As Linux sysadmins, many of us still need to deal with Windows worms and how they affect our networks. Tomorrow is April 1st, and the Conficker worm will be activating on vulnerable computers everywhere. Here's a quick HOW-TO showing how you can detect compromised and/or vulnerable computers on your network:

UPDATE #2: The contest is now over. Thanks to everyone for participating. We'll be notifying winners early the week of March 16th. (BTW, the answer was "Kernel Panic")

UPDATE: Now with hot clue action! (See the bottom of this post)

No really, I do. I want everyone to have a subscription to Linux Journal. Well, you can get a year subscription to the digital version absolutely free. FREE. No strings attached. All you have to do is solve a puzzle and fill out a form. And puzzles are fun, so it's like 2 gifts in one. :)

A friend of mine suggested I try hosting with www.nearlyfreespeech.net for my website -- because instead of a set monthly rate, they charge you based on usage. Low traffic sites (like mine) would cost very little to maintain. About that time, I was starting a private website, so I gave it a go. As it turns out, I'm quite happy.

It’s no secret that I’m a Linux fan. I love it. I use it. I tell of its goodness far and wide. It’s also true, however, that I administer and use a variety of operating systems throughout any given day. I like to think that makes me more objective than some, and I like to think more people will pay attention to me if I don’t bash every other operating system out there.

I Twitter. I Dent. I Blog (duh, you're reading it now). At times I've Plurked, Facebooked, Skyped, and Gtalked. The big problem is that each socialization protocol has its own client. I currently have 2 monitors on my desk and one is almost full of widgets and applications to keep up. I have:

Remember back in August, when there was all the hoopla regarding me in a "Hot Blogger" calendar? Well, your votes paid off, and indeed I grace the eleventh page of the calendar as Mr. November. Seeing myself as a calendar model immediately made me think of cows. (Well, OK, not really -- but bear with me)

Back in January of 1994, Dave Fischer coined the idea of the "September that never ended." Basically, it referred to the influx of new Usenet users that came to college every September, and had to acclimate to how one conducts themselves on the 'net.

I was in Houston last week, and I found myself doing some remote tech support over the phone. Everyone in the Houston office patiently waited for me to finish, but gave me the strangest look when I told my assistant back in Michigan, "You're going to have to reboot Gonzo and Fozzie, because they need to mount Miss Piggy."

As a Linux evangelist, I find myself in an interesting quandary. There are many new netbooks being sold with Linux pre-installed, but often the way Linux is installed is not what I’m used to seeing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I understand the reasoning for custom interfaces, but it has some disadvantages.

In my video last week, I really hammered on Hewlett Packard. It's important to realize, however, that they are merely the vendor that happened to irk me at just the right time. My video could easily have been pointed at any number of tier one computer hardware vendors, and it would have been just as heartfelt.

Computer virtualization is all the rage these days. Heck, in the video I shot last week, I installed about 12 Linux distributions on a VM, because it made recording a lot simpler.

Tuesday was an insane amount of fun here at BeOS Linux Journal. If you missed the shenanigans, don't worry, most of the silliness is still here, just not on the front page. Here's a quick list of the stories. I think my personal favorite was the rumor about Sony buying BeOS. :) Enjoy: