Ants on the Melon
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I wasn’t all that great of a student in college. Actually, I wasn’t a great student in high school, either. I really like learning things (across many subjects), but I guess I just didn’t like having to prove that I actually learned it. Of course, that’s how you earn good grades.

Probably the one thing that got me through college was being able to write. Math and science majors have to prove their answers and back them up with facts. We History and English majors just had to write and be able to B.S. enough to get by. Worked for me!

But lately I’ve been writing about something I find far more interesting than History, namely Linux and DNS. I know that most of the world disagrees with me, but I find it a lot more fun to write about DNS internals than about the Storming of the Bastille.

Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity to write for the premier Open Source magazine, Linux Journal. My first article is published in this month’s issue (September 2008) and is titled “djbdns: More Than Just a Mouthful of Consonants.” It is amazing how much fun writing can be when it’s about something you are really into (djbdns is my favorite piece of software). So far I’ve received email from several readers saying that they liked the article and decided to switch to djbdns after reading what I wrote. Sweet!

I’ve also been contributing stories to the Linux Journal website. It’s especially cool to see my stories get posted to Digg and Reddit and become popular. Here’s what I’ve written so far:

• djbdns: More Than Just a Mouthful of Consonants (only available to subscribers for the next month or so)
• Understanding Kaminsky’s DNS Bug
• The DNS Bug: Why You Should Care
• Rebooting the Magic Way

My buddy, Will, also wrote an article in the September issue, titled Nginx: the High-Performance Web Server and Reverse Proxy.

And there’s more on the way, both on the web and in print. I’m currently working on article for the December issue of Linux Journal, so be sure to check it out!