I’m not much for celebrating Christmas. It’s a nice time to relax and visit friends and family, and ponder various deep subjects, and take stock of my life. Am I the kind of person I want to be, am I doing good work, is my life on course, etc blah blah. All the usual things one ponders when the days are short and the nights are long, and the eggnog has been spiked.

What I get excited about is the solstice- for me that’s the turning point of the year. That whole rebirth-and-renewal thing. That’s when the season turns the corner and the days start getting longer again. (At least for us northern-hemispheric-types.) That’s the time to jettison all the old guilts and regrets and other useless baggage, and re-focus on moving forward.

One thing in particular becomes more clear as I get older (I’m not far from 50, and believe you me young whippersnappers, getting older is not for sissies,) and that is that relationships are everything. I’ve never been particularly skilled at relationships; I tend to be short-tempered, self-righteous, and self-centered. I’m a gosh-darned Leo, is not my natural superiority self-evident? The fact that I have actual friends is a testament to their patience and generosity.

Without good relationships, I would not be where I am. If a certain editor so long ago had not taken a chance on an unknown, I would not have a writing career. If other editors along the way had not opened doors, I would have lost great opportunities. If not for a wonderful clientele who recommend me to their friends, I would not have a client base of people I enjoy working with. Life is too short to work for sucky people. Being a freelance sysadmin/Jill-of-all-trades is not the path to riches, but the variety and challenges are endless.

Thank you to all the fine folks who have supported and encouraged me. Thank you to all the great people in the world who demonstrate class and graciousness in their daily conduct. Talk is cheap- deeds talk louder. And a special thank-you to all the gang at linuxchix.org for building a community where women can hang out and talk geek, and not have to endure the usual rude garbage prevalent in so many tech communities.

Even though ‘deeds talk louder,’ allow me to indulge in my fave sermon: “You’re never too old to try something new, and anyone can learn to do anything.”

Have a great holiday and an even greater New Year!

what does this time of year mean to you?

Related link: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxckbk/

Today I received my actual printed copy of my actual book, the “Linux Cookbook.” This is a thrill beyond measure. It was a long hard slog, and many times I found myself wishing I’d committed to something simpler, like walking across the US on my hands. But it’s done, and I believe that this is the primo Linux user’s and system administrator’s howto book. No fluff, just dive in and get the job done.

My favorite chapters are the mail server chapters, which cover setting up POP3 and IMAP servers, adding encryption, SMTP-authentication, Webmail, running mailing lists, and managing spam and viruses. You’re not left hanging after setting up Postfix, this is a complete howto.

You’ll also find how to set up and run a DNS server using djbdns. Yes, BIND is covered too, but I feel that djbdns is the superior choice.

There is a simple way to share both Linux and Windows printers on a LAN using CUPS and Samba. Knoppix gets its own chapter, including how to use it for safe, up-to-date virus scans of Windows systems. There are detailed chapters on installing and upgrading software on both RPM and Debian systems. You’ll find wonderful custom scripts that do these things:

• add libraries that were installed from sources to your RPM database
• add masses of users, or do bulk password changes
• find all the documentation on your system that belongs to a particular program; all the readmes, installs, HTML documents, man and info pages- everything, no matter what weird places they might be trapped in.

Also covered are using version control systems, cross-platform file sharing, building a Samba domain controller, building a Linux printer server for both Linux and Windows clients, setting up secure user-accessible backup repositories, how to read man and info pages, secure remote access with ssh and keychain, discovering hardware from outside the box, patching, customizing, and upgrading kernels, and lots more.

A word on title confusion: as most of you know there is another Linux Cookbook, by Michael Stutz, on No Starch Press. Mr. Stutz recently released the second edition of his book, which is much expanded and improved from the first edition. There is very little overlap between the two, and Mr. Stutz’s book is quite good, so my recommended remedy for confusion is to buy both of them.