When we think of the Internet, we generally think of Amazon, Google, Hotmail, Napster, MySpace, and a host of other sites for buying products, searching...

For a long time, I was very happy building Ethernet networks, working with switches and then moving to 802.11. It took awhile, but eventually I realized that the world of interconnected networks cannot be reached with Layer 2 alone. In addition, as you spread your wings from the Layer 2 broadcast domains, you encounter the wonders of...

Every so often, a technology comes along that changes the way we go about our everyday business. This technology is called a disruptive technology and has such a significant benefit or improvement that people are willing to change their normal way of doing things to incorporate the new technology. Virtualization is one of those disruptive...

Computer users spend a lot of time doing simple, mechanical data manipulation - changing the format of data, checking its validity, finding items with some property, adding up numbers, printing reports, and the like. All of these jobs ought to be mechanized, but it's a real nuisance to have to write a specialpurpose program in a...

Fortunately, this new...

I used to think plug-ins were for people who could afford to buy creativity. Then I realized it was for those who had creativity, but were burdened and held back by the process, or lack of tools, for their creativity. After Effects plug-ins are not someone’s project files or templates for you to copy, but rather tools for...

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a powerful tool that enables you to automate operations in the Microsoft Offi ce applications and in other applications that host VBA. By automating operations using VBA, you can save yourself and your colleagues huge amounts of time and effort. Getting more work done in less time is usually good...

More than fifteen years ago, I was faced with the following problem in an assignment for a class in computer science. A brewery had to deliver beer to five stores, and the task was to write a computer program for determining the shortest route for the truck driver to visit all stores and return to the brewery. All my attemps to find a...

When local area networks (LANs) first appeared in the business world, their primary functions were to share files and printers. These are still critical applications for most business networks, but networks are able to provide many other functions as well. Virtually all business owners want to provide their users with access to the...

IMAGINE THE ADVANTAGE YOU’D HAVE IF ONE OF THE WORLD’S TOP WEDDING SHOOTERS SHARED HIS SECRETS WITH YOU World-renowned wedding photographer, and one of the most widely acclaimed instructors in the industry today, David Ziser brings his no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point teaching style to a book that totally rewrites...

Good system administrators recognize problems long before anyone asks, "Hey, is the Internet down?" Nagios, an open source system and network monitoring tool, has emerged as the most popular solution for sys admins in organizations of all sizes. It's robust but also complex, and Nagios: System and Network Monitoring, 2nd...