{"product_id":"2940014222112","title":"Linux Journal April 2012","description":"A quick overview of what's in this special System Administration issue:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e* Engineer an OpenLDAP Directory\u003cbr\u003e* System Administration of the Watson Supercomputer\u003cbr\u003e* Puppet and Nagios: Advanced Configuration\u003cbr\u003e* The Pacemaker High-Availability Stack\u003cbr\u003e* Reviewed: ASUS Transformer Prime\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDetailed overview: Sysadmins Ain't No Fools\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis year, April 1st lands on a Sunday. I always enjoy it when April Fools'\u003cbr\u003eDay lands on a weekend, because otherwise I get about a dozen phone calls\u003cbr\u003ethat go something like this\u003cbr\u003e[our stage is set with Shawn casually sipping his coffee, when suddenly the\u003cbr\u003ephone rings]:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMe: Hello, technology department, Shawn speaking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrantic User: Shawn! My computer was acting slow, then the Internet quit,\u003cbr\u003eand now I think I smell smoke!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMe: I see. Have you tried turning it off and back on?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrantic User: HA HA HA HA HA! April Fools! I so got you, oh you should have\u003cbr\u003eheard yourself, classic Shawn. You were so worried, oh man, that was great.\u003cbr\u003eI can't believe you fell for it!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the 3rd or 4th burning computer, smoking printer or melted\u003cbr\u003eprojector, I start to wish April 1st was a national holiday so my users\u003cbr\u003ecould all just go home. This year, we can all sit back and enjoy the day\u003cbr\u003eoff, thankful that the April issue of Linux Journal is focused on us, the sysadmins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReuven M. Lerner starts off with some great information on APIs. If you\u003cbr\u003ewant to interact with other Web sites, programs or even some devices, the\u003cbr\u003eAPI system is how to do so. Reuven shows what that means when it comes\u003cbr\u003eto inclusion in your own programs. If your interests are more along the\u003cbr\u003elines of scripting, Dave Taylor likely will pique your interest as he\u003cbr\u003econtinues his series on how to be a darn dirty cheater in Scrabble. Of\u003cbr\u003ecourse, I'm teasing, but Dave does explain how to use the power of scripting\u003cbr\u003eto come up with some pretty amazing moves. I'll leave it up to you to\u003cbr\u003edetermine whether it's cheating or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKyle Rankin and I are most comfortable this month, as system administration\u003cbr\u003eis right up our alley. Kyle gives a walk-through on using sar, a tool\u003cbr\u003efor logging system load. Sure there are other tools for monitoring system\u003cbr\u003eload, but sar does a great job of keeping historical records. I have a few\u003cbr\u003etricks up my own sysadmin sleeve this month as well, and I continue my\u003cbr\u003eseries on LTSP, describing how to tweak your server and clients\u003cbr\u003eto get the most out of them both. LTSP 5 provides great flexibility on\u003cbr\u003elocal apps vs. server apps, and I explain how to set them up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you've ever been interested in the inner workings of IBM's Watson\u003cbr\u003esupercomputer, or if you ever wondered whether there's just some\u003cbr\u003ereally smart person behind the curtain speaking in a computer-like voice,\u003cbr\u003eAleksey Tsalolikhin's article will interest you. He takes you behind the\u003cbr\u003escenes and shows off Watson's \"guts\", many of which are open source.\u003cbr\u003eAleksey also had the chance to interview Eddie Epstein, who was responsible\u003cbr\u003efor getting Watson ready to compete on Jeopardy! Watson is quite an advanced \u003cbr\u003esystem, and although it may not be perfect, it's disturbingly close. You won't \u003cbr\u003ewant to miss the article.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe have a trio of hard-core sysadmin articles this issue as well, all of which\u003cbr\u003eshould be interesting whether you're a sysadmin yourself or just use a\u003cbr\u003esystem administered by someone else. Florian Haas writes about\u003cbr\u003ePacemaker, a high-availability stack for Linux. In this crazy\u003cbr\u003edata-dependent world, high availability is an important topic. Adam Kosmin\u003cbr\u003efollows that with an article on Puppet and Nagios. High availability is\u003cbr\u003egreat, but unless you can manage your configurations, you'll have highly\u003cbr\u003eavailable junk! Finally, Stewart Walters starts off his series on\u003cbr\u003econfiguring OpenLDAP for unified logins. Multiple servers means multiple\u003cbr\u003eauthentication schemes, and when you add different platforms into the mix,\u003cbr\u003ethings become complicated quickly. Stewart describes how to use one OpenLDAP to\u003cbr\u003erule them all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon't worry if you're not a system administrator. As always, \u003cbr\u003ewe have included tons of other things to tickle the fancy of any Linux\u003cbr\u003egeek. Aaron Peters reviews the ASUS Transformer Prime tablet\/notebook\u003cbr\u003edevice. If you're like me and think a tablet computer would be great if\u003cbr\u003eonly it had a hinge and a keyboard, the Transformer might be just what\u003cbr\u003eyou're looking for. We've also got product announcements, software\u003cbr\u003espotlights and even a few cheesy jokes thrown in by yours truly. This\u003cbr\u003eApril issue of Linux Journal has something for everyone, and I'm not\u003cbr\u003efooling. Until next month, remember, if your refrigerator is running, \u003cbr\u003eyou'd better go catch it!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e -- Shawn Powers","brand":"Linux Journal","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145949298928,"sku":"2940014222112","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014222112_p0.jpg?v=1763603352","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014222112","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}