Living and working in an always-connected world means the quality and reliability of your network connection is vital to practically everything you do on your computer or mobile device. Maintaining a quality network connection, and troubleshooting a connection that fails, are basic skills that everyone should, at the very least, be familiar with.

It doesn’t matter if you prefer Windows, Linux or macOS, most operating systems have basic commands to make troubleshooting network issues a breeze.

Do you know how to force an unresponsive Mac to shut down, or how to find the name your computer uses to identify itself to other devices and servers on your local network in Linux? Are you curious to learn which command displays the basic IP address configuration information for your Windows device? TechRepublic is here to help and share even more user-friendly commands for Windows 10, Linux and macOS in this free PDF ebook download.

In the download:

The writing on the wall has become incredibly clear and Linux administration is in your future. Your company has probably realized just how much money they can save and much more ore agile they can be by working with Linux as a server platform.

Maybe the business is even considering Linux on the desktop. Either way, you know where you’re headed, but you’re not sure how to get there.

Fear not, as TechRepublic Premium has a list of 10 skills you’re going to need to learn, to successfully add Linux admin to your title. But don’t worry, this isn’t just a list of the commands you need to learn (although that’s a part of it). Instead, this list is made up of a variety of skills you’ll need to successfully manage Linux for your company.

Most everyone in IT knows about the debacle that was Red Hat capping CentOS at the knees. If you’ve been living in a server room for the past year, let me give the quick gist: Red Hat decided to shift CentOS to a rolling-release distribution, CentOS Stream, that now serves as a testing ground for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. What was once one of the most stable Linux server distributions now livest between Fedora and RHEL, so the company can highlight (to the public) what it’s planning on doing with the next release of their flagship OS. What that means is CentOS Stream will no longer exist as the rock-solid platform we all once knew and deployed, but an ever-changing playground for Red Hat’s premier OS. This means businesses cannot effectively rely on CentOS Stream to be stable. In some cases, crucial tools like cPanel have completely withdrawn their support for CentOS Steam.

The importance of that cannot be overstated. Without cPanel support, a large number of businesses have been forced to migrate to other Linux distributions.

But which ones? Because this is Linux and open source, it should come as no surprise that plenty of options have risen from the ashes that was CentOS 8. One such option is AlmaLinux.

Although you might think AlmaLinux is new to the world of Linux, it’s not. This “new” distribution was created by CloudLinux, a company that has a wealth of experience supporting Linux in the data center and within the cloud. This TechRepublic Premium PDF download will tell you all about it.

It’s time to party. Linux is 30 years old. What started as a student project by a young Linus Torvalds studying computer science at the University of Helsinki, has become an open source operating system that enterprise businesses around the globe depend on.

It’s massive. It’s crucial. And without Linux, most businesses wouldn’t be nearly as agile, flexible, and reliable.

To wish Linux a 30th birthday, Jack Wallen describes how the operating system changed his life and the business landscape in this free TechRepublic PDF download.

Linux is a powerful platform, one that Enterprise businesses of all kinds have grown to depend on. In fact, without Linux, most businesses would struggle to remain as agile and capable as they are. That’s significant, given how competitive the corporate landscape has become. If your business isn’t able to pivot in an instant, you’ll fall behind quickly.

That means your IT staff needs not only have the skills required to deploy and manage the Linux operating system, they also need to understand some of the more important best practices that can help keep those systems running smoothly and securely.

This PDF download from TechRepublic Premium takes a look at some of the best practices you should be applying to all of your Linux deployments, broken down into easily managed categories.

Samsung has unveiled the third generation of its Galaxy Z Fold smartphone named appropriately enough the Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G. In many ways, the new phone is similar to its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Fold 2. Both phones offer a hinged foldable design with internal and external screens, 5G connectivity, a 7.6-inch display and a rear triple camera setup. But the Z Fold 3 5G ups the ante with S Pen support, a speedier processor and a somewhat lower price tag.

Learn more about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G in this free PDF download from TechRepublic.

In the download:

• What is the Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G?
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Processor and storage
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: S Pen support
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Connectivity
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Cameras
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Display
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Battery and charging
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Durability
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Authentication and security
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Operating system and interface
• Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G: Colors
• Specs for the Galaxy Z Fold 3
• Should I buy the Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G?
• When will the Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G be available, and how much will it cost?

