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The Ubuntu Distribution, and associated spin-offs such as Kubuntu and Edubuntu, have developed quite a following in a fairly short period of time. Ubuntu's goal is to be the "linux for human beings" and focuses on (among other things) usability.

LOPSA is proud of the member benefits we are developing, and our relationships with the best book publishers in our industry. To support our new relationship with Pearson Education, the September Book of the Month is Ubuntu Unleashed by Paul and Andrew Hudson.

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It seems that no matter how much we plan, how logical our reasoning, sometimes projects just fail. The July Book of the Month can be seen as an example is multiple ways. The first way, is that although we've had a list of books ready for several months, we're still late in putting the monthly page together! The second way, is in the book, "The Logic of Failure", itself. In "The Logic of Failure", author Deitrich Dorner explains how to identify the logical decisions that can lead to failure, how to plan for failure, and how to avoid the consequences of failure.

The July Book of the Month is The Logic of Failure by Deitrich Dorner, translated by Rita and Robert Kimber.

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The Sys Admin of the Week for June 5, Neal Dias, lists CVS/Subversion as the "tool you can't live without". By coincidence, O'Reilly and Associates have released a new book on version control this week. The introduction to the book proclaims that version control can help developers become more efficient. But as Sys Admin in large facilities, like Neal, know version control can be essential to keep your environment from blowing up underneath you.

The June Book of the Month is *Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion, Second Edition by Mike Mason.

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The 1999 book, Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution was a watershed event in the history of Open Source. Since then, not a single aspect of the information technology industry has been unchanged by the power of open source. Our jobs and our profession has been particularly changed by it.

The May book is Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution by Chris DiBona, Mark Stone, and Danese Cooper.

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Ruby is a quick and easy, interpreted, object-oriented development language. One of the main advantages of Ruby is that it can be used to rapidly move from prototype to working application. Rails builds upon Ruby to provide a web framework to develop full applications in a fraction of the amount of code required with other languages.

The April book is Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (The Facets of Ruby Series) by Dave Thomas, David Hansson, Leon Breedt, Mike Clark, Thomas Fuchs, and Andrea Schwarz.