It's summer time here in the northern hemisphere (although it did snow at my house on May 15, 2016—hopefully Mother Nature is done with that nonsense). When the sun is shining, there's nothing I like to do more than sit outside—under an umbrella, with SPF 50+ sunscreen and, of course, a book. These days, those books usually are digital, and since it's June 1st, that means a new issue of Linux Journal is ready to read.
This month, Reuven M. Lerner switches things up a bit and describes how easy it has become to use nginx as a Web server for your applications. It's been a viable and efficient option for several years now, but Reuven shows just how polished and easy it is to install and configure. Next, Dave Taylor does some polishing this month as well, as he puts the final touches on his wegrep series. I'm ashamed to admit that my scripting often never gets that last bit of polish, and it's unfortunate, because a good script should be flexible and portable. Dave shows how to take that last important step.
Kyle Rankin's latest series on the Qubes distribution has been incredible, and if you've been a little overwhelmed, no worries. In this issue, Kyle describes some of his real-life examples on how to use Qubes on a daily basis. The notion of virtualizing applications isn't new, but the way Qubes compartmentalizes everything you do is unique, and sometimes examples help to clarify things.
I make some clarifications this month as well, but in my case, I'm clarifying photos of birds. Specifically, I demonstrate my new homemade IP cameras built using Raspberry Pi devices. The camera modules for the RPis are cheap and incredibly high quality. It only makes sense to take advantage of that for BirdCam!
Andrei Lukovenko has an incredible article this month on HTTPS certificates. First off, he introduces the Let's Encrypt certificate authority (which I'd never heard of), and then goes on to walk through automating the certificate renewal process! I've been using StartSSL for years to get free SSL certificates, and even though the one-year expiration is a long time, it seems like every year, I have to relearn how to install certificates. Andrei explains how to make your computers do all the work, while getting more frequent SSL cert updates as well! It's an article you don't want to miss.
This month, you also will learn how to install the full R statistical software on a mobile Android device. Mobile devices are powerful enough that installing such packages makes sense, and with the help of Marius Hofert and Kurt Hornik, you'll learn how to do so using Linux in a chroot environment on Android. Even if you're not interested in installing R, the process for installing Linux inside Android is fascinating and fun! Marius and Kurt go through the entire process, including information on unlocking bootloaders and rooting devices.
This month's issue of Linux Journal is perfect for reading in the shade with a glass of iced tea and a hammock. Or, if you happen to be in the southern hemisphere, perhaps curled in a blanket with a cup of hot tea. Either way, I love issues where you learn to do cool things, and this one is full of ideas and projects. We also include product announcements, cool apps, tech tips and countless other nerdy tidbits that will help make your summer a bit cooler. We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together!