Ray Swartz is the founder and president of Berkeley Decision/Systems, a consulting firm specializing in C and UNIX training. Ray has written two books Doing Business with C and Unix Application Programming, Mastering the Shell--and his company sells an integrated set of C Language and UNIX video-training courses.

You can reach Ray by voice telephone at +1 408-458-9708, by fax at +1 408-458-2721, or via e-mail using ray@cse.ucsc.edu.

Visit Ray's home page (http://www.trainonvideo.com) to learn more about Ray and what he does.

Doing Business with C

A book for people new to C but with some programming experience. The book's examples all come from the world of business with special emphasis to error checking and data entry.

UNIX Applications Programming, Mastering the Shell

This book contains four parts:

1. "Getting Started" provides a look at the underlying design of the UNIX system. Also covered are the UNIX filters grep, sed, sort, and awk.
2. "Using Unix Tools" ...
3. "Bourne Shell Programming" covers shell programming in depth. It also delves into Awk's programming language.
4. "Creating Applications with UNIX Tools" describes different applications created using the tools and commmands described in this book.

Berkeley Decision/Systems Product Line

Training On Video

The Course Titles

• A User's Introduction to UNIX
  
• An Introduction to UNIX System Administration
  
• Creating Applications with UNIX Tools
  
• UNIX Shell Programming
  
• A Programmer's Introduction to C
  
• An Introduction to TCP/IP
  

We also present some Frequently Asked Questions About Training On Video Courses

This two-hour video course provides a comprehensive introduction to the important features of the UNIX system. It is designed for people familiar with computers who need to learn how to use the UNIX system effectively. The course includes a 150 page manual that contains course notes, exercises, solutions, addenda, a bibliography, and an index. In addition, a disk is provided that holds an on-line vi tutorial as well as the set of files and directories used in the video course.

Topics Covered:
Overview of UNIX Features 
History of the UNIX System 
Using the On-line Manual 
Files, Directories, and Paths 
Copying, Removing and Renaming Files 
Using File Wildcards 
Understanding File Permissions 
Using the vi Editor 
(Including a hands-on tutorial) 
Spell Checking and Printing Files 
Sending and Receiving Electronic Mail 
A File Tree Search Command (find) 
A Tape Archiver (tar) 
Sending Output to Files 
Executing Commands in the Background 
Price: NTSC (US Standard) $295.00 plus shipping
Price: PAL (European Standard) $310.00 plus shipping

This four and a half hour video course provides a thorough introduction to UNIX system administration and maintenance. Designed for people with some UNIX experience, but no administration knowledge, the course is divided into 10 sections, each focusing on a separate system administration function. In addition to the 4 1/2 hour video presentation, the course includes over 200 pages of course notes, a published textbook, and suggested exercises and solutions.

Topics Covered 
Duties of a System Administrator 
Review of Important UNIX Topics 
Startup and Shutdown of a UNIX System 
Managing User Accounts 
Maintaining File Systems 
Backing up and Restoring Files 
Terminals and Modems
The UNIX Print Service 
Scheduling Jobs with cron 
Managing a UNIX Network 
UUCP 
Security 
System Performance 
Price: NTSC $395.00 plus shipping 
Price: PAL $440.00 plus shipping 

The UNIX system contains a powerful set of text processing tools that can be used to create data base applications. The course covers the four most important commands: grep, sed, awk, and sort. A separate section is dedicated to each tool that describes its features in detail and shows examples of use. This course is designed for experienced UNIX users and includes a 1 hour, 40 minute video presentation, course manual, and the book UNIX Application Programming, Mastering the Shell (Howard Sams, 1990), written by the course instructor.

 
Topics Covered 
How UNIX Executes Commands 
Redirection Metacharacters 
Process Control Metacharacters 
Executing Multiple Commands 
UNIX Filters 
Matching Patterns With Regular Expressions 
The grep Command 
The sed Command 
The awk Command 
Some Advanced awk Features 
The sort Command 
Connecting Filters With Pipelines 
Constructing Text Data Base Files 
Creating Applications With Pipelines 
Price: NTSC $295.00 plus shipping
Price: PAL $310.00 plus shipping

The standard UNIX command processor, the Bourne Shell, provides a simple yet powerful programming language. With it, users can create their own applications quickly and easily. A viewer learns how to do shell programming by watching a simple one-line command become a complete application, one step at a time. This course is designed for experienced UNIX users and includes a 2 hour video presentation, course manual, and the book UNIX Application Programming, Mastering the Shell (Howard Sams, 1990), written by the course instructor.

