His Majesty’s Dragon
by Naomi Novik
Published: 26 March 2006
Rating: 8/10

His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)

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This is the first book in the Temaraire  series. As indicated by the title, this is a series about dragons. However, this book takes a twist on Dragons and the world in which they exist. Most novels dealing with dragons take place in universes that contain magic or realms that are far different than our own. Naomi Novik takes a different approach. Hers is an alternate history. The time frame is that of Napoleon in France at war with Brittan. In this alternate reality, dragons exist, and are used by the military as fighting beasts.

There are two main characters in this book. The most obvious is the dragon. However, the story is not told from the perspective of the dragon, but instead from the dragon’s master/companion. The dragon’s partner is the other main character of the book, and the story revolves as much around the character dynamics as it does about the dragons.

This is an excellent book that can be read by itself, without having to read the other books to feel satisfied with the novel.

Sorry for the short review.

I have recently added a wiki/faq section to the site. This is mainly for my own notes and thoughts, but I find that if I am working on something, then someone else has as well. You may or may not find the information useful.

I could have waited until I had populated it more fully, but better partial information than none. Most of the items will be computer related, but you never know what I might start looking into.  This being said, I have also not determined how I am going to handle comments. Currently they are disabled. This is mainly due to the wonderful fact that spam bots would fill up the entire thing in about 20 days if I was not careful.

To this effect, I may have to enable some sort of feedback loop to help minimize those types of responses.

Mountain biking is an inherently dangerous sport. Riding through the woods on two wheels with branches, roots, and other nonsuch leads to the very high potential of being injured. The injuries can rank from the minor scratch to ending up in a cast, or two. Even with these dangers, I would rather run into a tree than to be taken out by an auto while on a road bike.

Recently at a race, I took a bad spill on a downhill section. While nothing was broken, I had some major bruising. I had to take about a week off to recuperate, but no major issues. These types of crashes are the ones that you are glad to have.

Now last week, my foot came unclipped due to sliding on a root, and my eggbeaters (pedals) swung around and slapped me in the shin. For all intents and purposes it was a minor accident. However, the shin is a bad place for wounds. The skin is taunt and shallow depth to the bone. Needless to say after continuous bleeding for 4 hours I went the emergency medical clinic.

No stiches (because it was a puncture wound and there was not enough skin to bind), but a tetnus shot and compression pack to stop the bleeding, and I was fine. However, I was asked that famous question of “How painful on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain you have ever felt.” So when I saw the XKCD comic today I laughed, because of the slight change in the question, “worst pain you can imagine.”

I have had my shares of scrapes and injuries over the years so it is rare for anything to break a 2 or 3 any more. But I would have to agree with this comic, that my imagination holds much worse things than I have ever felt. If I do ever get asked that question, my response will have to be much the same.

Hopefully though, injuries will be kept to a minimum, and I will never have to answer this question.

As I stated earlier, the first 3 days of the Red Hat rapid track training went by in a blur. The amount of information covered was more than I believe a lot of people could absorb in the short time frame. There were a number of people at the training claiming that they were going to fail the certification exam at the end of the week.

Day 4.

The first half of the day was spent finishing the course material. In a strange twist, the stuff that we covered on the last day was some of the easiest items that we had covered all week. During the training I was able to pull out my laptop and answer a few emails that needed seeing to. While the material covered in the last day did not seem that important it is where I spent the second half of the day that made all the difference.

The course material contains a number of hands on labs. These labs are actually very well written, and actually require you to learn something if you want to be able to complete them. The catch is this. If you cannot complete the labs quickly without looking for how to do them in the notes of your book, then you are probably not ready for the exam, or will run out of time. This was the feel that I was getting, so during part of the morning session, I spent my time going back over the material that we had covered which was new to me. Could I have skipped this? Maybe. Did it help? Definitely.

The second half of the day I spent going over a review lab. This lab has you configure a system utilizing a number of the skills that you learned throughout the week. For the most part I was able to go through the lab of working with firewalls, LVMs, apache, and such without having to refer to the training material. However, I was not fast at it, and it took me 3 to 3.5 hours to complete. Not a good sign when the time that you have during the RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) exam is shorter than this. The review was good though, and I felt that I had a good grasp of the material.

In addition to this, as I was checking my work against the guide in the back, I saw that they had additional work you could do if you wanted more practice. This seemed like a good idea, and I stayed longer to ensure that I could accomplish all of these goals as well.

Day 5.

Exam Day.

The RHCE exam consists of two parts. The first part is the RHCSA (Red Hat Certified System Administrator) and the second half is the RHCE. In order to obtain the RHCE you must first pass the RHCSA exam. Once you have passed both, then you have your RHCE.

In order to take the exam you must sign a non-disclosure agreement. Because of this, I am not able to go into any detail of the exam. I believe it is OK if I say that there is no multiple choice section. The entire exam is a practical exam. You must be able to do the work if you want to get either of the certifications.

You do not receive your results instantaneously. It is a shame, but it is also understandable. Red Hat states you should have them within 72 business hours. I received my results the following Saturday.

Overall thoughts.

Was the class worth it? Yes. There is enough stuff that you may not do on a daily basis to warrant taking the class.

Could you pass the RHCE exam without it? Yes, if you can do everything listed on the objectives provided by Red Hat then you should be fine. (If you can do them fast)

Did I pass? Yes, I passed both the RHCSA and RHCE exams.

The first 3 days of the Red Hat Rapid Track course have been fairly intense. The main reason for this is the shear amount of data that is covered in three days. I have taken other training courses that take 2 days before you even get into the training material. That would not be the case when it comes to the Red Hat rapid track course.

For starters, I am taking the course at a local Red Hat approved training facility. The location is in a part of Atlanta that is probably convenient to the largest number of people around town. If you know the Atlanta area, then it is just north of I-285 off on GA-400. For me it is a bit of a trek, but all in all it has not been a bad commute. If I was doing my normal work hours and not 9 to 5 it would be even better. The facility is clean, and the coffee is much better than what we have at my regular office.

You might be asking what this has to do with the training? Well, the facility and amenities have much to do with  how well training goes. If you are uncomfortable in the office, or feel like you might get mugged walking to the car, you are probably much less likely to be in a good learning mood. Needless to say, the facilities are pretty nice, and the low lighting in the room makes my eyes happy.

Thoughts on the training.

The way that the training is setup is that each student has a Red Hat 6 workstation. This workstation is what is used for all of the labs. The labs utilize the instructors server and a local virtual machine instance using built in kvm. At times, multiple instances are created to simulate a multi-server environment. Overall, the labs provide a good way to become familiar with the various topics that are covered.

What does the class cover? That is the 6 million dollar question. The answer would be a little bit of everything. The easiest way to describe it would be to look at the requirements for the RHCSA and RHCE exams. The class touches on almost all of the topics listed there. The topics range from adding iscsi devices to setting up firewalls with natting to configuring mail services. The course covers more than any but a few engineers would ever encounter at any given job.

So far I would say that the training is definitely worth it. If you are not a high level admin/engineer, I would recommend the courses that split the material up over a two week period. I say this, because the Rapid Track course is definitely not for beginners.

At this point, there is one day of training left, and then the test on Friday. More information coming after this point.