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The iPad as an IT professional's tool
John Welch over at Ars Technica wrote a wonderful post about using an iPad as a system administrator's tool, noting that Apple's tablet is "an addition, not a replacement" to the many tools that IT pros currently use to complete their daily tasks. Welch brings up points that I discovered when I first started taking my iPad along on client visits -- the size is right, the battery life is wonderful, and it's much more handy than a laptop or an iPhone. Note-taking, for example, is much easier to accomplish on the iPad, and it's possible to prop up the iPad for easy reading at a distance instead of squinting at a small screen. Welch notes that he's able to easily analyze data from Cacti or Nagios with just a glance, keeping an eye on how things are doing. With Welch's iPad, there's no waiting for a laptop to start up every morning. Most devices can be monitored in the aforementioned Web-based systems, he has email to catch messages about systems going down, and once a problem is found, he can "get a lot done over SSH." Welch uses Prompt (US$7.99) as his SSH client of choice, perfect for logging into Mac or Linux servers and desktop machines. For other sysadmin tasks, Welch has some concerns. There's no iPad analogue to Apple Remote Desktop, for example, although Windows network admins have a wonderful tool available in WinAdmin ($7.99). Apple hasn't released any management tools for Mac OS X Server that run on the iPad, but there are some limited third-party tools available such as Server Admin Remote ($9.99). Still, there's a good-sized market for sysadmin tools for the iPad, and if Apple doesn't step up to the plate to deliver them, Welch hopes that third-party developers will. If you're a system administrator who uses an iPad regularly at work, let us know in the comments what tools you use or would like to see.
The "Lost" prompt
Blogger David Winter has a posted a cute how-to showing you how to change the prompt in your terminal to the ">:" used in Lost. Basically, you update your .zprofile or .bashrc or .kshrc to include the line export PS1=">: ". Me? I'm a csh weenie. I'd have to use set prompt=">: " to get the same effect. (The same thing applies for tcsh users.) Winter also includes instructions on how to get the green-on-black color settings used in the program. 4 8 15 16 23 42 and all that.
360 dashboard update to be ready by morning
The long awaited 360 dashboard update is finally coming, arriving by invite for most Stateside gamers sometime early tomorrow morning.The update will actually begin to go out by 2:00 AM PT, but, according to Major Nelson, it "can take up to four hours for a user to be prompted to receive this update," so the invitation to download the small-in-size (but large-in-scope) update could arrive as late as 6:00 AM PT.Patient gamers can look forward to 125 new features for their cream-colored Xboxes, including the ability to queue multiple Marketplace downloads, keep your place in DVDs, and even fast-forward to just the choicest parts of videos (like the one featuring the titular Tomb Raider above). Plan your evening and/or morning accordingly, folks.See also: A video tour of the Xbox Live Spring update 360 BC update "in the next few weeks" [Thanks to everyone who sent this in; also via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
