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Today, I ordered a physical print proof of FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems.

The ebook is now available on my site, and is infiltrating other bookstores as you read this. Each ebookstore has its own internal speed–while I uploaded to Amazon first, I expect it to make the books available last.

I’ll keep the book page updated when FM:SF hits various stores.

Print should be available next week, barring problems.

Other people have posted their thoughts on September’s 2015’s Oregon Coast writing workshop. Here’s mine.

I want to expand my readership, so I submit writing to people who can pay me for it. Selling a piece to a pro market is not only income, it’s advertising.

I’ve been using the same Word template for submitting for, oh, five years now. It has headers already set up, font size, paragraphing, and all that stuff. The first page starts with my name, meatspace address, phone number, and email address, some white space, and placeholders for title and first paragraph.

The last day of the workshop, Kristine Kathryn Rusch​ hands back the a piece I’d given her the day before and says “Look at your address.”

It’s fine. I mean, there’s my name, the house number and street, email address, and phone number.

I look back at Kris.

Kris says, “Look closely.”

I study it carefully. There’s my name. The house number. The street. My email address. You could email me, or call, or even address an old-fashioned envelope with this–

But there’s no city.

Or state.

Or zip code.

I’ve used this template for five years. I haven’t sold anything I’ve submitted for, oh, five years. Gee, I wonder why?

Hundreds of people have seen these manuscripts and did not notice that. Kris has seen that template dozens of times now, and didn’t notice it earlier.

Mind you, if the New Yorker actually wanted to buy my work, the editor would drop me an email. (In reality, if the New Yorker wanted to buy my work, I’d probably drop a kidney.) But still.

Check everything.

For some value of now, that is. I just realized I forgot to post this.

My November 11, 2015 mug.org talk about SSH is now on YouTube. This is one way to lose 90 minutes.

I’ll be doing a 20-minute presentation on Tarsnap at the mug.org meeting on 12 May 2015, at the Farmington Hills library.

As you might guess, it’s somewhat based on my Tarsnap book. I only get 20 minutes, so it won’t be a complete overview, but it will get you started.

Assuming all goes well, we’ll get video again.

The ebook of Tarsnap Mastery is now on Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo. All DRM-free, of course.

I’m working on the print version this week.

Once I have the print version available, the 3-format ebook bundle will be available from www.tiltedwindmillpress.com

The FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials page now offers Chapter 10: SMART, as a sample.

I think this is the shortest blog post I’ve ever done, but… hmm… nope, that’s it. If you’re dubious on the book, here’s how you can try it for free. Have a nice day.

The book is finished, and available at most major ebook retailers. It’s still working its way through the system at Kobo, and Smashwords hasn’t fed iBooks yet, but it’s coming.

More details at the FM:SE page on my web site.

Working on print this week.

Here’s an early version of the cover for FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials.

The text is subject to change, but the art (from the inimitable Eddie Sharam) is final.

You might also be interested in the painting Liberty Leading the People.

…at least not now.

This is a “post it now so I can point to it later” piece.

I met Michael DeHaan, the Ansible creator, primary author, lead, and probably Grand Poobah, at AnsibleFest in Boston. We discussed the possibility of an Ansible book. He’s certainly open to the idea.

But we agreed that Ansible is moving too dang quickly to document in a book. By the time I finished a book, progress in Ansible would make the book obsolete. Ansible development will slow down at some time, making a book much more realistic.

I’m also not convinced that I’m the right person to write this book. I use a narrow slice of Ansible features, and other folks use a much greater set of Ansible features. My use is expanding, but still, I’m more likely to write a series of small Ansible books that reflect my growing understanding as opposed to one massive tome.

I’ll continue to document what I learn, and we’ll see what the future holds.