FTP

# service vsftpd status
# service vsftpd start
# chkconfig vsftpd on
# chkconfig vsftpd --list

httpd

# ll /var/www/
# ln -s /var/ftp/pub /var/www/html/pub
# cat > /var/ftp/pub/index.html

Summary: My Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) training is now completed. I took the skills assessment before I took the training and RH124 was recommended. Although the course was not the right fit for my job, which is server administration, I have learned the basic of Linux.

The class concentrated more on GUI than command line. I wish it was the other way around. Nevertheless, the instructor provided as much command lines as he could. Pete Davis was the instructor. He has great knowledge of the subject as well as a sense of humor, which helped making the class engaging.

I definitely recommend this course for absolute beginner to Linux. It would had been perfect for me if I took this course about four months ago when I first started my job. At this point, I wish I had taken Red Hat System Administration II (RH135).

Administer remote system including remote shell access, remote file transfer, using SSH keys

Managing physical storage including filesystem, partition and swap space

Install Linux with Anaconda.

SSH

# scp original-file new-file
# rsync -a /home/student demo:/tmp
-a=all

Archive

# tar -cvf target/to/archive source/to/archive
-c=create
-x=extract
-t=test (tell)
-v=verbose
-f=filename

Using SSH

# ssh-keygen
# ssh-copy-id example.com

# service crond status
# chkconfig –list crond

# vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PermissionRootLogin no
PassordAuthentication no
# service sshd restart

Summary: I am not really concentrating today. The subjects aren’t interesting and the installation process failed again.

Yum

# yum list (get the list of .rpm, which stands for RPM Package Manager)
# yum search kernel (kernel is the name of the package)
# yum install kernel
# yum update kernel
# yum remove kernel

Network

# ip addr show eth0 (eth0 is the name of the network)
# more /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
# service network restart
# system-config-network
# ip route
# host visualgui.com
# dig visualgui.com

Users and Groups

# useradd donny
# passwd donny
# vipw (let’s one user edit at the same time)

Manage Files

# echo $PATH
# pwd (current path)
# ls /home/{dir1,dir2} (show more two directories)
# ln file1 file2 (link file 1 to file 2)
# ln -s file1 file2 (symbolic link)
# su – username (change user)
# cp -av /dir/to/copy /dir/destination

Permission

r (view content)
w (change the content)
x (requires r to execute the content)

rw-rw-rw-
rw-r–r–
umask 002

u+s (suid=4: file executes as the user that owns the file, not the user that ran the file
g+s (sgid=2: file executes as the group that owns the file
o+t (sticky=1: no effect)

Summary: The best day so far of the training. Picked up many useful information. Hope the next two days will be even better.

Introduced to Bash

Commands entered at the shell prompt have three basic parts:

# chmod +x gedit demo.txt
[command] [options] [arguments]

Command lines:

# pwd (path you’re currently in)
# history
//Using the tab key (“tab” “tab”) for completion
# scp filename user@ip-address:/ (copy file from local folder to virtual server)

Introduced to managing physical storage using the graphical interface
Learned to manage logical volumes
Introduced to monitoring system resources

Summary: Even though the topics were interesting, they aren’t related to my job.

Covered:
Installing Red Hat 6, which took almost half a day.
Using GNOME graphical desktop.
Editing files with gedit.
Managing files with Nautilus.
Getting help with manuals (F1 for help)
Managing system clock.
Configuring printers.

Command Lines:

uname -r (find out what version of Red Hat)
$ su – (log in as substitute user)
# useradd visitor (add username “visitor”)
# passwd visitor (add password to “visitor”)
# ip addr show eth0 (show ip address)
# ls /usr/share/doc (documentations)
# man man (access manual)
# man -k print (-k is for keyword)

Summary: The first day is a very basic introduction to Linux. Installation process took half of a day.

I was interested in the three-day conference for technology in library particular in the tracks on mobile trends and web presence. Sine my supervisor attended the latter, I went into the topic on mobile trends. The speakers covered mostly on mobile apps and designing a separate a mobile web site. The strategy is to offered only contents that mobile users would want. One speaker went as far as providing a device-detection javascript with a whole list of variable for every mobile device. The easiest way to make a mobile-friendly site is to provide a css file to hide all the big, unnecessary design elements on the desktop site. One speaker mentioned mobile-first design, but didn’t really give responsive web design its justice. While the conference was informative, the library folks need some catching up to do.

I also signed up for a post conference workshop on taking Drupal to the next step. Unfortunately the workshop was only three hours and the instructors spent the first half an hour install Drupal and modules on people laptops. We didn’t get very far and I wanted to see how to create a theme. It looks like the best approach is to take a base theme and modify it to meet your needs. I took a look at some of the starter theme and there are tons of php and css files to customize. I’ll take a crack at theming Drupal one of these days, but right now MODX seems like the best choice for really coding the site the way I wanted.

