Steven Vona is a Linux administrator whose passion for technology extends beyond the day to day and into a love of teaching his skills to others. Steven is trained and certified in multiple technologies, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, VMWare and Cybersecurity, and has over 16 years of experience working in both the public and private sectors. Because Steven did not complete a traditional educational path, he is mostly self-taught and a strong believer in learning by experimentation. Steven began to teach himself programming at age 12 and ran a BBS in 1988; when teaching, he encourages others to try different solutions and learn from their mistakes and successes. Outside of technology, Steven is an animal lover and an avid photographer who enjoys exploring and photographing his native city, Philadelphia.
Linux Gaming Old School - Terminal Based Games on Linux
I am not much of a gamer, however, I am very nostalgic. When I first fell in love with computing, there was no Call of Duty. There was just ascii (text) based games. I remember spending hours playing D&D on my old Commodore 64. The...
How to Show Line Numbers in vi / vim Editors
Learn how to show the line numbers in the vi / vim editor and how to jump directly to a specific line. Just set the number parameter!
Linux pee Command - Tee Standard Input Into Pipes
The Linux pee command allows you to split output from a command into multiple streams. Like the tee command for pipes!
Moreutils - An Extension of GNU Core Utilities
As you may know, I am a huge proponent of the GNU Core Utilities. I believe the tools included are required learning for any new Linux admin. Although it offers important everyday commands such as touch, head, basename, tail and many more, it cannot provide...
Linux Sponge - Soak Up Standard Input and Write to a File
The sponge command is used to read all data from standard in then write it to a file. It reads all data in, before opening the output file. Hence the term "Soak up". It's an interesting tool that is often overlooked.
SFTP, FTPS, and SCP - What's the Difference?
What is the difference between SCP, SFTP, and FTPS? In this article we try to highlight the differences, strengths and limitations of each protocol.
How to Schedule File Backups to Google Drive in Linux
Google Drive is a cloud storage service that allows us to backup the files and access them securely from any device. In Linux, you can easily mount the Google drive using the Gnome online accounts utility. After mounting the Google drive, you can upload any...
ts Command - Add or Convert Timestamps For Any Output in Linux
At some point in a Linux admins career they need to add timestamps to output. Whether it's logging for shell script or a simple command (like ping, traceroute, etc...) timestamps can come in handy. There are many ways to accomplish this, but none are as...
Linux Basename Command – Strip Directory from Filename
The basename command is another gem provided by the GNU Core Utilities. It has very few options and provides a simple function, to remove the directory components from a path. It also comes in very handy for removing file extensions (SUFFIX) from a filename. In this...
Linux head Command - Print First X Lines from File
Today we are going to discuss another handy text utility that is part of the GNU Core Utilities package. The head command allows you to display the beginning of a file. In this short tutorial we will discuss how to use the head command, it's...