Okay I see I do not neccessarily have to certify myself. Then I will not do so, that does not make any sense to me.

I had a systems userland/programming article get posted at slashdot.org/bsd - I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I wrote the article as a reference (mainly using a system library) and decided to share it, I can't believe anyone thought it was slashable material, oh well, stranger things have happened.

I am starting to feel better about my mistake with a publisher. I don't think I have really learned the implications of the hard lesson as it were, but I do not feel so terribly awful now. Perhaps after my vacation I will get my head screwed on straight.

Yesterday I actually downloaded, installed and setup a database with MySQL. What ever possessed me to do such a thing I have no idea, I have never really been interested in databases but for some reason I got an itch and just had to know what everyone was talking about. I have used PL/SQL a little (okay - I so I was forced to) but I was seriously surprised at how easy mysql was to set up. I have done about 10 Oracle installs and can heartily say - I hated them. Maybe mysql will get me over that prejudice?

The tweaks to mmw are done and uploaded. I made the dumbest mistake in the field width specification in previous releases and had to fix that. For fun I am thinking of adding a swap watch option too, might as well cover all the bases right?

My Next Big Thing(tm) is deciding what I want to do next (when I grwo up). I have gotten really good at systems administration and hence once I get good at something, obviously I need to change! I have been thinking for the longest time I want to write device drivers (being a hardware geek and all) but without access (or mulah really) to new hardware I don't really know if I will get the practical experience.

Perhaps this is another issue I need to think about while surfing (the ocean - not the web) during vacation?

Oh, BTW all, my wife is a practicing anthropologist/archaologist who just got back from a dig (although she was a surveyor) in Turkey. The Gordian site - I have no_idea_why but everywhere I turn these days in the community at large, everyone else knows someone else in a similar field - so - here is her site:

at geocities and yes I know, I have tried to get her to move onto the Diverge.Org server but I think she fears losing traffic or something (or just doesn't want to put up with a gestapo administrator like myself).