03.31.07
9 Days of Nerdom
So here is the plan:
I am moving to SF in late May, (hopefully Pete and Debbie aren’t going to read this anytime soon) and I might need to worky-work if I am planning hang out there much. Looking at my resumé I decided at least one thing I needed was to be OS X Server Certified.
Now this really isn’t the only thing I need, if I was to write a laundry list of things that would be a swell ideas you might rattle off something like:
- OS X Server Certified
- perl scripting
- Unix shell scripting (bash and korn, atleast)
- AppleScript
- 25 good terminal Commands with at least 5 flags a piece ( hard to look like a 133t Dude, if you keep looking at the man page)
- Python, man that sh*t is hot right now!
So after reading a nifty book call “Time Management for Systems Administrators” by Tom Limoncelli, he esposed several different techniques that seems rather applicable here.
- Write Down your Goals
- Prioritize Your Goals
- Make a Schedule
- Write down what you know
Taking these one at a time:
Write down Your goals: well this is the laundry list above, there are certainly more, but hey its only 9 days! Writing things down has the unique characteristic of them tangible, even if it only electrons, but thats where you gentle reader will maybe help keep me honest. 
Prioritize Your Goals: So my logic goes as follows, certifications are sexy, they make you look like you might know something about something, and someone else is willing to vouch for it too (namely Big Brother Apple). 25 good terminal command would be relatively easy to get down I am sure I already know about that many, just remembering flags and how to pipe the results will be more work. Apple Scripting will have to come before shell scripting just because I happen to have the book. Python Perl will have to wait 
, i don’t have the references and the nor the times to complete everything.
Make a Schedule: So now comes the real task. actually setting the NSwindow for your time allocation. Since I have taken a week off of work to do this among other tasks I should treat it like a job. So here is the game plan
OS X Server- it is imperative to get this done before Leopard comes out, and it would be nice to have some street cred before I move. I will be using OS X Server Essentials, I got a sweet discount on it working at the notorious A.P.P.L.E.
25 Terminal Commands- while I use it already, it would be a neat idea to be able to SSH into a computer and do almost everything I do currently via the command line interface.
AppleScript- as an ecnonmist, its all about productivity, and AppleScript is a great way to make that happen in the OS X platform, Perl and Shell Scripting would prolly be the preferred way but, I will take what I got and go from there. I purchased Rosenthal’s AppleScript Second Edition from Amazon, this seems to be the book to get.
So here it is: 
Write Down What you know: So this was included in the schedule, tedious but a really good idea to actually remember stuff. am no the sharpest tool in the shed.
Sooooo, this is what I plan to actually do fro the next 9 days, if you have any suggestions let me know. Otherwise I will emerge the from this with a little more muscular atrophy and better 133t 5ki11z!