Ubuntu Wiki

About Me

Hi, I'm Phill, aged 52. I was born and live in the UK.

When we did computer studies at school, we wrote out flow-charts and wrote our code onto a programming sheet to be input onto a 'mini-main-frame'. We got dot matrix print-out and a roll of punched tape. Learning Flow-Charting is a great thing, as it allows you to break tasks down into 'bite-size' chunks.

My first Computer was Atari800XL. It taught me assembly language, along with machine code - for that I'm grateful. I had a Bulletin board running on that little 8 Bit machine, and even stuffed 256KB of RAM into it.

On my Atari800XL, I was inspired to study the link between computer and humans with StephenHawkin and how he could 'speak'; I got my little machine speaking using a TrackBall using SpeachSynthiserChips - do not forget that we had, at best Assembly Language or Machine Code if we wanted anything more advanced than BASIC. With all that has happened since, I have remained interested in accessibilty with and for computers. I have been up to senior support level in a UNIX environment, but that was quite a few years ago (Think Windows 3.0); so I've forgotten a lot. Coming back to the area, especially with what Ubuntu has achieved is like coming home. What is Ubuntu? Nelson Mandela on Ubuntu is one of the best explanations I've ever seen.

Current Work

Lubuntu

The baby of the family, designed for those 'older' computers that just cannot manage full on ubuntu. You can find details of it over at about lubuntu. I'm really keen on the project for what it can bring to computers that would otherwise be scrapped. I am a member of the Lubuntu mailing list, and am a firm supporter of their goals for giving us a fully updated version of ubuntu for 'older' computers. My area of concentration was for a non-pae release for lubuntu 14.04 lts that will have 5 year support. This has now been achieved and is being used by various community teams. If you want details, email me, or pop onto the #phillw irc channel. I'm also happily back to testing and helping out with wiki / support. Life is good... I got the first tee-shirt printed with Lenny Awesome work by the team!

Linux Padawan UK

With the ending of the ubuntu beginners team, I got a few experienced people together to help bridge the gap between newcomer and more advanced levels. On that area you will find people you can chat / email with along with various useful links to tutorials etc. Head over to Linux Padawan UK for more information.

Accessibility

Often the forgotten part of computing, I've recently gotten a commercial site up to Level 3 accessibility (AAA); it is not too difficult (I lie), but I would recommend it to anyone who wants to write websites. The MGJuddLtd site is the one that I have taken to that level, which is in no way a small feat for a site full of engineering drawings! Again, if you are interested, please drop me a note and I would me more than happy to give guidance, my experience of getting there is at Accessibilty and the Internet.

Web Hosting

Owing to the kind sponsorship of M.G. Judd Ltd who have always allowed to have their site set up so that it can go into tutorial mode of a live site. I have spare server space and bandwidth. If you are a student or a group from the ubuntu F/OSS community, please do ask. I do have areas that can be shared under that banner for no cost and will not contain further advertisements unlike some other so called "Free" sites. Please do feel welcome to get in touch with me. If you wish to use a domain name of your own, or a dedicated area; then a static IPv4 address, which is required for the Virtual Server is currently 12 GBP / year. I do still have a couple of ipV4 addresses left which I can allocate to a team that falls into their rules. One day, one of the teams will actually pay for their ipV4 address The Server runs under CentOS (I'm Red Hat Certified). The Virtual Machines hosted on it can be (and are) Ubuntu / Debian / CentOS (or even windows server, if you have a valid licence). I'm happy to assist you setting up your server area (I actually enjoy setting up VM's).

IRC Chat

If you do simply want to chat, click on this link and follow the instrutctions.

Tor

I'm happy to have finally gotten around to providing a relay for Tor they 'make a difference' and I'd encourage anyone with a server area to join. This VM was set up by them and simply requires that I log on once a week to pull in updates. If you have some spare server space and bandwidth, I do suggest you look into what they do and stand for. I've just earned my free T-shirt for my relay having kept running

QA and Testing

Yeah, the part of the release sequence that ensures every release of lubuntu gets better and better I accept bribes in the form of cookies and cup cakes from other flavours of the family). Head over to Lubuntu Testing for more details.

Server Stuff

Quite crazy, really. Debian servers, Ubuntu servers, RHEL / CentOS servers and even a Windows server. As one of the system admin guys said "every two years, we have to re-learn our entire job". I'm RHEL v6 certified, did the Redhat Openstack Admin course and another system admin guy did the latest RHEL course (v7) and his company uses RHEL v6 On the #phillw channel, if you are a system admin you are welcome to swap notes / horror stories with other system administrators (It is not a dedicated Sys Admin channel, so you will interact with people ). As a group who can reach out and provide a second set of eyes to an issue, from someone you can trust. It is an invaluable resource, even though we do tell each other to go read the man page at times!

VM's

As part of the above, I do also have limited number of dedicated servers that trusted people are free to use and blow up.

My Ex Involvement with the Ubuntu Community

The areas that I was actively involved with are listed below, I still do keep in touch. If you ever have a query that you are unsure about, please do not hesitate to get in touch; I do not bite. Consider me as a friendly librarian. I may not know the answer immediately, but I can point you to where to find information (having a 3rd Dan black belt in google-fu is helpful).

