1. Background

Aka. tinivole, I am currently in an inbetween stage of self learning and waiting for my first real job to start.

Currently, this is a period of just getting Certification after Certification. What's on the belt of earned and will earn in the near future is:

• LPI Level 1
• CompTIA Network+** / A+
• MCE** / MCDST**
• LPI Level 2**

** Training/Working towards and exam pending.

Away from training, I spend most my time poking round at objects and observing the Universe, learning from the Universe, and teaching the Universe to others. Par that, and I'm trying to get my foot in the door of an IT career.

This usually comes with the odd banter of Perl and C/C++ Though I have also gotten my feet wet with the likes of Python, Bash, PHP and Haskell too.

Despite that list, my knowledge is but small. As I am nearing the end of my first year in the "Become a programmer in 10 Years" scheme I've set myself. I am quick to pick up languages, and with so much on the plate. I'm sure I'll never get bored any time soon.

I first encountered Linux at the beginning of College. I came across the homepage of Debian for the first time in my life and was curiously drawn to it. I was to then spend the following two years self-learning how to work with it. It wasn't until early January '08 that Ubuntu fell onto my lap. But I was no less than impress by it. The community and information available I found to be outstanding. Indeed, the last six months have proven to me that I have the ability to learn 2-4 times more efficiently than that of what I could ever achieve by myself!

2. Where I aim to be

Maths is my life, and I love to problem solve. Career-wise I'll be around computers, learning the more technological and hardware/network and server side of things.

Though it has been my long semi-goal to find a route to embedded devices and architechtures, such as work on wireless meshes, or stranger yet, motion detection devices ..... to be honest, I don't know, the hint is in the move away from Desktops.

In my free time, as I gain better programming productivity in my work. I will be looking for to joining various developer teams throughout the Linux/BSD communities.

3. What have I come here to achieve

Knowledge, Experience, Tranquility and Social Skills - as gained from being proactive in my work and learning from the people I interact with.

I am already an active member of the Beginners Team and am slowly building a structure around my roles with the team. Forums, Development, and everyone's favourite, Quality Assurance (Bodhi_Zazen moans that there is not much evident activity with the QA team... but we counter-argue that that just means that we are doing an excellent job; afterall, no one is meant to know that we are stalking them ).

I can be found alive and proactive on the IRC located at irc.freenode.net on the channels #ubuntuforums-beginners and ##beginners-dev - usually named ibuclaw or tinivole, depending on my mood, or how good my connection is today (I'm usually the former for formal reasons)

4. How I aim to help the Ubuntu Community

Customer support is a must if Ubuntu is to become a major player in the future of the Desktop Market, and that is what I aim to deliver. Both in the form of being a good knowledge base and being a good teacher.

Furthermore, I am yet to start my own ppa where I will begin to upload software I've written, either in the past or bits and bobs that are in the making now. Begin to properly collaborate with developers and ultimately improve, build upon and improve the pool of knowledge that is known as open source.

Note to self: I am looking round development, and there is too much Python ... Not enough Perl!!! This must be fixed

Back Soon...

Regards, Iain

5. Working with Jaunty Jackelope

Here I will post the list of fixes I have made for my Jaunty box. Now, Jaunty, as it stands, has not been officially released as an alpha yet... infact, not much work has been done to it at all - with the exception of one or two breakages in the main Ubuntu software collection (audio playback, most notably... but that is fine, VLC still works) - it, by definition, is still very much Intrepid Ibex.

But don't take the above comment lightly, I don't in any form recommend it for the average user, as with any non-standard release, you will be required to know your ins and outs of Linux and the Debian OS environment in order to keep it running in the very near future when the breakage begins. (I, personally, can't wait for the next round of carnage).

Here is my test system spec

• AMITrends Motherboard (Release Date 08/13/2007)
• AMD Athlon 64 Processort 3000+
• 1GiB System Memory
• 400GB Storage Memory
• ARS521x Atheros Wireless PCI
• Geforce 8500 GT
• Zoom G2.1u TI USB Soundcard

6. Working with my first Laptop

I have a HP DV2750ea ... and gee whiz golly gosh! I love it.

I enjoy more-so the way I laid out the User Interface of it, what do you think?

It's running Intrepid Ibex.