Reddit mentions: The best secretarial aids & training books

• SSL, Public and Private Keys
  
  Public and private SSH keys and connections aren’t hard when you grok how SSL/TLS works. Encryption in general is good to have a handle on conceptually, I’d recommend picking up and reading a short introduction on the basics.
  
  
• With the CLI, pick a shell. Bash is the most universal one, Zsh works as well, but in any case read the man page for the one you pick after you’ve played with it a bit.
  
  Copying, listing, renaming, or unlinking files is usually embedded in your shell of choice itself. As the the shell is the way you call and run programs, you can’t know it enough.
  
  The GUI of whatever desktop you’re used to using is effectively a shell itself, and has the same function: copy, list, rename, remove files and run programs. The difference is, instead of executing a command as you would on the CLI (i.e., entering the path to the file binary and hitting “enter”), you click on an icon representing the same file.
  
  
• The primary tools of a Linux or Unix system are, in order of importance, man, find, grep, ssh, chmod, and chown. Then your editors: vi, emacs, or joe. nano is easy to use, but a little skill with a more advanced editor goes a long way.
  
  
• Networking tools and understanding are important too, especially in DevOps, so get to know your local flavor of ping, netstat, host, and tcpdump.
  
  When you get all that, Ansible is nothing; it’s a way to systematically SSH into machines based on a local inventory and run a set of commands or scripts on all of them.
  
  Never learned puppet, but it’s just one alternative to Ansible which looks to achieve the same thing: treating a set of hosts like they’re numbered cattle instead of carefully named and spoiled pets.
  
  Edit: I suppose you can PM me your questions, if you want. Trying to write out and explain things helps me understand them better.

You should really get yourself a book to learn Teeline the right way. I recommend this one. I assume you're just using whatever free resources you can find. Many of your letters are joined incorrectly and a lot of letter combos, like "tr", have their own symbols. In this case, a long horizontal line. These increase your speed a lot. Here's what it looks like using some shortcuts.

Spoilers, for anyone who cares....



> You have my heart

> You had it from the start

> I love you [from afr?]

Spez: Just realized that last word is probably “afar.”

Here are some resources I've found especially helpful for my own puzzle making and codebreaking endeavors.

General Overviews and Websites:

• Cryptography - Wikipedia
  
  
• Classical cipher - Wikipedia
  
  
• Cryptanalysis- Wikipedia
  
  
• Steganography - Wikipedia
  
  
• Ryan Riley's "Introduction to Basic Cryptography" series - Youtube: 1, 2, and 3 (plus several others, just look through his channel)
  
  
• The American Cryptogram Association
  
  
• Practical Cryptography
  
  
• Elonka.com
  
  
• The Black Chamber
  
  Basic Cryptanalytic Techniques:
  
  
• Frequency Analysis - Wikipedia
  
  
• Coincidence Counting - Wikipedia
  
  
• Kasiski Examination - Wikipedia
  
  Beginner hand-cracking tutorials:
  
  
• How to Solve a Cryptogram - Puzzlebaron.com
  
  
• Vigenère decryption with unknown key - Youtube
  
  Tools for creating and cracking codes quickly:
  
  
• Rumkin Cipher Tools
  
  
• dCode Crypto Tools
  
  
• Quipqiup Crytogram Solver
  
  
• Cryptii Tools
  
  
• Guballa Vigenere Solver
  
  
• Boxentriq Code-Breaking Tools
  
  Interesting cryptographic puzzles for inspiration:
  
  
• World's Greatest Unsolved Ciphers (Craig Bauer), Part 1 and Part 2
  
  
• Cicada 3301: LEMMiNO Documentary; Great Big Story Documentary Series
  
  
• Kryptos: Great Big Story Feature; Cracking Kryptos (Elonka Dunin)
  
  Books:
  
  While I haven't read these, I've heard a lot of good things about them:
  
  
• Cryptanalysis: A Study of Ciphers and their Solution, by Helen F. Gaines
  
  
• The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, by Simon Singh
  
  
• The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet, by David Khan
  
  EDIT: Tweaked some wording and formatting

My library had The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet when I was a kid and I may have forgotten to bring it back in the past twenty years.

