The CaffiNation Podcast

Here we go with a quick rundown of each of the social networks I’m currently a part of and what is wrong and right with each one. Why bother beating about the bush here, we have needs they need to be fulfilled. There are problems and they need to be dealt with, shape up or close down.

Believe it or not most SocNet’s are simply extensions of USENET, don’t believe me stay tuned to find out. Don’t know what USENET is? I just died a little when you said yes… You should probably consult the oracle and reflect on your crime, By the By… You owe the oracle one cup of strong black coffee, and a bagel.

Just view them in this light. I’ve also begun to refer to each post i see about a new social network as YASN posts. Yet Another Social Network… you know its getting pretty thick in here, we need to start culling the herd. Weed out the sick and infirm and run with the strongest of the pack.

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As any good kid from the 80’s will tell you “Knowing is half the battle” and G.I. Joe wasn’t far off in their assessment of value. Knowing is indeed paramount to success of any venture. But it is knowing where to go for the information that sets true professionals apart.

Computer Security is a hazy field full of tools that can both be used to secure a machine and at the same time used to break into them. More often than not these double edged swords are better off recognized and worked with. Manufacturers and vendors hate when security vulnerabilities are released, but by releasing them they get fixed quicker. So I’ve compiled a list of places you need to know about to prepare yourself and learn a bit more about the landscape of computer security.

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Keith From The Mind of Root Podcast has started a SysAdmin Meme, basically its a survey where blogs post their answers in response to the orginal. I was tagged… Thanks Keith. And I thought it would be a fun thing to do so here you go. I don’t know too many SysAdmins who blog outside of the people Keith already Tagged… Thanks Keith. So if your a Sysadmin and you’d like a shot and some linkage post and send me the link.

How old were you when you started using computers?

I was about 7 or 8 when we started getting computers in school. Oregon Trail was my game. Did you know Johnny died of Dysentery? A small aside kids of today couldn’t handle dysentery in a text based video game, someone would start a petition, a certain cretin lawyer would get involved and congress would have a press conference. We got a computer at home when i was around 8. We had a Commodore 64, with a ton of games from My uncle who had beat them already. Zork, Planetfall, Ultima III, IV, and V. I have the Map from Ultima V hanging in my office today.

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The program that i recommend to any podcaster for recording, no matter how experienced they are is Audacity. Its free and rarely ever fails. However as with anything free there is some trade off, the trade off here is in the niceities of features, specifically the lack of a built in recovery tool. However despite any problems i have ever had with the tool the benefits of being a full featured audio editor have never been overshadowed by the occasional crashes. I have crafted this article to hopefully help you along recovering from a crash.

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Wordpress is an awesome tool to manage a podcast, a blog, or I’ve even used it as a comprehensive CMS (Content Management Solution) However some of the small little details often go unnoticed when your trying to make the content speak for itself.

Permalinks are the URL that permanently links to your content. So that long after the article is off the front page you can still get directly there. This is a good thing. The bad thing is that Wordpress by default has permalinks that look like this. http://www.caffination.com/?p=641. This is all well and good for those of you out there who speak machine code, but as a friendly and informative way of knowing what the content of the article this method sucks. (more…)

LAMP is the Way to Go

I recently had a server die on me at my day job and I needed to choose a new os for it. After consulting twitter. I was suggested by Knightwise that I should go with a LAMP install of Ubuntu. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, Mysql, and Php. All of the elements I needed in one spiffy package. I had never done one of these before so I decided to give it a shot. Let me tell you this install when blindingly quick. It took longer to download and burn than it did to have a working web server again. With less than an hour of total downtime, including swapping video cards, and burning an ISO. Both of those were done at the same time. Thanks So much to Sir Knightwise for that suggestion. I have run linux servers for a while but i never tried the Lamp install. Quick and painless let me tell you.

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Philly Tech Guys
Keith Albright, Mike Smith and Myself

Starting out heading to Podcamp I knew no one. I knew of them, but had never shook a hand, and had actually never been to a convention or conference. I’m not shy mind you, just busy. I do online classes for work a good deal of the time so I don’t even try to attend training far away.

I knew that Rob Safuto from Blubrry, and the New York Minute Podcast was planning on going, I knew Mike Smith from the Mike Tech Show was going but thats pretty much the extent of my knowledge. The fun thing about belonging to a group like the TechPodcast Network is that you have a pretty good shot at sharing interests. And that turned up in spades, One of the new people I met was Keith Albright of the A Couple of Admins show. Great guy and nifty show. Its a round table discussion between a couple of guys within the industry. I’d strongly recommend adding it to your rotation, its good stuff.

Well being that this was my first conference I hadn’t the slightest idea of what to expect. Boy was I blown out of the water by PodCamp. The networking alone was worth it. Learn from the best, and this event was packed full of them. You can head back and check my notes out to see what I attended. There should only be one more post on PodCamp after this.

One Last thing before I head out. This event wouldn’t have been anything without the people who organized it.

Whitney Hoffman of the LDPodcast

Lisa B Marshall

These two woman, and many other people who helped to varying degrees, managed to pull off an unconfrence through some pretty tough situations. Things may have not been as smooth as they envisioned months ago when this idea was hatched but you would have never known it from the execution. Thank you both for a wonderful event and I look forward to helping make next years show go off even better.

For More Photos Check Picasa Out, not too many. Sorry about that, my camera died on the first day. So much for being a true Eagle Scout, Be prepared…