syslog
November is unfathomable at this point. November makes me think of rainy days, socks and sweaters, autumn leaves, and of course, Thanksgiving. Instead, it's 100 degrees in September as I'm writing this -- with no rain in the forecast. It's just been hot and dry, followed by more hot and dry. So, while we here at Sys Admin are baking in the middle of some new global warming-induced drought belt, I've made a short list of things for which I'm thankful (in no particular order). I'm thankful for Joe Casad. As you may know, Joe is Sys Admin's technical editor. He works part-time for the magazine reviewing proposals and manuscripts, and pointing authors toward the kind of articles we want to print. Joe also works for our sister Web site, UnixReview.com. He was recently named Senior Editor for UnixReview.com and is now putting together a team of contributing editors to help build content within the various areas of the site. In particular, we're hoping to build up the Open Source section and provide more product reviews. Joe deserves much credit for the strength of both the magazine and the Web site, and I'm grateful for his help. As part of Joe's new responsibilities for UnixReview.com, he'll be writing a monthly editorial for the site. I hope you'll take time to check out the site and Joe's column. I'm thankful for Linux. I know I'm not the first to have said this, but Linux has infused the UNIX industry with new energy, new money, and new faces. It makes UNIX more fun. I'm thankful for martinis (Bombay, up, 2 olives -- I'm a purist) and sushi. They make everything more fun. I'm also thankful for Sys Admin's contributors. They generally do what they say they'll do, which is a trait that wins a lot of points with me. Sys Admin's writers almost always come through with the articles they've proposed. I'm thankful for that because, otherwise, we'd run perpetually short on copy and have to fill the empty pages with pictures of our children and pets. This month, I have lots of authors and articles for which to be thankful. Here are just a few. Duncan Napier introduces FreeS/WAN, a tool that permits the secure transmission of data over untrusted networks. Bob Geiger and John Schweitzer share several scripts that can help monitor the state of your system's security. Gil Held discusses queuing in the continuation of his series on Quality of Service. Also, Carlos Ramirez provides a script for monitoring the reliability of a Web site. As always, I hope you enjoy the magazine, and I'm thankful for your support.
Sincerely yours,
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