It's partly a historical book (and was originally written in the 60's), but it's insightful on what you're looking for. Extremely interesting if you're into this kind of thing.

Bear in mind that book doesn't really go into base64 or anything like that that can only be done with computers, because these things simply weren't around in the 60's. But in terms of ciphers and human encryption it's a great historical resource and can give a lot of insight into how this stuff works.

I didn't realize there were so many vim books now honestly. I Started off with this one. Worked well for me.

Would like to know what people think of Hacking Vim 7.2? My book is pretty old these days, wondering if this one is a bit more advanced?

I recently jumped into this hobby, and almost immediately decided my all cap scribbling looked less than elegant. I picked up the book "Write Now" from Amazon and have been using that to learn proper italic cursive. It's not a drastic departure from my old writing style, but looks much better in my opinion. Plus, learning something new is always fun.


https://www.amazon.com/Write-Now-Complete-Self-teaching-Handwriting/dp/0876780893

You mention a diverse set of topics, and you're probably not going to find any one book that covers all of them.

For algorithms for cryptography, signatures, protocols, etc. the definitive go to (last I checked) was still Schneier's Applied Cryptography.

For a history of cryptography, I'm fond of Kahn's The Codebreakers, but be forewarned that it is a large book.

For Network Security and Information Assurance concepts, I like Anderson's Security Engineering, but the state of the art changes so rapidly that it's difficult to recommend a book.

I suggest getting a book, since they are typically far more readable.

I first learned Vim with Steve Oualline's book.

More recently, Drew Neil's Practical Vim and Modern Vim are excellent choices.

Your local public library may well have some good books on Vim as well, if not these exact titles.

If you're interested in the history of cryptography and how different ciphers and their "cracking" methods worked, I can highly recommend David Kahn's *The Codebreakers*. It's a great book

The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet by David Khan Amazon . If you want a synopsis you could read Simon Singh's "The Code Book". Maybe not mind blowing in the metaphysical sense but it certainly is in-depth and informative.

Also, "Tom Crean: Unsung Hero of the Scott and Shackleton Antarctic Expeditions" by Micheal Smith. Any time I get a bit uppity, thinking about Crean puts me back in my box. He was as hard as nails.

The Billion Dollar Spy is a fascinating story of how the CIA ran a Soviet spy while he was working at an advanced radar facility. It is estimated that the intelligence he passed to America ended up being worth nearly one billion dollars.

First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror is about the first Americans to land in Afghanistan in the weeks after 9/11

The Code Breakers One of the most comprehensive anthologies on all forms of cryptology of the past 5,000 years.

They were doing that at least back in the 1960's. Kahn documented the practice in his draft for The Codebreakers back in 1967, but as documented in The Puzzle Palace the NSA succeeded in "persuading" the publisher to withhold that page - which was according to Bamford the only time in US history the government had effectively censored someone pre-publication. So though some civilians were aware of it in 1967, it didn't officially come out that the NSA was doing this until 1983.

Teeline seems a viable choice. You can find people online or in real life to discuss the finer points with, and you can learn it from one of the best textbooks ever written for any shorthand system here is link

Bakerwrite is heavily promoted, I don't know if it's also popular. If you come across anyone who is using it you could ask for their impressions. I believe you're the first person to ever mention it here.

Dearborn's version of Speedwriting can be typed on a keyboard (the later versions cannot be), and she claimed she could type it as fast as anyone could speak, although it's unknown if anyone else ever reached that speed. I assume you've seen the nearly abandoned subreddit for Classic Speedwriting here is link where the wiki and sidebar contain useful info.

I've dabbled in both Teeline and Speedwriting. I think the ease of learning is similar. You can stop learning Teeline at a very basic level or dig deeper and learn more principles for writing more quickly, and I think the same is true of Speedwriting although Dearborn never said so explicitly.

Unless you're a journalist I don't think the differences between US English and UK English are large enough to preclude you using Speedwriting. Some words are spelled differently, a very few are pronounced differently ("Schedule"), and the sequence of words is sometimes a little different, but not hugely.

Now, the terms used in newspaper articles, that's a different story. Frequent words about court actions, government agencies and offices, etc are quite different and Teeline has abbreviations for the UK terms.

