Cover V10, I10

Article

oct2001.tar

syslog

I regularly read Amit Asaravala's column in Web Techniques magazine. Web Techniques is one of Sys Admin's sister publications, and I generally find Amit's editorials to be thought provoking. His editorial in the July 2001 issue, however, struck a particularly sympathetic chord. He wrote:

    If you're a regular reader, you may also have noticed that the magazine is somewhat
    slimmer than it has been in previous months. This cutback is in response to low ad sales.
    Not only is July a particularly slow month for certain types of advertising -- partly because
    many agencies believe people are less apt to read -- but we've also business and technology
    magazines during summer vacation months been affected by the market correction.

These words are unfortunately true also for Sys Admin. In his editorial, Amit goes on to describe the bittersweet feeling of winning a Maggie Award (which honors magazine excellence) while facing staff layoffs. Here at Sys Admin we're experiencing similar mixed emotions. On one hand, we're excited and proud that we have amicably acquired and successfully produced an issue of The Perl Journal. On the other hand, ad sales are down to such an extent that we've been forced not only to reduce the number of pages we publish in Sys Admin, but also investigate a smaller trim size and lighter paper stock. These cutbacks are standard ways to save money during crunch times, and we have every hope that they will prove effective. The issues will be smaller for the next few months at least, but we plan to increase the number of pages again as soon as the market allows. Despite the decrease in the number of pages, however, the amount of editorial has not diminished; there are just fewer ads!

This issue of Sys Admin focuses on SolarisTM administration. As I've mentioned before, Solaris is the most widely administered operating system among Sys Admin readers. The Solaris-related articles included here describe the use the Solaris::Kstat module, some performance tuning tips, and implementation of IPSec in Solaris 8. The issue also contains an article by Chris Hare discussing password controls, and one by Bruce Gollsneider showing how to set up a triple-boot machine. The Web-exclusive articles for the month cover the Sun Ray model of computing and the implementation of the Totalnet Access Server.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions. You can email me at: aankerholz@cmp.com.

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief