Eric Reasons

As promised, here are some essential applications and software I lean on, not just to get work done, but to make my Linux machine really feel like "home". -----iGoogle----- http://www.igoogle.com iGoogle has become an absolute essential for me. When you're on as many different machines as I am in a given day, it's nice to have everything follow you around. I am a heavy user of Goggle Documents for all my spreadsheets and word processor files. I'm addicted to Google Reader for my RSS feeds. A brief aside on RSS: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. When done right, it is a godsend for information junkies. In short, your RSS reader grabs simple XML code for the pages you have subscribed to, and the posts to these syndication feeds are piped directly to your computer. Imagine a tickertape for your most commonly viewed websites. My RSS feed is like a perpetually updated custom newspaper for me. It should be noted that RSS feeds are only as good as their authors, ...

I'm going to start this blog off at it's natural beginning. A few posts on the assembly of my arsenal of toys, trinkets, and 007-esque gadgets that I use regularly to get my myriad of jobs done. The software, hardware, and toys that I list here are as unique to me as any mechanic's toolbox is. There's always more than one way to skin the cat, but these are my weapons-of-choice. First up, the laptop. The box. The deck. The one essential workspace of the Network Engineer. If I were a bank-robber, this is where I keep my shotguns and ski-masks. I'm a long-time Linux tinkerer, but it's only recently that I've really used it to bear the brunt of my technical heavy lifting. Ubuntu's 7.10 distribution (Gutsy Gibbon), is the first distro that I feel is robust enough for me to dive in with both feet, and completely abandon Windows. Now, I have a long-time habit of documenting new computer setups and configurations as I perform them. I can't tell the number of...