She may be interested in these books (though they are a bit higher level):

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319/

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Code-Cryptography-Beginners-Childrens/dp/0486291464/

I would ask what programming language they are learning in class.

I would NOT recommend Scratch as a programming language, though that's my personal opinion. Better to learn an actual language.

vim can do almost anything

it's often used for programming but could be customized easily

http://www.thebend.ca/work/notepad/zenburn.png

this book would answer all questions

http://www.amazon.com/Vi-iMproved-VIM-Steve-Oualline/dp/0735710015/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279494717&sr=8-2

Suggest to the guy to read "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn (that's Kahn, not Khan).

Strongly recommended for anyone interested in ciphers and cryptology. If it's over his head, start with any kid's level book on ciphers and work your way up.

https://www.amazon.com/Codebreakers-Comprehensive-History-Communication-Internet/dp/0684831309?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0684831309

I have no idea what the best for you is, I am by no means an expert.

I have started learning Teeline for myself. The only resource you need is the Teeline gold book here
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0435471716/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_KY1QBbAE2MN9Q

not trying to pimp Amazon, but this is what I found.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0722151462/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1502395685&sr=1-2

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0684831309/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1502395685&sr=1-1

Any typographer or graphic designer will readily tell you this. There are even books dedicated to the subject.

I have a degree in graphic design and so I know this quite well. My Dad is an old fogee who learned how to type with a typewriter. This is a never ending battle with us. But the fact is, he is wrong. Two spaces after a period is not correct. People can choose to do it incorrectly all they want, but it's still incorrect.

"On Communications Security: Cryptography, Cryptanalaysis, Codes, and Ciphers in War from (time) to (time)".

Hopefully, one of your sources is David Kahn's The Codebreakers. http://www.amazon.com/Codebreakers-Comprehensive-History-Communication-Internet/dp/0684831309/

This is probably the standard, Cassingham's classic from 1986: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0935309101

It probably is not Codes and Secret Writing by Herbert Zim, nor Alvin's Secret Code but I'll include them just for completeness.

That book is not as good as this one

If you want the background, I'd recommend three sources:

1. Most Secret War by R. V. Jones, chief scientist to Winston Churchill during WW2 -- a bit dated (it was published in the early 1970s, before the ENIGMA crypto was declassified) and he has some axes to grind, but it gives a very readable insight into the "wizard war", the technological conflict between Britain and Germany during the war and the various secret weapons programs.
   
   
2. The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet by David Kahn, which is pretty much what the title says -- it starts with the US breaking of the PURPLE code and the decrypt of the Japanese Declaration of War on December 7th, 1941, then flashes back to give you a comprehensive history of codes and cryptographer.
   
   
3. Mother Earth, Mother Board by Neal Stephenson -- an insane journalistic essay (published sprawling across 96 pages in WIRED in 1996!) that describes the construction of the FLAG undersea fiber-optic cable, the history of intercontinental cables, and, and ... let's just say, Neal got WIRED to pay him for nine months to go all over the world with a photographer and write this essay about stuff that interested him, and I'm pretty certain it's the main body of his research project for Cryptonomicon!

Fix It Write and Write Now! for the lazy

Real accounting work has a lot to do with tax so they probably don't do that kind of work. Criminal betting pools definitely do have record systems and police sometimes discover them.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Codebreakers-Comprehensive-History-Communication-Internet/dp/0684831309

The Dvorak keyboard is something like 75 years old (I'm in my early 40s).

I had come across this Kenisis Keyboard, which at the time was Qwerty/Dvorak switchable (but was too expensive for me to buy). I was still intrigued by Dvorak and did some research (the web did exist in 1993). At the time I was using a UNIX workstation and found that I could easily set it up to use Dvorak (at the time, setting up Windows to do the same was not easy). I don't remember where, but I did eventually find a Dvorak Keyboard book. This doesn't teach you how to type on it the layout, but rather is a history of the keyboard layout. Wikipedia will probably be less "preachy" about Dvorak than this book, but it was an interesting read.

Oh, and now I use a blank Das Keyboard (both at home and at work - just to mess with people). My WPM is in the high 70s, low 80s most of the time. If I get in the zone, I can hit 130. However, I'm usually typing in code or UNIX commands, so WPM is fairly meaningless.