Install WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xfz latest.tar.gz
cp -r * ~/public_html/your/website/folder/

Change Permissions (rwx => 4 + 2 + 1 = 7)

For Directories:

find /path/to/your/directory/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

For Files:

find /path/to/your/file/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Permissions

chmod -R 755 directory
chmod -R 644 files

Remove files and directory (use carefully)

rm -rf YourDirectory

Change Owner

chown -R apache new_name //change entire directory

Rename Directory

mv {old} {new}

Database

mysql -u root -p //To access database
mysql> create database [database name];
mysql> show databases;
mysql> drop database [database name];

Two years ago, social media was a hot topic at AACSB conference. This year a talk on social media sounds dated. Nevertheless, Samantha Novick who is the new media specialist for Thunderbird School of Global Management gave an insightful presentation on how to engage alumni using LinkedIn. The communication team in the School of Business doesn’t do much with LinkedIn since the Career Center handles it, which makes more sense in our case.

The last session was on maximizing marketing and communications reach with minimal resources. Stop outsourcing is one of the most effective cost-saving strategy and bringing staff in-house is a great move. Though hiring one person who handles both print magazine and web site design and development is the right method. I am not doubting that print designers can’t create a web site or vice versa, but to get the best from the both world is easier said than done. For me, someone with a strong web design background (HTML, CSS, SEO) and some graphic design skills is a much better fit for business school.

While all the sessions I had attended are informative, what I find most interesting is building a brand culture. How can we create something that is unique for our school? How can we position our school beyond our location, the usual academic programs and the overselling if “leadership?”

I didn’t expect to learn anything technical here, but it seems to me like everyone is struggling with its own CMS and some is looking for workaround using WordPress. Each mentioned about mobile version in development, but none makes use of its current content with responsive web design. I am more surprise that none of these schools is doing anything for the iPad. I could see all the cost of printing magazine, annual reports and publications could be saved if we start thinking about marketing our message for e-readers.

I finally landed in Tampa, Florida at one o’clock in the morning today. My original plan was to fly out at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, but I booked a day late. I made a horrible mistake and caused a great hassle, but in return I had some time to spend with Dao for a day. So I can’t complain.

I didn’t go to bed until 2 a.m. and woke up at 7 for some breakfast. The last thing I needed was to listen to some inspirational speech, but I have to handed to Donna Typson who delivered a motivating talk on “Peak Performance.” She was engaging in sharing her personal accounts and also providing some great advices. Here’s are a few wisdoms to keep in mind:

1. Don’t let your job take away your time with your children
2. We live our life in chapters. You are the only one who can give yourself permission to turn a new page
3. To be successful, you need to share time, energy, knowledge and contact

After her speak, I went up and bought her children’s book titled The Red Bow.

Followed by Typson’s was a presentation from The Mihaylo College of Business and Economics on “To Brand or Rebrand: Leveraging Research and Technology to Build B-School Brands.” Mihaylo is in the process of building its own social network using Moodle. The site has the following features: My Mihaylo, connections, classes, workspace, docs, bridge and goals.

After lunch, Tim Westerbeck, president of Eduvantis, gave a presentation on “Building a Brand Culture.” Here are the five principles he highlighted:

1. Identify your core institutional values
2. Codify the core values as “constitution”
3. Embody core values in everything you do
4. Develop policies and practices reflecting the core values
5. Deliver a service experience consistent with core values/brand

The last presentation of the day was from Daniels College of Business on how the communication team built danielspioneer.com from brainstorming to getting feedback to implementing site using WordPress. In a way, this site is somewhat similar to our “At the Center of It All.” The second half of the presentation is on “Managing Communications When Things Go Wrong” by Darlene Rotch, Chief Executive Officer, Panorama Public Relations.

For dinner, I went to Champp’s with five other people for informal networking. We had hamburgers and exchanged business cards. I am looking forward toward tomorrow’s programs which are “New rules of engagement: How to elevate your business school’s Web 2.0 to the next level” and “Maximizing your marketing and communications reach with minimal resources.” After that, I will head back to Virginia to be with Dana and Dao. I miss them so much already.

Social media networks were a big buzz at AACSB conference this year. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are mentioned in every session. My job in the next few weeks will be to get The George Washington University School of Business on these networks. We have talked about social media networks before, but never actually done anything. The main reason for the resistance is the time that devoted to these social media. Who is going to tweet? Who will update Facebook? Who is going to keep track of LinkedIn?

From what I have learned from the sessions, most of the B-Schools have a Facebook page to have a Facebook page. Some schools are using Twitter to let the students know about an upcoming event or to remind them a certain deadlines. A few use LinkedIn to connect with alumni. These reasons alone still weren’t convinced me those are the ways to approach social media. Hannah Paramore, president of Paramore Redd Communications, however, had shown us how to take advantage of social media as tools to reach different audiences. She gave an example of how a record company makes it profit by repacking its content. Take Miles Davis for instance. There’s the re-release of The 50th Anniversary of Kind of Blue, Miles Davis for Lovers, The Best of Miles Davis and so on. In comparison, social media networks are just different ways of getting out the message. Let say you write a blog post. The post could go on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to reach different audiences. Since most of these networks, especially Facebook, make sharing contents so easy, why not just make one and repurpose them to different channels.

Sounds like a fantastic idea to me. Does anyone else have any thoughts on that or how to best use these social media to benefit the school?