Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 55
February 17, 2016
next talk: “FreeBSD Filesystem Fun” at March semibug
I’m slated to present at the next SemiBUG meeting.
By unpopular demand, I’ll offer “FreeBSD Filesystem Fun,” also known as “odd stuff I learned as I’ve written the FreeBSD storage books.” You’ll get content on UFS, ZFS, unionfs, various memory filesystems, and some of the really odd corners I discovered while writing the book. Warning: will contain actual math and ZFS tuning know-how.
15 March. 7 PM. Altair Engineering!
To be followed by dining at Leo’s Coney Island right next door. (We’re fl...
February 10, 2016
Winter Arrivals
Two exciting things happened. First, we have a water heater, kindly provided by the fine folks who sponsored FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS.
A few hours after getting it, my missus declared that she believes the old water heater never worked. At all. She is also highly in favor of water pressure in a shower. Apparently my standards for heat and pressure are lacking.
Secondly, my author copies of FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials arrived from Tilted Windmill Press.
I’ll pack some of them u...
February 8, 2016
“FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS” Table of Contents
I’ve gotten a few potential sponsors asking what Allan and I intend to put in the Advanced ZFS book. Here’s a tentative Table of Contents.
We may split, remix, slice, dice, fold, spindle, and mutilate this in the coming weeks.
0: Introduction
1: Boot Environments
2: Delegation and Jails
3: Sharing
4: Replication
5: zvols
6: Advanced Hardware
7: Caches
8: Performance
9: Tuning
10: ZFS Potpourri
I’m also looking for classic art to parody for the cover. Ideally, I’d like something where I could...
February 5, 2016
Sponsorships and Hot Water
My home is heated by a hot water boiler, a mysterious contraption of tanks and pipes all running to an aluminum-cased burner, the whole thing almost as old as I am. Boilers can last about as long as people, so the age isn’t really an issue. A few months ago, though, one of the mysterious tanks in this contraption developed a very people-like case of appendicitis. This tank was painted black to disappear into the rafters, and mounted right above a fluorescent shop light–so, also like an append...
February 1, 2016
Sponsorships for “FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS”
I recently put up a post musing offering sponsorships for tech books. The reaction I got, both in blog comments and private email, was overwhelmingly positive.
And people are eagerly awaiting FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS, by Allan Jude and yours truly.
So, I’ve decided to try selling sponsorships for FM:AZ.
Ebook sponsors ($20) get their name in the ebook. Print sponsors ($100) get their name in both the print and electronic versions. Other books will have other pricing levels.
Some of the e...
January 28, 2016
FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems now escaping
Today, I ordered a physical print proof of FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems.
The ebook is now available on my site, and is infiltrating other bookstores as you read this. Each ebookstore has its own internal speed–while I uploaded to Amazon first, I expect it to make the books available last.
I’ll keep the book page updated when FM:SF hits various stores.
Print should be available next week, barring problems.
January 15, 2016
The Penguicon Lucas Tech Track
I submitted several tech events to Penguicon, our local tech/SF/maker/assorted random WTF convention.
They accepted six: five talks and one panel.
So if you’re in Detroit on the weekend of 29 April-1 May, come by and see me bloviate about:
PAM: You’re Doing It Wrong the ZFS File System Networking for Systems Administrators Encrypted Backups with Tarsnap BSD Operating Systems in 2016 Senior Sysadmin PanelThe last one, the Senior Sysadmin Panel, should be a lot of fun. I’m looking for 3-4 more...
January 7, 2016
September’s Publishing Workshop
Other people have posted their thoughts on September’s 2015’s Oregon Coast writing workshop. Here’s mine.
I want to expand my readership, so I submit writing to people who can pay me for it. Selling a piece to a pro market is not only income, it’s advertising.
I’ve been using the same Word template for submitting for, oh, five years now. It has headers already set up, font size, paragraphing, and all that stuff. The first page starts with my name, meatspace address, phone number, and email a...
January 5, 2016
Patronage without Patreon
I did my year-end accounting yesterday, double-checking bank statements and receipts and credit card statements and making sure everything was in the Expenses Spreadsheet of Doom. (Doom, I say!)
My earlier financial predictions were wildly overblown, but we’re doing okay. Books take longer to write than I thought. Well, decent tech books, at least. I imagine crap books could be written pretty quickly.
More than one person has offered to support me via Patreon. The models there don’t really fi...
January 4, 2016
New review on “Tarsnap Mastery”
nixCraft has posted a review of Tarsnap Mastery: Online Backups for the Truly Paranoid.
nixCraft makes a deliberate practice of listing pros and cons for each book they review. This is a good idea. The only con that they list is that “you most definitely need some basic Unix command-line knowledge.”
I can live with that. If you can’t use a command line, you shouldn’t be using Tarsnap.
