SethKinast
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I am a senior at the University of Oklahoma, majoring in microbiology (pre-med emphasis) and pursuing a double minor in French and Computer Science. Computers, programming, and Linux have been among my passions for many years; I operate my own computer repair business and also take on webdesign and programming work from time to time. In my free time I enjoy playing keyboard with my band, working at InvisionFree and A Small Orange (the latter of which has expanded my Linux server administration skills considerably), and hacking around on Ubuntu. |
Contact Info
E-mail: seth@ubuntu.com |
AIM: Seth Kinast |
Web: sethkinast.com |
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PGP: My PGP Public Key |
IRC: seth on irc.freenode.net |
Contributions
- On July 5, 2005, I became an Ubuntu Member. I hope to work more closely with Ubuntu teams in the following months to evangelize and spread Ubuntu.
Active member of Ubuntu Community Forums and on #kubuntu and #ubuntu. I spend approximately 10-12 hours a week providing support on both the forums and via IRC.
Ubuntu evangelist at InvisionFree; I have converted nearly a dozen users from Windows to Ubuntu!
- Backported multiple packages for Hoary, most have been accepted into the backports repository
- Contributed bug reports as and when found through normal daily use of Ubuntu Breezy
Work
I have various skills and activities that I feel can contribute to the growth of Ubuntu:
- Programmer in Java, PHP, and C++; extremely proficient in XHTML 1.0-1.1 and CSS2.
- I have successfully packaged / backported over one hundred software packages for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Work
kmobiletools 0.4.3.1-3ubuntu1 NEW for Dapper, maintaining
kflickr 0.5-0ubuntu1 NEW for Dapper, maintaining
polyester 0.6.5-0ubuntu1 NEW for Dapper, maintaining
klearlook 0.9.7-0ubuntu1 NEW for Dapper, maintaining
md5deep 1.9.3-0ubuntu1 NEW for Dapper, maintaining
- Quite a few more that I did before I started keeping this list!
Philosophy
I believe that polish, that final 5% of any project, is the most important aspect in winning new users. As such, I would enjoy working in an area where I could work on user-interface issues and massage wrinkles out of ugly GUI implementations.
Having come from using SuSE Linux full-time, I find that the most drastic difference between that distribution and Ubuntu is the real sense of community inspired by using Ubuntu. Rather than being an elite community of hackers, Ubuntu is able to appeal to everyone, thanks to the emphasis on support and community. I have worked for over five years in a technical-support role, and have been able to extend these skills into providing support for the Ubuntu community. As a relatively new Linux user (less than 3 years), I remember having many of the same issues that new Ubuntu users face. Others were able to help me then; I can now return the favor with the knowledge and skills I have acquired. Bugs are fixable, poor user interfaces forgivable. But without a good community to help and support new users, they will never be able to succeed.
SethKinast (last edited 2008-08-06 16:25:51 by localhost)