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On the Web - Tune-up for IT at Doc's Garage

Issue 124

From Issue #124
August 2004

Aug 01, 2004  By Heather Mead
 in
Information technology power is flowing out from Linux-using smart companies. Join the conversation.

Senior Editor Doc Searls has spent a good portion of the last year or so talking to IT guys inside some big-name companies about how and where they are using Linux and open source. More than a single story, Doc's tapped in to a revolution in the way IT departments work. He's dubbed the revolution DIY-IT. Response to his reports has been overwhelming, so we've launched a new SSC Web site devoted to the DIY-IT movement. Here's Doc describing in his own words what this new site is:

Early last year, Don Marti assigned me to write a long piece about “how Linux helps make smart companies smarter”. What I found was there's a lot more going on out there than anybody's talking about in the mainstream press, or pretty much anywhere. It was nothing less than a vast reform movement inside IT (information technology) organizations everywhere—one in which the demand side was starting to supply itself. Much of this has been with Linux and other open-source tools and applications, but the phenomenon goes far beyond that. It's a cultural as well as a technical revolution, yet it's also very practical. It's about getting stuff done.

So, we decided to start a site on the Web where people involved in what we call DIY-IT—Do It Yourself IT—could talk about their work and report on trends happening in the field. We call it Doc Searls' IT Garage (garage.docsearls.com) or just IT Garage: a place for “News, ideas and real-world stories about how IT folks solve their own problems”. If it takes off, maybe it will become a print magazine, but we don't know yet. We're still shaking the thing down and signing up regular contributors.

If your company is part of the revolution or you'd like it to be, check out the site. See what you can learn and take back to the rest of the team. Or, if you've got your own story to share, write about it on the site.

Back on the Linux Journal site, after constructing this year's Ultimate Linux Box, Don Marti decided he needed to write about building the ultimate quiet Linux box. His article “This Linux Box Is Too Loud!” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/7601) is a roundup of computer-silencing techniques that work under Linux.

Finally, if you appreciated this month's article “Linux Serial Consoles for Servers and Clusters”, be sure to read Poul E. J. Petersen's Web article, “Project Hydra: the USB Multiheaded Monster” (www.linuxjournal.com/article/6518). Petersen writes, “It would be really cool to have a dedicated, remotely accessible console server with a lot of serial ports connected to all of our servers.” Read about how they accomplished exactly that using “a readily available USB bus with USB-to-serial adapters”.

As always, if you or your company has a cool new project or has found a better way of handling everyday tasks, send me an article proposal at heather@ssc.com.

Heather Mead is senior editor of Linux Journal.

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