still other moments when I found myself cringing as I read about events long past, wishing that different decisions had been made or disappointed at the actions and attitudes of geniuses.

I’m not going to spoil the book for anyone interested by giving out specific details. All I’ll say here is that the story begins with a bunch of model railroaders who love technology and who fall in love with a computer they discover they may access freely in an out of the way room in a building at MIT in the late 1950s. They took their love of piecing together technological gadgets in imaginative and creative ways (hacks) and applied it to this new tool / toy. The story follows their exploits and adventures through the 1960s en route to a second wave of hackers in Northern California in the 1970s who take the love home, creating machines on a smaller budget that could be used by ordinary people. Hot on their heels were another group of Californians who led a third wave, hacking software to do things never before dreamed of and leading the way to the commercialization of the computer. The book ends with a series of afterwards, one written when the book was first published in 1983, another written 10 years later, and another just added to this newly published edition. Each adds details and commentary to the history that were not known at the time of the original interviews and research.

If the history of hacking, free and open source software and the attitudes embodied in the current movement interest you, you will appreciate this book greatly.

Disclosures: I was given my copy of this book free by O’Reilly as a review copy, I also write for O’Reilly.