Authorization Manger makes secure server virtualization more than a pipe dream. These best practices show you the two best ways to secure Hyper-V Server and virtual machines using Authorization Manager.

Tip of the Trade: Finding a way to ignore files or directories in Subversion so they are not included in svn status output is easy; figuring out the exact syntax is not. Here's are way to simplify this Linux server management quagmire.

Tip of the Trade: VNC makes it easy to log into a full desktop on a remote server. Follow these steps, and your Debian Linux server will be up and running in no time.

Tip of the Trade: Anyone who has encountered the Perl @INC array in the context of a 'cannot find module' error knows the value of being able to see a list of directories on you Linux server. Here's how to access @INC and find obscurely located modules before they are lost.

Tip of the Trade: Tired of stretching your fingers to hit the ESC key on your Mac? There's a simple way to fix that.

In Windows Server 2008, Group Policy Preferences simplifies client management to make it possible to reap the chief benefits of an Active Directory environment. The Control Panel Settings nodes in the Group Policy Management Editor makes this possible.

Tip of the Trade: Readline is the library that handles Linux command-line input as well as input for applications. Most of the default settings work perfectly well, but some change the way tab-completion behaves and thus require modification.

Tip of the Trade: The default values in /etc/hosts used in several Linux distributions have long been known to cause issues. Here's how to fix them in Apache 2.

Tip of the Trade: A here document, or heredoc, is one way to get text input into a script without feeding it from a separate file. If the data or script is complicated, however, keeping the two separate is generally a better idea.

Tip of the Trade: Hard disk thrashing? Check out Iotop, a Python program similar to top that enables you to keep an eye on disk I/O.

Looking to experiment with cloud computing? With Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, it's easy to turn ordinary servers into cloud servers and build a private cloud.

Tip of the Trade: Booting from a USB stick can be very useful, but it's not an option for netbook users. With usb-creator from Ubuntu, however, it's possible.

Mail server admins are quietly living out a past that never happened: A rule in SpamAssassin intended to stop spam dated outrageously in the future is snaring anything with a 2010 date.

Tip of the Trade: Feeling like the only one stuck in the office this week? Here are some Linux command-line 'Christmas' Eggs to help you while away the hours.

Tip of the Trade: Less chocolatey, but more useful. Since 2000, the Perl Advent Calendar has been providing a useful Perl module each day from December 1 through Christmas Eve.

Tip of the Trade: The flip-flop operator in Perl is quite useful for comparing arguments, but it does have some surprising quirks.

Are your Hyper-V virtual machines secure? Learn how to secure them using Authorization Manager.

Last week we looked at special Perl variables for reading things in; this week we look at the other side -- variables that are useful when you want to write things out.

Tip of the Trade: Perl is a great tool for reading in information from a file. Several useful special variables can be used to neaten up code or alter the default behavior when reading in records.

Tip of the Trade: Have typos in your email file names. Hey, it happens to the best of us! Normally, it's an easy fix, but if you have a file with a name starting -, it's not so easy. To fix this, you need an escape sequence for rm itself, not the shell.

When deploying virtualization technologies, key choices must be made to ensure the environment is secure. This article explains how to use Authorization Manager to make Hyper-V as secure as it can be.

Not every scheduled task can take place on an always-on machine. For those we have anacron. With anacron, like cron, you schedule a job to run at specific intervals. Unlike cron, when the computer is switched on the anacron daemon checks whether a task should have run and if one was, it runs it.

Superuser privileges bring inherent risks with them, yet you can't run a corporate IT system without granting some people the privileges to do system-level tasks. There are ways, however, to minimize the impact.

Tip of the Trade: The command-line mail client mutt may be old school, but it features a wide range of keyboard commands that can be used for various useful tasks.

Group Policy Preferences makes it possible to reap the biggest benefits of an Active Directory environment by simplifying client management. Control Panel Settings help facilitate this.