About Me

I'm a retired entrepreneur and CEO, but the real boss in my life has been, is and will always be my lovely wife. We are crazy Canucks with 4 kids and soon-to-be 5 grandkids. I've always been fascinated by computers, having started with the Olivetti Programma 101 and going through all of the iterations from mainframes to minis to PCs but always in a nontechnical executive end user capacity. I have no formal computer training except a couple of intro courses during my University days and a few continuing ed courses during my working years. Almost all of my knowledge is self-taught, unsystematic and full of holes. I've led a strange double-life for the last 20 or so years because, although my work experience has been VMS, Unix, Windows and Macs, my home experience has been Linux. Like many, it started as a curiosity, grew into a hobby and then become a passion. I find myself running Linux 100% of the time since retirement (7 years now), because my need for other OSes ended when work ended.

I started with Red Hat in '95 and quickly discovered that I was totally out of my depth. Moved on to Mandrake (as it was then called), and dropped Linux for a few years because real life intruded. When the kids became independent, I picked it up again, but―my goodness―how the landscape had changed in the short time I had been away. Ubuntu had just been introduced and I was hooked the first time I installed it. Finally, a complete, slick, user-friendly distro that worked out of the box―well, mostly. For those hard-to-solve issues, there was this amazing new support resource called "Ubuntu Forums".

Hobbies and Interests

My hobbies and interests, in no particular order are: grandkids, travel, philosophy, literature, science, SF & Fantasy, history, classical music, food, wine―especially wine, rehabilitating old computers and, of course, Linux & Ubuntu. Not least, as my handle implies, I am an avid but awful golfer. "DuckHook" is, unfortunately, a very literal description of my typical ball flight.

Contact Information

Contributions

I finally joined Ubuntu Forums in 2011 after lurking around as a guest for many years. I have always been impressed by the talent and expertise of the members, but what really drew me to the forums was the kindness, big hearts and generosity of spirit on display. Even then, it took a while for me to gain enough confidence to contribute anything, but, once started, I found that I could help others, especially those just getting their feet wet. My knowledge is general and not deep, so I am active mainly in the New to Ubuntu, General Help, DE and Virtualisation subforums (in decending order). I like helping people. As a non-technical user who had to work everything out for myself, one of my strengths is my empathy for those starting out. I feel a strong obligation to repay the help, encouragement and kindness that I got from the community when I was a frustrated newbie, and I have successfully helped hundreds of new users.

Future Goals

I want to continue my personal growth with Ubuntu, learning to use new technology like containers, but frankly, it is challenging enough just keeping up with the changes: systemd, mir, snaps, etc. My more important goal is not personal but directed towards the community: I will continue encouraging the adoption of Ubuntu for new users by providing help and solutions in the forums. I hope to become knowledgeable enough to offer good advice in a few more subforums, and I will continue doing everything I can to promote Ubuntu and Linux everywhere.