It has been a few weeks since I’ve done a link roundup, and my browser sure shows it
: 45 tabs open!
- Clean out your to-do list! Something I’m working on this weekend, in fact. (This article had been on the list too long.)
- If you’ve been seeing a lot of references to David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD), and are interested but not quite enough to buy the book, here’s a nice wiki summary. I’d also encourage you to have a look at Tom Limoncelli’s Time Management for System Administrators, which is in many ways a GTD workflow streamlined specifically to system administrators.
- While I’m on the topic of getting organized, here are Five Questions to Help Organize Your Desk. We all need to tidy up our desks once in awhile.
- Understanding Virtual Memory. How does Linux manage its virtual memory? Good reference quality articles are hard to find. This 2004 article in Redhat Magazine is the best I have found. Here’s a more technical but less intuitively understandable writeup.
- How netflow made my users happy. Alex Feigenson shows how easy it is to monitor network flows – and discover ways to optimize your network in the process.
- 200+ Free Windows Administration Tools.
- Microsoft employee now working full time on a package repository system for Windows. Garret Serack opens his announcement saying “Listen up folks, this stuff is big.” And he’s right: it is. Ars Technica explains why.
- MS has announced their new Security Compliance Manager.
- John Pozadzides explains exactly how he’d hack your weak passwords. This article could be pretty helpful if you’re trying to convince management of the need for a password policy. Or you could just send it out to all your users for their own self-enrichment.
- Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) for Windows Desktop Search.
- MS have been doing some interesting things with data visualization lately. Be sure to watch the linked TED talks from Gary Flake and Blaise Aguera y Arcas, and to check out the Yosemite demonstration of Seadragon. I recently made my own Photosynth; it is amazingly easy.
- Why don’t users follow our computer security advice? This research paper suggests that they may actually be mathematically correct in ignoring us. Skip ahead to section 7 if you’re bored. While I’m not sure I fully agree with the conclusions drawn here, viewpoints like this are still exceedingly valuable.
- Shawn Hernan at MS argues that there may be some mistaken assumptions in the saying ‘Many eyes make bugs shallow.’ A few years ago, Pat Edmonds (also at MS) made a similar argument. What do you think?
- Here’s a nearly two hour video lecture explaining major kernel and memory management changes in Win7/Win2008R2. Fascinating stuff. If OS internals interest you, this is well worth your time. Personally, I was very interested in Landy Wang’s presentation on memory management, beginning at 54:30. Don’t be turned off by the highly technical nature of this presentation; these guys are extremely familiar with their subject matter, and have the gift of presenting it in a clear conversational manner. From 70:33 to about 74:00, Landy explains precisely what you’re seeing in Task Manager’s Performance tab (shown below), and this is enormously useful. A lot of people are misinterpreting this screen!
