Let’s face it, when it comes to endpoint management, automation is king. In our hyper-connected, ultra-virtualized, cloud-based world, there is no shortage of machines that we have access to and no limitation to the amount of infrastructure we can manage. But with new scale comes new challenges, and configuration management...
In 2001, the Department of Defense published MIL-HDBK-61A(SE), a 221-page military handbook offering guidance on the practice of configuration management to all military departments and agencies. While MIL-HDBK-61A(SE) is the government’s most recent contribution to the practice of configuration management, the Department of Defense itself has a long history of...
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
In 1983, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Award “for their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system.” In his acceptance speech, aptly titled “Reflections on Trusting Trust,” Thompson presented a now infamous hypothetical design for...
It’s hard to remember a time before package managers. A time when software arrived on a set of floppy disks in the mail or a compact disc in the back of a catalog. A time when finding software online meant visiting a half-dozen shady websites that may or may not...
I first discovered my passion for computers on the day my dad brought home our first family computer nearly 20 years ago. While it would be a few more years before that passion turned into an obsession bordering on insanity, the desire to create things out of intangible bits and...
Just over a year after the launch of Microsoft Windows 98, Apple Computer released the next and final version of their “Classic” Mac OS operating system, Mac OS 9. In typical Apple fashion, the months leading up to the release of OS 9 were marked by increasing hype, aggressive marketing,...
In the summer of 1998, Microsoft released the next version of their flagship Windows operating system, Windows 98. While Windows 98 is often remembered as the operating system that defined desktop computing for the majority of users in the late 90s, it included a particularly unique feature that changed the...
Originally coined as a term to describe mercenary soldiers, the phrase “free lance” has come a long way in the past 200 years. Sir Walter Scott, originator of the term, first wrote it in the book Ivanhoe in 1820: I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances, and he...