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I've never been a "Deadhead", but Jerry Garcia and the boys hit it just right - "What a long strange trip it's been."

Let's start with the long Penguin Shell layoff. You certainly deserve an explanation. It started on Super Bowl Sunday, January 26. After pushing incredibly hard at work for a few weeks, I decided to take a "mental health" day off. In reality, it meant that the Monday, January 27 issue of Penguin Shell wouldn't go out, but I'd have two full days off instead of, well, none. I watched the Super Bowl and will admit that I felt a bit lost between the hours of 4:00 and 6:30 pm, prime Sunday Shell time. Later in the evening, the Super Bowl itself did little to ease that empty feeling.

Monday morning dawned with an email from a family member that shook me. My dad had been admitted to the hospital overnight. Of course, being the huge football fan he is, he'd waited until the Super Bowl was over before going to the emergency room. Through the morning, I spoke by phone with family from Ohio to Montana. My brother Mark and his wife are both registered nurses, and when Mark decided to make the trip from Ohio to Illinois based on what he'd heard, I took his cue.

On Monday night, things at the hospital looked pretty serious. My dad was in good spirits, but the tentative diagnosis wasn't good. We hung out at the hospital as long as the staff would allow, then headed to the house for a marathon "catch up" session. Remember, this is the family I've had contact with only since April - that puts "catching up" in the proper perspective.

By Tuesday afternoon, the diagnosis was far less serious, though no more certain. My sister Marcy arrived at O'Hare from Montana late in the evening, rounding out all the kids from my dad's side of the family. A quick hospital visit and another marathon session took us well into Wednesday morning.

By Wednesday afternoon the later, less serious diagnosis was the consensus. In the meantime, my dad and I talked much about Linux, tossing problems and solutions back and forth to the eye-glazing tedium of the less technically-inclined family members. It did keep his spirits up, though, and everyone enjoyed the time together.

I returned home on Thursday and to work on Friday. During the few days away, I received more than a hundred inquiries about the state of Penguin Shell, many expressing concern for my health and well-being. I answered as many as limited time at the computer (in the evenings, after the catch-up marathons) would allow. In the end, there were just too many to answer personally. So, consider this my mass thanks for the notes. Nearly to the person, those to whom I did reply responded that they'd keep my dad and my family in their thoughts. When, on Thursday, I told my dad he had many Penguin Shell readers thinking of him, he showed his appreciation in an uncharacteristic bout of speechlessness. Sometimes it's what you don't say that most effectively expresses gratitude. And, as of today, he's back in his comfortable penguin computing environment. Thanks to all who took the time to check in.

"So, Tony," you're thinking, "that doesn't explain why this issue arrived in my inbox on Tuesday." Long strange trip, part two.

As of today's issue, you've experienced the first step toward a new distribution schedule for Penguin Shell. Rather than finding the Shell in your inbox five days a week, I'll be visiting on Tuesday and Thursday only. As you well know, Lockergnome has long been committed to providing its staple content free to readers. It's a good business decision to move Penguin Shell to a twice-weekly distribution, and one that preserves the free content philosophy of Lockergnome, especially in the Linux realm. While a return to the original five-a-week distribution schedule isn't out of the question, twice weekly it will be for now. Three free nights a week? I'll probably wander around the house in a daze ...

This schedule change will necessitate a few changes in Penguin Shell. Given that I love to work through distribution reviews over the course of a week or so, I'll need to rethink and re-plan these excursions around the Linux world. Distro reviews will return shortly, though you'll find them in a much more condensed form. The number of ongoing series is likely to change, as well. The real value of these series has been in the ability to spend consecutive days building on a concept. Again, it's a matter of rethinking the approach. We'll continue to do a smaller number of these series; they won't go away. They'll just take a bit more planning and a tighter style. In the meantime, if you have ideas regarding items that would fit nicely into a twice-weekly schedule, let me know. As always, you're the real voice of the Penguin.

Now, if you need a little humor, take a look at that webcam shot. It's almost Kilroy-esque, eh? And a good thing, too, that I'm facing the monitor. To do otherwise would risk blowing out the CCD with bald light. Some things even Linux can't cure.

Have a great Tuesday.

Happy just sittin' here in my tux,              
Tony Steidler-Dennison       

GnomeTWEAK

Card Reading

It's funny how toys will expand your knowledge of our favorite OS. Recently, I needed to store data on the 128 Mb Compact Flash card for the Zaurus. Two problems stalled the process. First, I've never been able to get the usb sync working reliably with the Qtopia software. I solved that by simply syncing via the wireless card and the network. Which raises the second problem. The wireless card resides in the CF slot and the tiny (8 Mb) Secure Digital card has died un-replaced. So, I had no way to get the data to the card.

A CF/Memory Stick card reader seemed like a good alternative to purchasing an SD card large enough for my needs. Plus, when I finally get around to purchasing a digital camera, I'll have the reader for storing and retrieving images, as well. For less than $40, I settled on the USB SanDisk SDDR 77.

If you're running a current distribution, you're likely to have everything you need to make a card reader a useful peripheral to your Linux system. With both my Red Hat and Libranet systems, this card worked with minimal effort.

A CF card reader like mine is, in fact, a USB storage device. You'll likely need to load the drivers manually:

modprobe usb-storage

or, on Red Hat-like systems

/sbin/modprobe usb-storage

As with any other block device, you'll also need to mount the reader's filesystem. First, you'll need to create a mount point:

mkdir /mnt/cf

Mounting is actually quite simple:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/cf

Make a note of the first device - the filesystem being mounted. Current Linux distros treat this card reader as a SCSI device, noted by the /dev/sda designation. In fact, you're mounting the first partition of this filesystem [/dev/sda1].

