Category: Nonfiction Books

The inimitable Eddie Sharam has finished the cover painting for the new edition of Networking for Systems Administrators. It’s a parody of Giuseppe Zocchi’s Pietre Dure of Architettura. It’s a wraparound, but you can see a mockup of the front cover at the sponsorship page.

Eddie painted this. Like, on paper. With paint. The current plan is to include the painting as a Kickstarter reward level, much as we did with the cover for Run Your Own Mail Server.

At this moment, N4SA2e has 98 print sponsors. Two more sponsors and I have to do a challenge coin. If I have to do a coin, it’ll have the usual rat and bear the words NEVER MY FAULT/ALWAYS MY PROBLEM.

Mind you, my plan is that I will get exactly one more print sponsor and then y’all’ll stop backing it, so I don’t have to do any extra work.

Confession time: I don’t love Kickstarter. I don’t love money either, but it does seem to be a dependency when living in capitalism.

When I release a book on my site, I sell a few copies. When I launch it on Kickstarter, sales go up tenfold.

So: Dear Abyss is live on Kickstarter. The book exists, and the moment I get paid it goes to everyone.

Backers immediately get a copy of Letters to ed(1), the out-of-print three-year compilation.

TLDR: “Networking for Systems Administrators, 2nd Edition” is open for sponsorships at https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/n4sa2e-sponsor/ and I would appreciate your support.

Longer version:

Every large company I’d ever worked in since 1995 suffered from a continuous feud between the sysadmins and the network team. One team would demand an inch, the other would insist on 25.4 millimeters, and battle was declared. As someone with an ankle shackled in each world, I quickly reached two conclusions.

One, the job is hard enough without us arguing past each other.

Two, everybody involved needed a short sharp visit from the Slap Fairy.

About ten years ago I achieved my lifelong goal of becoming a full-time writer, and promptly lost my mind. I could keep being a writer so long as I kept bringing in money. If I didn’t bring in money, I’d get stuffed back in a cubicle. I had to write books, and quickly. I had made a list of titles I could spew fast. One of them was “Networking for Systems Administrators,” meant to end that feud or at least bring about a ceasefire.

Because my other goal was “pay the mortgage before I get stuffed back into a cubicle,” I slammed out that manuscript in about a month.

To my surprise, it was well-received. Managers bought the book in bulk to distribute to their staff. Network administrators bought it to give to select colleagues. Sysadmins bought so they could successfully argue with their network administrators.

It’s been ten years, and that book needs updating. Some of the commands have been changed. 100Mb Ethernet is rare, while 10G and 100G are almost common. There’s all those tidbits I could have done better, if I hadn’t been driving myself too hard. Let’s Encrypt made TLS omnipresent, so I need to add that. And of course it must have a proper Eddie Sharam cover.

If I get ~100 print sponsors I’ll do another challenge coin, like the one I did for Run Your Own Mail Server (https://mwl.io/archives/23836).

So, yeah. https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/n4sa2e-sponsor/ is my effort to bring a tiny peace to IT departments around the world. I would be grateful for your sponsorship, and your support with the mortgage part.

Thank you for your consideration.

PS: I should also mention that my collected FreeBSD Journal advice columns, Dear Abyss, is going to kickstarter soon. “Dear Abby for Sysadmins” isn’t going to sponsorship, but if you’re interested you might check it out. (https://mwl.io/ks)

My latest tech book, Run Your Own Mail Server, is starting to creep into bookstores. The book entry on my web site links to various stores that carry it, and will be updated as more stores appear.

Paperbacks are available on Amazon and will reach other stores shortly. They’ll be in the Ingram catalog, so you can have your local bookstore order them via ISBN 9781642350784.

Hardcovers are pending. Once the Ingram databases finish churning, they’ll also be available everywhere. Ask your bookstore to order ISBN 9781642350791.

I’m working with BookVault to manage direct print sales from my web site, but their Woocommerce plugin hit my store and promptly soiled itself. In their defense very few authors have been running direct sales for over ten years, and most of those don’t have as many features as tiltedwindmillpress.com.

Speaking of my bookstore, you can get the ebook there.

A team of volunteers led by the stalwart Patrick McEvoy records the talks for EuroBSDCon, BSDCan, and AsiaBSDCon and makes them available. They rent equipment from local suppliers every year. The rental fees approach the cost of purchasing the equipment, and the team has to configure the gear from scratch and desperately hope that the previous renter didn’t break any connectors or fry any capacitors, but at least they don’t have to lug heavy gear around the world.

Video equipment now small enough that they can lug it around the world.

The BSD A/V team is raising money to purchase their own equipment. They can configure it properly at home so (in theory) they arrive, plug in, and are ready to go. They’re taking donations directly via bsdfund.org, or if you need a charitable donation receipt you could funnel it through the FreeBSD Foundation and say “community AV team” in the comments.

If they don’t raise enough money to buy the gear they need? The conference will pay to rent it. You’ll still get videos. But it’ll stress out Pat and the gang. Let’s not stress out Pat.

In wholly unrelated news, I have a spare hardcover of Run Your Own Mail Server. Not yet available in stores. Not available anywhere.

I’m auctioning it off to benefit the AV crew.

Comment on this post to bid. All bids in US dollars.

The auction runs from now until 5PM EDT 15 September. If the bidding goes nuts in the last few minutes, I’ll leave it open until it settles down. There’s no sniping this auction at the last moment, as I want the bids to escalate beyond all sensible limits.

They need the money soon, so once I acknowledge your victory I’ll ask you to donate the money within the next day and send me the receipt. I will sign this book and send it to you on the 16th, along with the ebook.

Bid early, bid often.

Thank you.