I’m Tom Ryder, a systems administrator and web developer living in Palmerston North, New Zealand. I have a website for Sanctum, my consulting company. On this blog I post tutorials, discussions, and recommendations for systems administration and some programming, particularly where it relates to my interests in GNU/Linux, Bash, C, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Vim, Git, or whatever else takes my interest from a technical bent. A favorite topic is using command-line tools efficiently.

The best way to contact me is by email at tom@sanctum.geek.nz. I also have accounts on Twitter, Github, and LinkedIn. Feel free to message or befriend/follow me on any of those networks. The blog also has its own Facebook page, separate from my personal account.

Just for the usual disclaimer, all of the content on this website amounts to my personal opinions and in no way reflects those of my employers or customers, past or present.

Why “Arabesque”?

An arabesque is a very complex and beautiful architectural motif. Looked at up close, it can seem random, but a wider view of a well-designed arabesque shows it conforms to a very clear overarching pattern. I think Unix and its descendents, and good programming in general, are very much like this.

Can I edit/repost/republish your work?

Arabesque articles are distributed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (BY-NC-SA) Creative Commons license, so you can re-post the work on any not-for-profit website without asking me as long as you attribute me as the author, preferably in the form of a link back to the article.

If you do want to distribute anything for commercial purposes, please contact me first at tom@sanctum.geek.nz, and we’ll sort something out.

Will you write about a particular question for me?

Sure, if you think I’d be able to answer it. If you read a few of my posts you’ll see that I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about Emacs configuration, or Visual Studio C# development. If you think it might pique my interest, feel free to drop me an email or blog comment.