If you write as many scripts as I do to monitor services and check the status of various processes that run on your servers, you might like knowing that having those scripts sending you email is not ...

This easy. Just type logger on the command line and your message will be added to the end of the /var/log/syslog file. $ logger comment to be added to log $ tail -1 /vvar/log/syslog May 21 18:02:16 ...

If resource permits, definitely use the DB. A plain text file is hard to "use" (unless writing a shit load of perl or whatever just to digest the file is within your definition of easy); a DB, OTOH, ...

It's easy to create a custom logging framework to log your .Net application's errors and events to a flat file, a database, or the event log You will often want to log events or errors as they occur ...

It's not enough to get an IIS Web server up and running. You must also be able to manage the log files to track site utilization and user activity. Multiple options for logging user access activity ...