IBM has published the following ten technical articles and tutorials on its developerWorks website. They cover a range of interesting (though not embedded) technical topics. Some require free registration. Enjoy . . .

• HTTP compression: coming soon to a server near you? — HTTP compression, a recommendation of the HTTP 1.1 protocol… specification for improved page download time, requires a compression feature implemented at the Web server and a decompression feature implemented at the browser. While popular browsers were able to receive the compressed data as early as three years ago, Web servers were not ready to deliver compressed content.The situation is changing, though, as server compression modules are introduced. This article dissects Web compression, examines the benefits of HTTP compression, offers several compression tools, and highlights the effectiveness of the technology in a case study.
• Best C coding practices — Although the C language has been around for close to 30 years, its appeal has not yet worn off. It continues to attract a large number of people who must develop new skills for writing new applications, or for porting or maintaining existing applications. This article offers suggestions that may help you in your job and coding skills.
• LPI 101 Tutorial: regex, files and processes — This certification prepares you for the Linux Professional Institute's Exam 101 Release 2. In this second of a series of four tutorials, you will learn how to use regular expressions to search files for text patterns, how to locate files on your system, and how to take full control of Linux processes. You'll even get a whirlwind introduction to shell pipelines, redirection, and text processing commands. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a solid grounding in basic Linux administration and will be ready to begin learning more advanced Linux system administration skills in the follow-on tutorial. Even for those not preparing for the certification exam, this tutorial is useful for experienced Linux users who want to round out their basic Linux administration skills.
• LPI 101 Prep Tutorial: Intermediate administration — Welcome to “Intermediate administration,” the third of four tutorials designed to prepare you for the Linux Professional Institute's 101 (release 2) exam. This tutorial (Part 3) is ideal for those who want to improve their knowledge of fundamental Linux administration skills. It covers a variety of topics, including system and Internet documentation, the Linux permissions model, user account management, and login environment tuning. Even for those not preparing for the certification exam, this tutorial is useful for experienced Linux users who want to round out their foundational Linux system administration skills.
• Super-computing on an un-super budget — Proprietary solutions such as Microsoft Wolfpack and HP/Compaq Alpha TruCluster compete for mind share with the generic Beowulf clusters on Linux Intel boxes. Beowulf, in fact, was the outgrowth of NASA researcher Donald Becker's solution to the problem of creating a supercomputing resource without having a supercomputing budget. It is the latter type of cluster that will be addressed in this paper.
• ECT release — The alphaWorks Enhanced Cluster Tools (ECT) for Linux is a set of additional tools for the enhancement of Cluster Systems Management (CSM). CSM includes features that help make it easier for an administrator to set up and maintain clusters. ECT provides additional features such as an xCAT-to-CSM transitional tool and scripts for easily collecting data from service processors. This download is from IBM's research and is free. It includes new commands, many ported from xCAT: clearmmlog, mpasetup, mpascan, mpacheck.
• xCAT release — xCAT (Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit) is a tool kit that can be used for the deployment and administration of Linux clusters. Its features are based on user requirements, and many of its features take advantage of IBM xSeries hardware. This download is from IBM's alphaWorks research and is free. It includes a completely rewritten installation system and support for more versions of RedHat and SUSE.
• Extending Eclipse's Java development tools — The refactoring capability of Eclipse's Java development environment is one of the most useful features it provides. This article will introduce you to the steps for creating your own refactoring as a natural extension of Eclipse. Portions of the solution presented in this article were excerpted from the recently published book, The Java Developer's Guide to Eclipse.
• How Linux and Unix differ — This page will guide you to material that will help you get started using Linux. Linux is not UNIX, although it is intended to be very UNIX-like. This article offers an extensive introduction to the difference between Linux and Unix, why Linux is important, what Linux can do, how to use it, and much more.
• Linux networking overview — This tutorial discusses the various network configuration files required by Linux, how to initialize a network interface, and how to edit the system's routing table. The tutorial closes with a brief look at how to analyze your network and ensure that data gets to where it's supposed to go, without error.

 
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