Rich Bowen

Areas of Expertise:

Apache

Biography

Rich Bowen is a member of the Apache Software Foundation, working primarily on the documentation for the Apache Web Server. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where he spends his free time GeoCaching. He also enjoys flying kites and reading stuff by Charles Dickens and his contemporaries.

Rich is a coauthor of Apache Administrators Handbook and Apache Cookbook.

Rich, or DrBacchus--his handle on IRC--also spends entirely too much time on #apache. You can find him on the web at http://www.drbacchus.com/journal/.

Books

Apache Cookbook by Rich Bowen , Ken Coar Second Edition December 2007 $34.99 USD (Read Reviews)	What's New in Apache Web Server 2.2? by Rich Bowen February 2007 $9.99 USD
Apache Cookbook by Ken Coar , Rich Bowen November 2003 $29.95 USD (Read Reviews)

Articles

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Making Apache httpd Logs More Useful
Publish Date: Feb. 1, 2007Apache httpd's standard text logfiles are well understood and useful, but they don't always give you enough information to troubleshoot problems. Apache 2.x provides several new modules that produce more logfile information--the number of bytes transferred, the rewrite rule matching, which requests complete and why, and the complete output of all headers. Rich Bowen explores these options. Caching Dynamic Content with Apache httpd
Publish Date: Nov. 16, 2006Dynamic websites tend to be easier to manage than large collections of similar static files, but they often get many times more reads than they do writes. Every database hit and page generation can eat up precious CPU cycles. Rich Bowen shows off mod_cache, which trades disk space or memory for CPU and can help improve performance on your servers. Sending Apache httpd Logs to Syslog
Publish Date: Oct. 12, 2006Apache httpd's standard text logfiles are well understood and useful, but sometimes they're not the best option. The mature and flexible Unix syslog system offers plenty of opportunities to improve reporting and security. Rich Bowen explains how to join these two systems together. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Sep. 8, 2005Rich Bowen is back with another installment in his occasional series based on conversations on #apache. In this article, Rich discusses a particular Apache Web Server annoyance, the Options directive, and he explains how it works and why it does what it does. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Apr. 28, 2005Rich Bowen is back with another installment in his ongoing series based on conversations on #apache. This week, he provides examples of using RewriteMap--which are lacking in its documentation and online--in this mini-tutorial. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Mar. 24, 2005If you've tried editing in WebDAV, you've likely encountered a permissions problem, as well as the problem of needing to edit your PHP files. Rich Bowen has a simple and effective solution to both of these problems in his latest #apache column. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Feb. 17, 2005Rich Bowen is back after a hiatus with another column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache. Rich explains why it is in fact possible to run name-based SSL virtual hosts on Apache. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Sep. 23, 2004In this month's column, Rich Bowen tackles an Apache security issue. Learn how to configure Apache to send a different Server response so no one can identify what version of Apache you're running or any of the modules you have installed. The less information your server reveals, the safer it will be from crackers. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Aug. 19, 2004Rich Bowen is back this month after a brief summer hiatus with his latest column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache. Want to know how to make your web site faster? Rich has some tips to enhance your server's performance. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Jun. 17, 2004In Rich Bowen's latest column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, he attempts to answer a question that comes up at least once a day, but which doesn't have one clear answer: whether to use Apache 1.3 or 2.0. Find out why the answer is not a simple one. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: May. 27, 2004File permissions are a major topic of conversation on #apache -- the IRC channel on which Rich Bowen often lends a helping hand. In this latest article in the series based on his #apache conversations, Rich covers the hows and whys to setting up file permissions on Unix machines. Rich is a coauthor of Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Apr. 22, 2004In this latest installment in the series based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, Rich Bowen walks through three error condition scenarios administrators have encountered and shows what to do about them, in order to create a more welcoming, less "Forbidden" web site for end users. Rich is the coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Mar. 18, 2004In this latest installment in the series based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, Rich Bowen takes you on an interesting trip through the history of mod_imap, and why some modules hang around long after they're no longer in use. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Feb. 26, 2004Rich Bowen tackles yet another common Apache dilemma in the latest installment in this series based on his conversations on the IRC channel, #apache. This week he delves into the sometimes confusing world of modules: when to enable them, when to disable them, and why. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Jan. 8, 2004In this installment of his new series based on conversations on the IRC channel, #Apache, Rich Bowen tackles configuration issues in the sometimes bewildering world of virtual hosts. By the time he's through, Rich will have even the most confused Apache administrator creating a functioning virtual host configuration. Rich is coauthor of the recently released Apache Cookbook.

Blog

Rich's blog posts are hosted at:
http://wooga.drbacchus.com/

Xomed Audiant

January 06 2009

No, it's not a 90s-era MP3 player.For those of you who never saw it, this is the Xomed Audiant, the hearing aid that I have had since 1987, when it was a prototype of an experimental device. It worked pretty well, but as you can see from the photos, it… read more

Without Hats

January 05 2009

Without HatsJanuary 4, 2009Life is a quest for the perfect hat.The rest is just distraction -the necessary evils of sustaining lifeuntil we find it.It was easier 60 years ago,when everyone wore hatsall the time.A walking smorgasbord of lidsfrom which one could sample,taste a little of this tweed cap,admire that felt… read more

Why the Crab Has No Head

January 01 2009

Why The Crab Has No Head, a traditional African tale, read by my Best Beloved. read more

Please sir, may I have some more?

December 29 2008

A very interesting article discussing the actual diet at poor houses and workhouses during the 1830s, and addressing the question of whether Oliver Twist would indeed have wanted some more. read more

Insurance Appeal

December 28 2008

This account is provided so that if anybody else has to appeal their charges to an insurance company, this might help them in some say. Specifically, this account is of my appeal for coverage of my BAHA surgery, and my insurance company is Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, but I'm… read more

iConvert

December 24 2008

I got an iConvert as an early Christmas present, and have been playing with it today.I've been eying several of the USB turntables for a while because I have a pretty big stack of LPs that I'd really like to be able to listen to. I expect that this kind… read more

BAHA, part III

December 17 2008

I certainly didn't think, when I posted earlier this morning, to have a follow-up this quickly.I faxed several pages from my policy to the doctor, who faxed them to the insurance company, who called right back to apologize for denying coverage for something that my policy says is covered. Apparently… read more

BAHA, part II

December 17 2008

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I am scheduled to have a BAHA installed. However, last week, we found out that, contrary to the audiologist's expectations, the insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, has declined to cover the procedure. Naturally, I'm very disappointed. I do tend to expect… read more

LexingtonKY.Gov

December 16 2008

Lexington has a new website.I won't complain about the design, because I'm not a designer, and only vaguely know good design from a hole in the ground. Designer friends and acquaintances assure me it's terrible. What do I know?I could, I suppose, complain that the calendar has RSS, but no… read more

Chimera

December 13 2008

From the Weekend Wordsmith Chimera December 12, 2008 That's how it works: One's sanity depends on the sanity of others, and folks with no point of reference drift irretrievably into the abyss, forever pursuing their chimerical vision of goodness and light. read more

The Bremen Town Musicians

December 13 2008

Here's another bedtime story for my beloved children and their cousins. The Bremen Town Musicians (6 minutes, 3MB) read more

ENOFORMATTING

December 12 2008

Hmm. Planet Apache totally screws up the formatting of my posts. Why hadn't anybody told me before? read more

Dead End

December 12 2008

Back in November 2007, I woke up from a dream and wrote this story. I think it's pretty good, and I held on to it because I thought, maybe, some day, I might have a chance to publish it. And perhaps I will. But mostly, I want people to read… read more

The "Dickens Invented Christmas" myth

December 11 2008

The following very interesting remark came across the Dickens mailing list this morning. I reproduce it in full, since I can't state it more clearly than Patrick did: Friends of the Dickens Forum: We never cease marveling at the perennial, widespread popularity of Dickens, and--the point here--the variety and uncritical means… read more

Trac

December 10 2008

It's now been roughly four weeks since we switched from RT to Trac. I've been using RT for perhaps 8 years, and for a while I was in regular contact with the author of RT - Jesse Vincent - on a project that we were working on together, so I… read more

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