About Me

I am currently attending college at Dakota State University majoring in Business and Computer Information Systems.

In my spare time I spend time with my girlfriend, on IRC, and managing 4 Linux servers.

My personal website is at http://www.profarius.com/

Contributions

Using Ubuntu

Obviously I need to use Ubuntu to be involved in the community, but I like advertising that. I enjoy it a lot.

Advertising Ubuntu

I have been a member of the ubuntu-marketing team in LP since 2008-09-09. I was also a member about a year prior to joining the LP team. As part of this team, I push myself hard to advertise Ubuntu every chance I get.

I am also trying to host a release mirror to give people a local repository of Ubuntu CD's.

Converting Users

Converting Companies

I have been able to convert two companies from a fully Windows server environment to a fully Ubuntu environment. I have also been able to switch some of a companies Fedora servers to Ubuntu servers.

Converting Users

I've been employed at a company which was very Windows oriented. I saw that everyone there thought that price directly meant quality and usefulness. During my short venture here, I was able to convert a few users from Windows to Ubuntu. This nearly lead to my discharge a few times. I left the company because of these working conditions.

I have also been able to convert users by just handing them a Live CD and convincing them to try it. The funniest experience I ever had was being able to convince a user to try a Live CD was the "come on" approach.

Supporting Users

I have spent a lot of time trying to support users that have gone to Linux but don't understand how to use it correctly. I also try to spend at least a few hours in #ubuntu every week supporting users.

Bug Reports

I've been deeply involved in bug reports for a while. I occasionally go through very old and expired bugs to try to check for activity.

I try to report bugs for users so I can help them have Ubuntu working for their systems.

I am currently a member of the LP bugsquad team. Using this team, I am trying to become a member of the bug control team as well.

South Dakota LoCo

I have become the owner of the SD LoCo Team. I am very active with this team, as well as doing my best to promote its existence and user base.

As of this writing, the SD LoCo has been my primary focus.

I have rebuilt the structure of the Wiki to make it more easily manageable and structured. I have reworked the LP team and the mailing list. I have now taken over every part of the team.

I created a website for our team at http://loco.profarius.com.

Making Ubuntu Efficient

I have been writing some web logs about modifying Ubuntu to be very battery efficient, as well as some things about administration of a Linux system. These can be seen at my website listed above.

Making Ubuntu Perfect

I have been asked to create a few installations to perform very specific roles. As each guide is completed, I'll upload it to the wiki and post a link.

VE-VMP

Title: Very Efficient VM Player

Link: Not Posted Yet

Description: To create an Ubuntu installation that is the absolute leanest system possible. To be geared toward only playing a virtual machine. VirtualBox OSE in mind, extensible to VirtualBox closed as well as VMWare Player.

ES-VPN

Title: Extremely Secure VPN

Link: Not Posted Yet

Description: To create a system where the user is only able to communicate to the private network and is unable to transmit any data off the drive. Connecting to the VPN checks that the system is unmodified.

My Linux Experience

I have been using Ubuntu since 5.04. I was initially pointed to Linux during a conversation with Kelly S. He mentioned that I don't need to be using illegal software and he helped me learn how to install Ubuntu on my first laptop.

I've worked at a lot of Microsoft dependent companies that complained about the costs of having computers. After many discussions that amounted to them enjoying having a reason to complain, I realized that these were types of places I'd never want to work in again. I would rather bag groceries at Hy-Vee than work for a company that complains about money and says everything free sucks. I can prove that pretty easily, I am also a smiling employee at Hy-Vee. My previous job was at ELBO Computing Resources where, not getting into details.

I joined the Ubuntu Marketing Team on Jun 1st 2006. This is the point where I realized that I loved Linux and despised Microsoft. For the record, I don't hate Microsoft just because it's proprietary and expensive. I hate Microsoft because they consistently degrade their product in a fashion that makes you wonder if they're trying to convince users to switch. I have done my best to consistently show people that they do have a choice and the option available to them is better than the one they're currently choosing.

I now run a personal backup/file server (modified desktop), a file/Zimbra server, web/svn server, and a backup server. I also run a pfsense router. Ubuntu on all four servers. My experience has been extremely great with each system. Other than hardware dying and incorrectly written scripts, the stability has been unbelievable. The fun part was bringing all of the systems into a real domain rather than just telling each system it's in that domain.

My System

Sony Vaio VGN-FZ240E

This site explains it pretty well. http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/product/VGN-FZ240E/B

I had been doing a lot of bug testing on this system in hopes of have all bugs fixed by the release of 8.10. We didn't exactly make this mark, however one month later counts as good enough for me. Still one incredibly minor bug.

Contact Info

Launchpad profile: https://edge.launchpad.net/~mtecknology

IRC: MTecknology on freenode, regularly in #ubuntu, #ubuntu-us-sd, #ubuntu-offtopic

ICQ: 461893205

PGP Key ID: 72D444D1

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