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Tom Adelstein

Biography

Tom Adelstein works as a technical analyst writer for a large international publishing company headquartered in Texas. He became a young author in 1985 and has written prolifically ever since. Tom's career began as a CPA and progressed into investment banking where he excelled by using computer technology to help his companies become industry leaders. In 1993, he decided to change careers and pursue information technology. He says he chose to follow his heart instead of his head.

Articles

Blog

Open Source Strategy Implementations

September 03 2007

Introduction If things go as hoped documenting how a Fortune 1000 size enterprise implemented an Open Source strategy will provide guidance to others. The term, Open Source, started as a way to approve licenses for software whose code became published and available for others to modify for their needs. Almost tens… read more

Winning as a Tech Writer

July 10 2007

Dear Technical Writer: If you need a job, then you might look for companies that have never had a professional technical writer working for them. It may require making calls or networking with friends or former co-workers. Most companies have a ton of writing to do. Usually they put off… read more

Wanted: Linux System Administrator with Recent Active Directory Experience

March 08 2007

OK. I’m in the job market again. Andy Oram finally cut me some slack. Tuesday, I received my first legitimate call for a pure-blooded Linux administrator job. No Server 2003 R2 or mixed environments came with the offer. The company wanted someone to manage 30 Fedora boxes running Asterisk as… read more

O'Reilly's "Linux System Administration" - for MCPs?

January 21 2007

The marketing people at O’Reilly seem to get right to the point when they describe their books. On the catalog page of Linux System Administration you will find this quote: The ingredients for this book had been scattered throughout mailing lists, forums, and discussion groups, as well as books, periodicals, and… read more

Our New Book on Linux Administration

January 05 2007

You haven’t seen me much since October. You can blame that on my editor - the task master during the days leading up to production and the laid back, friendly guy afterward. I’ll dangle a participle fir you: Writing “Linux System Administration” daunted me. Whoever wrote this got it right: Linux… read more

Linux plus Redmond equals Pragmatism in the PC World

November 25 2006

I entered the Linux world somewhat by accident. One day while consulting at Cap Gemini, a co-worker introduced me to Red Hat 4.2. I had learned Slackware and found it a good road map to UNIX. Previously, UNIX appeared out of financial reach. I purchased a Sun Sparc 5 and… read more

Should you buy Windows XP now?

October 09 2006

One of the concerns system administrators might consider involves the upcoming release of Vista. You may not consider it a concern for a number of reasons, especially if you only focus on Linux and avoid Windows. At some point we generally have to deal with the Windows desktop. Like previous versions… read more

Linux, Mac and/or WIndows? And where?

October 05 2006

Linux system administrators should consider getting their MCSE. What? That’s correct. You might also consider buying a Mac Mini desktop and practice with it at home. I’m serious, so take this recommendation to heart. In the past, I have written about the crazy job market for Linux system administrators and help… read more

The Microsofting of Linux

August 25 2006

I love free software - free as in freedom. I’ll take a free beer too. I didn’t know about those things back in 1998 when I finally got Slackware to boot on my DEC Prioris and suddenly had a fast version of , ah, UNIX. Naw, this was free . I… read more

Lack of Linux System Admins hurting adoption

August 17 2006

I recently got a call from a friend in Amman, Jordan who said the very large web site he manages needs a Linux system administrator. But guess what, they can’t find a single Linux sysadmin in the entire country. With plenty of Linux desktop users around, I’m starting to wonder… read more

LDAP and Linux

July 25 2006

I love LDAP! I also love beautiful women, but that doesn’t mean I can manage even one. I found a nice LDAP howto for Debian Sarge. Take a look: LDAP Auth on Debian Sarge HOWTO. For those system administrators looking for remote authentication solutions for Postfix this should help. It’s easy to… read more

A thesaurus for Openoffice.org on Ubuntu and Debian

July 07 2006

I use Ubuntu’s 6.06 TLS Desktop and Debian Sarge 3.1. I have also used Word 2000 for special cases especially when I need some language tools. Recently, I did a search for a thesaurus for Openoffice.org 2 and found a debian package called openoffice.org-thesaurus-sk_2.0.3-2_all.deb. It’s downloadable from here. To my… read more

Linux and Microsoft: Taking a Pragmatic Approach

July 02 2006

Would it surprise you to discover that Linux administrative and support employees have created barriers to entry for others with similar talents? What if I told you that a difficult job climate has emerged because of your Linux buddies? Would you believe it? Get a grip because that’s something with which… read more

An New Opportunity for Entrepreneurs

June 21 2006

You can find many definitions and concepts about entrepreneurs and most involve innovation. In a formal way, you’ll see textbooks saying that they recognize opportunities and then orchestrate the people and resources to turn the advantage of an opportunity into a successful business venture. Then you see additions to the… read more

Not Yet

June 17 2006

As a Linux advocate or should we say a bigot, I recently correlated enough of a survey to recognize that the Linux community has not arrived fully. Of course, if you want to discuss the issue of arriving, you also have to define the destination. I have a reference for… read more
Tom Adelstein