syslog

I'm a little late with my "state of the magazine" address. Typically, I would have written this column for the January issue, but at the time, I thought if I waited a while, the market would improve and spread a healing balm over the technology industry. Although the market has not improved, Sys Admin magazine is adapting to changes and doing well.

Some of you have written to me asking why our magazine has gotten so small (fewer pages, smaller trim size, etc.). These measures were taken last year partly in response to a company-wide mandate to reduce printing costs. The reduced number of pages, however, is a direct result of a decrease in advertising support. Our April issue reflected a healthy surge -- you may have noticed the storage poster and the SANS extras, which we were able to include with direct support from advertisers. We hope to continue this trend throughout the year. For example, we're currently organizing two supplements to Sys Admin -- one in conjunction with Hewlett Packard and the other with Sun Microsystems. These projects will allow us to provide a broader range of articles focusing on vendor-specific solutions.

Others of you have asked whether we plan to include coverage of OS X in Sys Admin. We would be glad to receive proposals for articles on the topic. We rely almost entirely on readers to submit articles reflecting their own specialties and interests. This month's call for papers includes the themes of Security, Server Management, and Performance Tuning, which will be featured in the magazine this fall, so if you're interested in contributing, please contact us. Articles examining Mac OS X, AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and other UNIX-like systems are welcome.

We are looking for original articles that describe unique solutions (or unique implementations of familiar solutions) that readers can adapt to their own environments. We understand that Sys Admin readers work in diverse settings. Some work in smaller shops where they might do double or triple duty as admin, DBA, and security officer, and others work for large corporations supporting 500 or more users. The strength of Sys Admin magazine lies in the expertise of this dedicated group of professionals, and I encourage you to share your experiences and insights with colleagues by contributing to the magazine. You may also send me suggestions for specific topics, and I'll try to include those for other readers to consider. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief