Richard Blumhas worked in the IT industry for over 18 years as both a systems and network administrator. He has administered UNIX, Linux, Novell, and Microsoft servers, as well as help design and maintain a 3,500-user network utilizing Cisco switches and routers. He has automated network monitoring with Linux shell scripts and written scripts in most of the common Linux shell environments. He is the author of several books, including Professional Linux Programming (Wrox) and Linux For Dummies, 8th Edition (Wiley).