If you’re new to Linux and open source software, you will quickly find that there are many terms to learn. Or maybe you’ve come across a word or two in your journey and found yourself lost. Fortunately, TechRepublic Premium is here to help you along the way.

We’ve collected more than 40 terms that are commonly used within the open-source and Linux communities; terms that aren’t always in the regular parlance.

Novices take note: We’ve avoided adding commands and applications to this list and stuck with more general terms. Hopefully, this short glossary will help clear your path to Linux administration.

Docker is a collection of Platform as a Service (PaaS) products that make use of operating-system-level virtualization to deploy containers and containerized services. Docker has been around since 2013, so it’s mature enough to handle enterprise-level needs. Speaking of which, you’ll find a few different versions of Docker, such as the community edition, the open-source edition, and even Docker Enterprise.

Learn more about how to install and deploy Docker Engine, which is available free on the Ubuntu platform. And how, with the help of a Docker Swarm cluster, you can scale those deployments with remarkable ease, and make them immediately accessible from the LAN to which they were deployed in this PDF download from TechRepublic Premium.

Source of article

Is your Gmail inbox filled to overflowing with emails you've already read? Want to mass delete them?

The problem with the Gmail app is there's no easy way to do a mass delete. Even when you try with the web-based version, you'll find you can only select 100 emails at a time. When your inbox is overflowing, that's not a good enough option. There is one thing you can do.

In this free PDF download Jack Wallen shows you how to clean up an overflowing Gmail inbox.

In addition to the COVID pandemic, analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and other tech trends are changing business needs more rapidly than in recent years. It’s also causing companies and workers alike to grapple with a growing skills gap that must be closed. Should companies offer employees retraining, upskilling or other educational and development opportunities to help close the skills gap?

TechRepublic Premium conducted an online survey to find out. The survey explored the different ways technology helps business leaders build their future workforce and how to keep employees’ skills up to date.

The survey asked the following questions:

• ow important is it for employees to be given an opportunity for retraining, upskilling or additional educational opportunities?
• Why do you believe this is important?
• Why don't you believe this is important?
• Has the coronavirus pandemic made the need for retraining and upskilling more important at your company?
• What types of training or skills focus has your company offered?
• What types of opportunities has your organization provided?
• How many employees have participated in the upskilling/retraining/additional educational opportunities at your company?
• Have you implemented any type of feedback/analysis process to determine how employees benefited from these endeavors?
• How did employees describe their experience?
• Do you have any plans to improve the process where needed?
• How much has your organization invested in these programs?
• How much do you plan to budget for these programs when they begin?

Survey respondents shared retraining and upskilling options offered by their organizations as well as rationale both for and against such programs. The majority of respondents (87%) reported that their companies consider any learning opportunity as either very important or important.

Businesses supported employee development and continuing education for varied reasons ranging from improving expertise and making employees feel valued to increasing employee retention and boosting productivity.

However, one-tenth of respondents don’t consider such initiatives essential for business operations due to it being budget prohibitive, not utilized when offered previously, deferred to employees to manage, or a staff flight risk, thereby wasting time and money invested by the company.

Slightly more than two-thirds of respondents recognized the need for retraining and upskilling following the pandemic. A much smaller number (14%) of respondents said that the pandemic did not enhance a need for retraining or upskilling employees, and 20% were unsure.

According to respondents, the most popular training or skills initiatives focused on leadership (47%), cloud services (32%), automation (32%), cybersecurity (29%), networking/VPN technologies (29%), and SaaS (25%).

Despite the fact that 100% of respondents described the training as “somewhat successful” or “very successful,” only 37% implemented an official feedback/analysis process to determine how employees benefited from such experiences. Further, 63% of respondents either did not contribute or realize the option existed.

Companies recognized the need to better promote and clarify feedback options. Across the board, 100% of respondents plan to improve their training, overall, reiterating the importance of such initiatives.

To read all of the results from the survey, plus analysis, download: Research: Workforce training is worth the investment, increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction.