at anything faster. To restore the card to full auto scaling,just specify auto by itself: iwconfig eth0 rate autoCards can generally reach much further at 1Mbps than they can at11Mbps. There is a difference of 12dB between the 1Mbps and 11Mbpsratings of the Orinoco card - that's four times the potentialdistance just by dropping the data rate! Unclog open portsDifficulty: Intermediate Application: netstat Generating a list of network ports that are in the Listen state ona Linux server is simple with netstat: root@catlin:~# netstat -lnpActive Internet connections (only servers)Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5280 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 698/perl tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 217/httpd tcp 0 0 10.42.3.2:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 220/named tcp 0 0 10.42.4.6:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 220/named tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 220/named tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 200/sshd udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:32768 0.0.0.0:* 220/named udp 0 0 10.42.3.2:53 0.0.0.0:* 220/named udp 0 0 10.42.4.6:53 0.0.0.0:* 220/named udp 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0:* 220/named udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:67 0.0.0.0:* 222/dhcpd raw 0 0 0.0.0.0:1 0.0.0.0:* 7 222/dhcpdThat shows you that PID 698 is a Perl process that is bound to port5280. If you're not root, the system won't disclose which programsare running on which ports. Faster HarddrivesDifficulty: Expert Application: hdparm You may know that the hdparm tool can be used to speed test yourdisk and change a few settings. It can also be used to optimise driveperformance, and turn on some features that may not be enabled bydefault. Before we start though, be warned that changing driveoptions can cause data corruption, so back up all your important datafirst. Testing speed is done with: hdparm -Tt /dev/hdaYou'll see something like: /dev/hda:Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.64 seconds =78.05 MB/secTiming buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 18.56 seconds = 3.45MB/secNow we can try speeding it up. To find out which options your driveis currently set to use, just pass hdparm the device name: hdparm /dev/hda /dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 0 (off) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) geometry = 40395/16/63, sectors = 40718160, start = 0This is a fairly default setting. Most distros will opt for safeoptions that will work with most hardware. To get more speed, you maywant to enable dma mode, and certainly adjust I/O support. Mostmodern computers support mode 3, which is a 32-bit transfer mode thatcan nearly double throughput. You might want to try hdparm -c3 -d1/dev/hdaThen rerun the speed check to see the difference. Check out the modesyour hardware will support, and the hdparm man pages for how to setthem. Uptime on yourhandsDifficulty: Expert Application: Perl In computing, wasted resources are resources that could be betterspent helping you. Why not run a process that updates the titlebar ofyour terminal with the current load average in real-time, regardlessof what else you're running? Save this as a script called tl, and save it to your ~/bindirectory: #!/usr/bin/perl -wuse strict;$|++;my $host=`/bin/hostname`;chomp $host;while(1) {open(LOAD,"/proc/loadavg") || die "Couldn't open /proc/loadavg: $!\n";my @load=split(/ /,);close(LOAD);print "\033]0;";print