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About Me

My name is Nathan Handler. In August of 20006, I decided to try out various flavors of Linux. Ubuntu worked great on my laptop, and the online community was very helpful. It was these things that convinced me to completely remove Windows XP from my computer, and install Ubuntu 6.04, [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperDrake Dapper Drake]. Since then, I have never gone back to using Windows. I am currently running Ubuntu 8.10, [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntrepidIbex Intrepid Ibex].

Contributions

I've been an active member of the forums since I began using Ubuntu in August of 2006. During that time, I have gone from being the type of person who is always asking questions, to the type of person who answers them. Since I knew how aggravating it can be to not have your questions answered, I decided to join the [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnansweredPostsTeam Unanswered Posts Team]. As a member, I attempt to answer questions that have not received any attention. I also tag these posts using the [http://ua.codechunk.net/ Unanswered Posts Team's tracker]. This allows me to come back to questions that I attempt to resolve, and verify if my solution worked. It also allows me to request help from other team members if I am unable to resolve the issue.

During the Gutsy development process, I decided to start giving back to the community by patching bugs. [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EmmetHikory Emmet Hikory (persia)] helped teach me the basics of patching bugs. Thanks to his patience, I was able to successfully patch several bugs prior to Gutsy's release.

I was unable to participate in the development process of Hardy because of school.

For Intrepid, I have been busy syncing and merging packages from Debian. [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EmilioPozuelo Emilio Pozuelo (pochu)] has sponsored several of these merges/syncs. This was the first Ubuntu release that I did merges/syncs for. As a result, not all of them were perfect the first time. However, I learned from my mistakes. If a merge of mine was found to contain errors, I would go back, and revise it until it was excepted. I am learning quickly, and have been attempting to challenge myself by choosing packages that have multiple conflicts to merge. Like on the forum, I'm also trying to use my knowledge to help other people. I have looked over a few merges that other people have done, and I have pointed out problems with them when they exist. If the person needs help resolving the problems, I attempt to help them as well.

I have also recently joined the [https://edge.launchpad.net/~5-a-day 5-a-day team] on [https://launchpad.net/ Launchpad]. By joining this group, I am promising to fix 5 bugs every day. By doing this, I will quickly learn more about packaging and patching bugs on Ubuntu.

Another way I contribute to the community is by trying to keep [http://dad.dunnewind.net/universe.php DaD] updated. DaD has a comment field that can be used as a status field or an assignee field. If I come across a package that somebody has started to perform a merge on, I make sure the comment field on DaD reflects that. This prevents multiple people from trying to merge the same package at the same time. It also allows other developers to quickly see what packages people are working on merging.

Goals/Plans For The Future

I currently plan to continue merging and syncing packages until the import freeze. After that, I will probably attempt to patch as many bugs as I can.

I am also currently working on [http://utilities.servehttp.com/SuperMoM/SuperMoM.html Super MoM]. It takes most of its information from [http://merges.ubuntu.com/universe.html MoM]. However, it also fetches additional information from Launchpad. The goal of this project is to create a site that displays all of the information from both MoM and Launchpad on one page. This will increase productivity for developers because they won't have to flip between MoM and Launchpad to figure out if someone has already started working on a merge. Currently, Super MoM is in its early stages of development. At this point, I'm not sure if it will ever turn into a tool that other people use, but I know it will help increase my productivity.

My goal is to someday become an [http://launchpad.net/~universe-contributors Ubuntu Contributing Developer]. I don't want to be a Contributing Developer just to become a member in another group. I want to become a Contributing Developer because in order to do that, other Ubuntu developers will have to feel that I have enough knowledge and have contributed enough to the community. When that happens, it will make all of the hard work I am currently doing pay off.

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