Unquiet Desperation

My team has been using the excellent lori plugin in tandem with Firebug to determine our time to first byte (TTFB) when testing our websites. Yesterday, we ran into a situation that made it impossible to do this in a browser. Never fear…curl to the rescue!


curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} \n" http://your.url.here


This will get you the time to connect, the time to first byte for your site, and the total time to pull down the code.

If you like, use the -s switch to remove the progress bar.

Props go to Merlin, for being the wizard he is while we worked this out.

Thomas Gideon, host of The Command Line Podcast,  has posted an interview he did with me as I reviewed SCaLE7x, the Southern California Linux Expo. I’ll apologize for the audio quality now…this was during the height of the attacks against Time Warner’s DNS servers, and Skype took a big hit.  Still…we talk about some interesting things…I hope you enjoy it.

In other news, I’ve switched to OpenDNS. Which fixes everything, of course.

I’m attending the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE7x) this weekend,, down at the LAX Westin Hotel. I’ll be covering the event for the Command Line Podcast, and will be taking copious notes and posting pics on my Flickr account.

If you’re at the Expo and want to meet up, DM me on Twitter.

Thanks to an article from Lifehacker and some basic python, I’ve managed to make my terminal a bit more interesting.

If folks are interested in learning more, I’ll post a how-to on Unspecified Error.

Earlier today, I tweeted a question to anyone following me on twitter. “Looking for a good book on Linux Administration: Any suggestions?” Thankfully, the Linux Journal (follow here) picked up my plaintive cry and re-tweeted me to their entire following. Here are the recommendations I received:

• Linux in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition (from minitotoro and chigh): this one is pretty good although a little bit dated
• Linux Complete Command Reference (via TheeCodePoet): has saved my life more times than I can count.
• Linux Administration Handbook (2nd Edition) (via xtine and jtollert): Both said this was a good one, and a great help.

I’m also looking at Linux System Administration, First Edition from O’Reilly. So far, they’ve never let me down.

Any input from you folks? What should I be reading to better understand Linux?