Reading list additions

I am inserting the following at the head of my reading queue:

Operating Systems: Design and Implementation by Andrew S Tanenbaum

One of the problems I've been having with my graduate education is a lack of direction: I really have no idea what the heck it is that I want to do. Although I am starting an assistantship this week, apart from that I haven't found grad school to be much different than my undergraduate experience. That's bad -- part of what I'm supposed to be doing right now is finding my own direction and expanding my academic horizons, right? Well, this book is the only thing that is in plain sight right now. I'm really interested in the new wave of virtualization (I've been experimenting with VMware and Virtual PC and I think they're really interesting), and I have some ideas about how to apply it to OS design -- however, for me to do anything meaningful in this field, I have to understand how operating systems are put together. The Tanenbaum text is a classic primer in this area, and so I intend to read it from cover to cover. I've tried reading the MINIX sources on my own, but I really can't comprehend them without a certain amount of guidance: guidance that will be readily available in this book. (I did have it as a course textbook back at UIUC once, but then the professor was a loser who had no idea what he was doing. In any case, I have to be self-taught now: I'm doing this for myself, not to fulfil some course requirement.)

I have a feeling this sort of reading might end up taking precedence over my registered courses: so be it. I'm not here to fret over some crappy homework. In any case, if this sort of reading helps me sign up for courses that are more relevant to my interests, it'll be better use of my time here.

Oh, and also, for a history of a postal system, I will be reading From Franklin to Morse by Richard John, as suggested by my friend Siddhartha Raja.

Incidentally, I am composing this entire post on Microsoft's Windows Live Writer. This software appears to be very slick: it downloaded all the details (and even the visual style) of my blog, and all I had to do was enter my blog URL and login details. It can save local drafts, and even takes care of tagging: very nice. This software strikes me as being unusually streamlined and intuitive by Microsoft standards: I intend to continue using it unless I encounter any major problems.