I remember the first time a friend of mine introduced me to Linux and showed me how I didn't need to type commands and path names fully—I could just start typing and use the Tab key to complete the rest. That was so cool. I think everybody loves Tab completion because it's something you use pretty much every minute you spend in the shell.

Have you ever heard the following? "Welcome to the team! Here's a list of 15 applications to install, the instructions are in the team room, somewhere.

A vDSO (virtual dynamic shared object) is an alternative to the somewhat cycle-expensive system call interface that the GNU/Linux kernel provides. But, before I explain how to cook up your own vDSO, in this brief jaunt down operating system lane, I cover some basics of vDSOs, what they are and why they are useful.

In the video last week I showed how to use the bash complete command for simple use cases. Today I'll show you some of the additional ways that you can use the command for more complex scenarios.

I recently had the need to embed a file in an executable. Since I'm working at the command line with gcc, et al and not with a fancy RAD tool that makes it all happen magically it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to make this happen. A bit of searching on the net found a hack to essentially cat it onto the end of the executable and then decipher where it was based on a bunch of information I didn't want to know about. Seemed like there ought to be a better way...

For this article, I want to introduce a piece of software I've actually used recently in my own work. My new day job involves studying the ionosphere using an instrument called an ionosonde. This device is basically a giant radio transmitter that bounces radio waves off the ionosphere to see its structure and composition. Obviously, an important part of this is knowing the radiation pattern of the various transmitters and receivers.

It was white, not much bigger than my hands held side by side, weighed about as much as a bottle of wine, and it came in a shiny, faux-leather case. It was the $199 Asus Eee 901, and I couldn't believe that a computer could be that powerful, that light and that much fun.

Android apps meet the desktop in the Chromebook.