My wife brought the Graco DuoGlider for $37, the best bargain price for a stroller ever. I use it almost everyday after work to walk the boys around the blocks. Even though it is a bit clumsy to fold and taking up a bit of space in the trunk, I can’t really complain.

Yesterday morning, lil Dan work up around 6 and Dana woke me up also to look after him so she could crawl back to bed with Dao. The weather was around 40s, which was a bit chilly for a walk, but I took him out anyway. I just had to double up the blanket. We walked to University Mall for some Dunkin’ Donuts and Saxby coffee. He fell back to sleep after five minutes we left the house. I loaded up 5by5 for some geeky podcasts.

These days 5by5 has been visited on my iPhone quite often. I caught up all the episodes of The Web Ahead. Jen Simmons is a fantastic host with an awesome lineup. I also listened to some of The Big Web Show with Jeffrey Zeldman as well Content Talks with Kristina Halvorson. Both are excellent. I am also going through some The Talk Show podcasts with John Gruber. I am also listening to some of Shop Talk with Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert.

Let’s get back to the kids. Around 3pm yesterday, neither of the boys wanted to take a nap. The quickest solution was taking them out for a walk. The boys got to take a nap and I got to do some exercise. It was like killing three birds with one stone. So I walked for almost three hours and the kids slept for three hours until time for dinner.

Everything was fine until Dao started coughing. He coughed until midnight before he could go to bed. I knew that the next day he wouldn’t be able to go to daycare. I ended up taking a day off work to be with him. I also took him to the doctor and turned out that he has allergy. The pollen got to him when we were walking outside yesterday. Poor kid. The little guy is doing fine though. He’s awesome!

Found this recipe in Reader’s Digest:

Author of Comfort Food Fix, [Ellie] Krieger tweeted that she spreads avocado on toast or with a slice of tomato and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt.

Here’s another good tip from RD:

By the time produce travels from its source to store shelves, it has lost many of its disease-fighting compounds. Buy fresh veggies locally or when in season. If not stick to to frozen, which is prepared at peak ripeness to lock in nutrients.

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.

Last Saturday I came back to Lancaster to attend an old buddy’s wedding and to my surprise Phong Le was in the house. He sang, rapped and hosted the reception. He still needed tremendous improvement as a host, but he was quite entertaining as a singer/rapper.

After introducing the bride and the groom family, Phong Le along with the Jam (a local band in Philly) kicked off a dedication to the bride with his own spin on “Nail Nail Nail.” Apparently there were quite a bit of nail owners in the audience. Nail salon is still one of Vietnamese thriving businesses around Lancaster. The guys I used to hang out with are now in the nail industry. Although the song is meant to be positive, it has become some sort of a joke. One can tell the crowd was not too pleased.

Then Phong Le rapped one of his signature tunes “Ghe Map” (Fat Chicks). A quick glance around the room, there were a handful of fat girls in the audience and they weren’t impressed either. I was surprised that no Heineken bottle was flying his way. Lancaster girls were on their best behavior.

Although Phong Le’s rap has yet to impress me, what I really liked about him was that he gave his all. His presence had made my buddy’s wedding very special. I appreciate and thank him for that. I also respect him for the fact that he was not one of those singers who think they are too good to sing at wedding. Fuck them!

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.

From the very early days of my career, graphic design has always been my source of inspiration for my web design. I also decided from the beginning that I wanted to focus on the web rather than print, but I had learned how to take print design elements and transform them into the web. Whenever I get a chance, I would pick up graphic design books to fuel my creativities. Here are some recent books I found in George Mason library:

More Graphic Simplicity: This is not a book to be read, but to be inspired. I am in awed with the beauty of simplicity showcased in the book.

Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type: A short, concise collection of user tips when dealing with typography, especially as types are increasingly popular for the web.

The Elements of Graphic Design (Second Edition): The layout of the book, which featured texts and examples around the main content, is a huge distraction. I have to mentally blocking out all of that noise in order just to focus on the primary texts. There are some great points on simplicity that I would like to jot down for future references:

Dynamic white space plus abstraction, the process of removing unnecessary details, are essential to sophisticated design (preface)

Visual simplicity eliminates unnecessary elements and structures those that remain in a logical, consistent system. Good design reduces the effort of reading as much as possible, thereby encouraging readership and uderstanding (page 3)

Again, the designer’s job is not to fill in all the space. It is to make information accessible and appealing. The best use of the page’s empty space is to help make information scannable, not to make the pages pretty. The point is to increase the page’s absorbability. (page 5)

The pauses between songs on a record show content the way white space does. Space attracts readers by making the page look accessible, unthreatening, and manageable. Leaving too little white space makes a page look crowded – good only if that’s the point you want to make. Leaving too much white space is almost impossible. I say “almost” because you will get groans of disapproval if you toss around chunks of unused white space, that is, emptiness purely for its own sake, rather than for the sake of the message. Readers are far less likely to notice or object to too much white space than to an unreadable, crowded page. (page 13)

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.

Listening to Miles Davis’s “Move” and it fits perfect with my state of mind at the moment at work. I have finally moved sites off the server that is hosting the Law School web site. Now it’s one dedicated server dedicated to just the Law site. Everything else such as student organizations, blogs and faculty sites are residing on another dedicated server.

I set up three different networks using WordPress multisite feature. One for the faculty. One for student organizations . One for the blogs. I moved the Library & Technology Blog yesterday using the export and import feature in WordPress and the process took me two seconds. WordPress rocks once again.

In the future, anyone from the school or library request a web site for a faculty, organization or, blog, I can just add a new WordPress site instantly. They can go with the default template or create their own.

I am so glad that I could make the move with the support of my supervisor. It’s definitely a peace of mind to have the main site on its own.