Topics Covered 
Creating Command Files 
Positional Parameters 
Using Arguments in Command Files 
The case Statement 
Logical Operators 
A Process Exit Status 
Shell Variables 
The test Command 
The for Loop 
Writing Interactive Commands 
The if statement 
The while Loop 
Creating a User Interface 
Using the Process Environment 
Creating Shell Programming Applications
Price: NTSC $295.00 plus shipping
Price: PAL $310.00 plus shipping

This video training course covers most of the unique features of the C programming language. Each topic is explained, shown in a programming context, incorporated into a C program and then run on a computer. The two video cassettes contain 4 hours of instruction and 52 C programs. The two course manuals (approx 175 pages each), include class notes, program listings, diagrams, exercises, section summaries, an index and exercise solutions.

Topics Covered 
Data Types 
Operators, Operands, and Expressions 
Looping Constructs 
Strings in C 
Handling I/O 
Creating Functions 
Arrays 
Pointers 
Variable Scope and Storage Class 
Structures 
Unions 
Variable Initialization 
File I/O 
I/O Library Functions 
The Preprocessor 
Command Line Arguments 
Dynamic Memory 
Price: NTSC $295.00 plus shipping
Price: PAL $330.00 plus shipping

This one hour and 40 minute video course provides a thorough description of how networks are built using the TCP/IP protocols. The course explores TCP/IP from the ground up, covering how machines are addressed, how information is routed, and what networking services are provided. In addition to the video presentation, the course includes over 100 pages of course notes. The notes contain text, graphics, glossaries and review questions.

Topics Covered
TCP/IP Layers
The Internet Protocol
Naming and Addressing
Routing
The Transport Control Protocol (TCP)
TCP Connections
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
Discovering Routes and Routing
Gateway Protocols
TCP/IP Services
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Telnet
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
Host and File Naming
Domain Name Service (DNS)
User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
Price: NTSC $495.00 plus shipping
Price: PAL $520.00 plus shipping

There are many versions of UNIX. Which ones do these courses cover?

The goal of all Training OnVideo courses is to provide information that is applicable to all versions of UNIX. This is more easily done with some topics than others. The "User's Introduction to UNIX" course is almost entirely generic to all UNIX variants. In places where differences between versions exist, both the BSD and System V approaches are covered. The material presented in "Creating Applications with UNIX Tools" and "UNIX Shell Programming" is generic to all versions of UNIX. The "Programmer's Introduction to C" is generic for all compilers on all operating systems.

The "Introduction to UNIX System Administration" course covers topics in two parts. First, general information about each topic is presented. Second, specific commands are demonstrated. In several sections, commands available on all UNIX versions are shown. Where UNIX versions differ, the System V approach is covered and the BSD methods are reviewed briefly. Where variations occur within System V, the System V, Release 4 approach and commands are covered. This course is recommended for Sun Microsystem's Solaris, Interactive UNIX, Novell's UNIXWare, SCO UNIX, HP-UX, and any other UNIX versions based on System V. Note that the course comes with a textbook that specifically covers administering BSD-based, System V-based, and AIX UNIX systems.

What compilers are supported by the "Programmer's Introduction to C" course?

The material presented in the C course focuses entirely on the features of the C programming language that are common to all compilers. No compiler or operating system specific information is presented in the course. All programs should compile on every C compiler and execute on every computer system without modification.

The UNIX Shell Programming covers only the Bourne shell. Why doesn't it cover the C shell?

Bourne shell command files can be executed by the C shell without modification. However, C shell command files cannot be executed by the Bourne shell. Thus, Bourne shell command files can be executed by any user regardless of the shell being used. As a result we cover the more portable Bourne shell command files.

How does video training compare with live training?

Not surprisingly, both have their advantages and drawbacks. Live training can more easily be tailored to your specific needs and a live instructor should be able to directly answer your questions. However, live training is expensive and cannot be switched off for viewing at a more convenient time. Video training is inexpensive, can be viewed repeatedly and watched at a time suitable to the viewer's schedule.

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