Thanks to everyone who took part in my survey! The results were quite interesting. This information is important for me because it helps me to improve 4sysops. Some of you submitted comments about my blog; I am publishing them without names at the end of this article.

Most of your comments were quite positive, which surprised me a little. I think this is due to the fact that only those of you who really like my blog were willing to spend some time answering all the questions. If you didn’t take part in the survey, you still have the chance to tell me your opinion of my blog in the comments section below. Critical responses are welcome too! So, if you think that I am a Microsoft fanboy, just go ahead and say it! But do me favor: watch your language. This is a family program. If you don’t want to comment publicly, you can use my contact form.

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Another year of blogging on 4sysops passed by. It was a good year. The number of page views doubled and so did the number of subscribers. So I say thank you to my loyal readers, especially to those who didn’t agree with me often. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might be interested to know which articles have been read most often.

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I wasn’t sure if I should blog about this. You probably wouldn’t find such a post in a traditional publication. But, I think, this is one of the differences between blogging and publishing. Blogging is something personal, whereas publishing is mostly about delivering information.

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I wouldn’t mention it, if I didn’t read this article in the reputable Networkworld. There is a contest going on for the sysadmin of the year 2007. Last year, technical competence was the deciding factor to win this contest. This year, you are also supposed to “record your own vocal track and enhancements to the SysAdmin Rockstar song”. Well, why song writing? Why not a cooking contest? Or what about the sysadmin with the hottest crochet needle?

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Just in case you didn’t watch it yet, these are the highlights of the interview of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Parts of it are quite funny. It is interesting to see how much details they can recall about their early products.

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OSTG (Open Source Technology Group) searches the sysadmin of the year. Among other things, you can earn a trip to Washington DC and a Apple MacBook. Unfortunately, this is a “closed source” competition as it is only “open” to U.S. and Canadian resident IT administrators. It seems that OSTG is not so “open” minded as one might expect. Or is it just because sysops from the rest of the world can’t compete with American sysadmins?

Via Slashdot

Computerworld published some nice user stories of backups gone badly. This is my favorite:

While I was on vacation, a young IT staffer, new to the company, decided to run his own “updated” version of an Oracle backup — wiping out the live database. I had to fly back from Scotland to rebuild the database and restore from backup. Thankfully, only a half-day’s work had to be input — by 30 people!

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I just found this video on YouTube where “Steve Balmer” is praising Windows 1.0. I really had to laugh when I saw this. It is probably a fake, but the difference to the real Balmer is not so big. When I see one of his “shows”, I usually have to laugh, too. I am already looking forward to see his presentation of Windows 6.0.

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As a system administrator you probably know the term “DLL Hell“. Functions of a DLL (dynamic link library) can be invoked by different programs. If the setup of a new application exchanges the DLL with a newer version, other applications might fail. I didn’t experience many DLL related problems recently, but it is certainly good news for system administrators that with .NET and its Global Assembly Cache (GAC) the times in DLL hell are finally over. If you’re a heavy .Netal fan you might enjoy the DLL Hell song which is a song of praise for a new era to come.

I just stumbled upon this funny video. It’s a song from Wes Borg about sysadmins. I guess, it’s already a year old or so, but I am posting it here anyway, since I really enjoyed it. It makes me like my job more somehow. Hope it does the same for you.