Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

Back in 1918 machines were designed to tell humans when they made a mistake. Over a hundred years later the roles have reversed. How times have changed.

#AI #VintageAds #calculator

This Monroe Model G mechanical calculator was made some time between 1918 and 1920, and is the one I used on the cover of my new book. I also featured non-blurry pictures of it as the background image on each chapter, and in those cases left a little easter egg for keen-eyed readers.

#calculators #writing

Thanks to the excellent suggestion from @agx, I have created a sample chapter for the book. A link is available on the product page for each version of the book, or you can check it out directly here:

https://kylerank.in/bohs_lacc_sample_chapter.pdf

#writing #linux #publishing #SelfPublishing

OK this is neat, a protocol for hosting a website around the globe that distributes traffic based on which server has the most solar energy: http://solarprotocol.net/

I have officially just used my new book as a reference for the first time. In this case I wanted to confirm the syntax for a flock command and remembered "oh wait, that's in the book!" and found it using the index.

#writing #linux

Wrote for Linux Journal and it was a gas
Every month, published Hack and /
Wrote for a decade only to find
LJ went bust, posts gone behind

Wrote for Linux Journal and it was divine
I wrote down everything on my mind
A lot of great tips that now you can't find
LJ went bust, posts gone behind

In between, I put the best columns in a book of mine
It is now self-published with hardcover spine
Paperback and ebook too, they all are good
I sell them on Lulu

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kyle_rankin

If you have questions about my new book, bought it and wants to send me feedback, or if you are a tech book reviewer and want to see about a review copy, please email me at bohs@kylerank.in.

(apologies to The Primitives)

Here I go, way too fast
Wrote The Best of Hack and /
It's about Open Source
It's a Linux Admin Crash Course

So click, click that link
And let me know just what you think
I had enough past tips for you
Enough to fill a whole book through

So what type of book (there's three)?
Hardcover's the best to me,
The paperback is not bad too,
The ebook isn't paper bound
With glue

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kyle_rankin

#writing #publishing #SelfPublishing #linux

The Best of Hack and /: Linux Admin Crash Course is published!

This book doesn't aim to be an exhaustive guide to everything you need to know to be a system administrator. Instead, this book allows me to act as a remote mentor to someone starting out in IT or system administration whether as a full-time job or as a full stack developer.

It's available in premium hardcover, paperback, and ebook forms here:
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kyle_rankin

#writing #SelfPublishing #linux #publishing

Look what just showed up in the mail! My (hopefuly final) page proofs for the standard and premium hardcover versions of my new book The Best of Hack and /: Linux Admin Crash Course!

At first scan things look good. I will give everything a final, careful look, and if all looks good, I could go live as soon as tomorrow! If you can't tell by the overuse of exclamation points, I'm excited!

#writing #publishing #SelfPublishing #linux #linuxjournal

After five years of helping to build hardware and software that protects people's privacy, security and freedom, at the end of the month I will no longer be at Purism (I'll still be helping out as an advisor).

For the near term, I plan to spend my time promoting my new book (coming very soon), writing yet another book, and thinking about what's next for my career.

If you have any suggestions for what I should do next, email me at next@kylerank.in (DMs are disabled on this instance).

I should note that this is a slightly modified form of macros I had been using for a LONG time inspired by this blog post:

http://www.jukie.net/~bart/blog/20090608232531

But defaulting to the '.o' view instead of the '.i' view, and adding flagged messages to the '.o' view has made all the difference.

My email flow has dramatically improved ever since I created a macro and folder hook in mutt so that by default I only see new, unopened, or flagged messages. I don't move opened emails from my INBOX elsewhere so no INBOX 0.

Now I only see emails I need to take some sort of action on. I can filter messages other ways, then press '.o' whenever I want to resume this view.

If you are a mutt user, use these two options to your .muttrc:

macro index .o "l(~N|~O|~F)\n"
folder-hook . push '.o'

#mutt

For Easter dinner we will be wiping our mouths with overshot napkins I wove last year. I didn't realize until after I wove them that the elongated wheels (due to fabric weft matching warp in thickness) look like a row of Easter eggs.

#weaving #easter

I almost forgot to change the yarn color in my knitting clock for today! I had planned to do it before bed, but first thing in the morning works as a backup.

#knitting #easter