Once mounted, the card reader can be treated like any other storage device. You can move files from other locations on your system to the card, or transfer files from the card to your system. In fact, I spent a few hours on Sunday creating themed mp3 directories of less than 128 Mb. This gives me the capability to quickly load 40 or so songs onto the CF card, making the Zaurus a great entertainment tool in the car or at work.

Sometimes you just have to keep adding toys to your system. It can be a great Linux learning experience.

Recommend It!
Send us a GnomeTWEAK

GnomeCORE

Get your favorite Linux flavor on CD: Pick your favorite Linux flavor and get it on CD for as low as $1.95. Find Linux gear, books, and software for Linux at Linux Central . Check out the selection today!

A core function of Linux is the ability to match patterns of characters rather than merely matching the characters themselves. This flexibility adds power to an exponential level, especially when handling text files. Let me use a simple example to illustrate the point.

In this example, I'd like to find all the lines in a file that contain the word "just.":

grep just pattern_test
This is just a pattern matching test.

This command "grep"s the file pattern_test, looking for a line containing an instance of the word "just." The full line containing the pattern is returned. This works well if you're looking for a specific and concrete set of characters. But, what if you're looking for something a bit more broad?

grep match* pattern_test
This is just a pattern matching test.
This should be an additional line in the match.

You can see that the use of the * character (a Linux pattern matching metacharacter) results in matches on both the word "matching" and "match."

In a sense, pattern matching relies on a set of wildcard characters. This is the flexibility of pattern matching in Linux - the ability to use these metacharacters to create an abstraction of the pattern you're looking for.

Much of the pattern matching in Linux is done via vi, sed (the [s]tream [ed]itor) and grep. What follows is a list of metcharacters common to these three programs and their use.

Metacharacter	Action
.	Match any character
*	Match zero or more preceding characters
^	Match the beginning of a line or string
$	Match the end of a line or string
\	Escape character follows
[ ]	Match one or more items from a list

Let's put this to some use. Let's say I've created a file that shows an annual sales projection for a small business as $850,000. In reviewing the document, I decide to be a bit more cautious, projecting annual sales of $800,000, instead. The problem is, I've scattered the $850k number throughout the rather lengthy document. In fact, I've been a bit inconsistent, using $825,000 in some cases.

grep [825-850] business_plan
Anticipated first-year revenues total $850,000.
With first-year revenues totaling $825,000, our advertising budget accounts for a prudent percentage of sales.

As you can see, using a range of numbers, grep finds both the $850,000 and $825,000 numbers.

Pattern matching can also be used to replace characters and character strings. vi is especially flexible in this regard. That is, however, a matter for another GnomeCORE.

As you've seen, abstractions are an important part of Linux use. They're equally important in text editing. Pattern matching and metacharacters provide exactly the abstraction of character strings necessary to cover all your editing bases.

Recommend It!
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GnomeFILE

GNU xhippo 3.3

http://www.gnu.org/software/xhippo/

"GNU xhippo is a simple GTK-based playlist manager, designed to play music using mpg123, xmp, or most other command line-based players while providing a friendly, clean X interface. It is localized in both English and German. Its interface is based upon the Amiga program HippoPlayer. It supports drag-and-drop, has optional GNOME support, and has a simple text-based playlist format compatible with many other players."

Recommend It!
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GnomeVOICE

Secure?
Scribbled by James Ronholm

"[With Regards To] previous GnomeVoices about Linux being security 'poster child.'

"Everyone always mentions the same article (both previous links led to the Aberdeen Group) which has been pointed out may have a bias.

"Without going and looking at someone else's opinion we need to remember several things:

1. Good security features implemented poorly mean poor security - possibly worse than poor security features implemented well.
2. When a hole is found, plug it (I am reminded of the little Dutch boy).

"The argument that Linux should be more secure because it has more people looking at the source code is a good argument, however it isn't provable.

"The number of advisories for a particular platform may give an idea of security level, but isn't enough. The ease of exploitation is important, as is the circumstances under which the exploit occurs. For example, one of the reasons that Word and Excel were more susceptible to 'macro viruses' (or is it virii) at one point was that they had a 'real' macro language (VB). Of course a word processor that had no macro capability would be more secure.

"Another reason a platform might have more advisories is precisely because it is open-source, and presumably has more people looking at the source code (without even having to reverse engineer!).

"Security involves both threat and risk. What could be done, and what is the likelihood that it will happen. Malicious users will (probably) want to impact the most users/companies/victims. They will then naturally gravitate toward the largest installed base. As the install base for Linux grows we should expect a larger number of attempts to "beat" the security.

"More than any other, the thing I like about Linux security is that technically I am not necessarily reliant on one company to come up with a solution. Many people might come up with solutions AND if I feel brave I can be one of those people myself."

Recommend It!
Speak your GnomeVOICE

GnomeCLICK

How Space Shuttles Work

http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-shuttle.htm

This link to the How Stuff Works site is a timely insight into the inner workings of the space shuttle. It seems a fitting tribute to better understand the complexity of these missions in light of the events of the weekend past. The site is up-to-date, noting the weekend tragedy:

In its 23 year history, the space shuttle program has seen exhilarating highs and devastating lows. The fleet has taken astronauts on dozens of successful missions, resulting in immeasurable scientific gains. But this success has had a serious cost. In 1986, the Challenger exploded during launch procedures, and on February 1st of 2003, the Columbia broke up during re-entry over Texas.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, facing tasks ranging from simple to the most complex. The Columbia crew clearly belongs in the latter category. Few descriptions will more clearly prove this belief than "How Space Shuttles Work."

Recommend It!
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