Bugs

As a member of the bug-squad I get reports back for standard bugs and Lubuntu specific ones, my activity can be found at Bugs.

QA and Testing

Yeah, the part of the release sequence that ensures every release of the entire ubuntu family gets better and better. Click on QA Team for more details. I am proud to be the lubuntu representative on there. If you are interested in helping the development cycle for testing and bug catching, we always need more people. Each flavour of the ubuntu family has their own QA / Testing team. We always need, on all flavours, more people to join and help. There may seem too much to learn in order to contribute, I assure you that this is not the case. From testing applications to how to write the test cases we will assist you.

Ubuntu Forums Work

My post count should say it all. I do recall my first release day, when 9.10 came out and Grub2 was launched upon an unsuspecting audience. It was, to say the least, a busy time. I do keep active in the forum area, and do like an 'un-loved' posting that no one has replied to; it has taught me a lot (such as putting on all the software to programme up an android phone, amongst others). Signing up to Ubuntu Forum is something I would strongly recommend every one should do. When I reply to forum posts there is a very good chance that I will subscribe to the thread; this means when you answer, I get an email to let me know you have replied.

Wiki

As a wiki admin person, whilst I mainly update the Lubuntu help pages over at LubuntuHelp. I am now also involved with updating pages for other teams. Along with helping update the general ubuntu wiki area. Feel free to contact me if you have an issue which requires admin privileges to sort it, but do be aware you'd need a pretty darn good reason for me to use them.

Current Projects & Goals

I am fortunate that I have access to a 'real web-site' that I have written and can update for tutorial mode for people to see how it handles various queries in real life.

MySQL

As a further extension to my LAMP presentation, the commercial site I have written, MGJuddLtd, also holds the ability to change into tutorial mode for those who want to learn how to efficiently search through MySQL databases. The introduction and tutorial is available at FullText this links through to the MGJuddLtd site to explain how the enquiries are built, executed and displayed.

Future Plans & Projects

I want to spread the word on making websites accessible. My thoughts, trials and progress can be found at WebCodingForAccessibility.

Learning Cloud, with the implementation of OpenStack

Testimonials

If you wish to describe any of my contributions to the Ubuntu Community, please feel free to do so below. Thank You.

General Testimonials

Testimonials for Beginner Team

I worked with Phill for some times now in the Lubuntu team. He is the main helper in the #lubuntu, always trying to answer and help people, never tired for searching a solution or a way to help. He done a fantastic job on the chan, I can't count the number of hours he spend on it, it's just huge. I strongly recommends him for the BeginnersTeam Membership. -- gilir

Testimonials for Ubuntu Membership

I've had the extreme pleasure of working with Phil for some time now. He's very good at what he does, and is always willing to help and share his knowledge with others. He's been very helpful to me in many areas especially with the BT Wiki FG among other things. His work with the Lubuntu Team has also been above and beyond awesome. He's always in #lubuntu ready to answer any questions concerning Lubuntu and is always available for a kind word. He's a great friend and an awesome contributor to the Ubuntu Community. He's got my full support for whatever he does, for BeginnersTeam Membership, and Ubuntu Membership as well. -- zkriesse

Phill and I have worked together for more than a year on various teams, including several Ubuntu beginners sites and more recently as moderators on the Ubuntu forums. He has helped extensively on Grub 2 related matters, making the extra effort to ensure users become familiar with the boot loader. I have seen the great lengths to which he will go to help users on the Ubuntu forums, including researching problems for others when the answer isn't readily apparent or available. Phill exemplifies the caring spirit of Ubuntu and I strongly and enthusiastically support his membership. -- Dave Stan drs305

I've had the pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with Phill, as we are both contributors of the BeginnersTeam. He is certainly hard-working and committed on his helping of the team. I think he is a great addition to any team he may wish to join. Surely, Phill is an awesome contributor and person; definitely worthy of Ubuntu membership. -- pedro3005

BodhiZazen - I fully support Phill's application for Ubuntu membership. As you can see from this wiki page, Phill is very active in the community and I have interacted with Phill both in IRC and on the Ubuntu Forums. Phill is knowledgeable, helpful, and dedicated to the Ubuntu community .

Phill is a very kind person who is always trying to help people in any way he can. I have got to see this first hand both on IRC and on the Ubuntu Forums. He is a very knowledgeable person who goes out of his way to share this knowledge. He is a true star who deserves nothing but praise. Please support his application favorably. -- Silver Fox

I've worked with Phill in the Documentation Team for a number of months now, where his contributions have centred around wiki editing and Lubuntu. He's very active, extremely keen to learn, and has bags of enthusiasm; it's been a pleasure to have him around. I can strongly recommend him for Ubuntu membership. -- Philbull

Phill has been very helpful to the others in the Ubuntu community. He just provided the Ubuntu Youth team some web hosting space on his server so that the Ubuntu Youth team could host a forum. This is just one of the several kind acts he has done. As such, I fully support his Ubuntu Membership -- bilalakhtar

forestpiskie I know Phill from both the forums and IRC - he's a very helpful and knowledgeable user - I wholeheartedly support his application for Ubuntu membership.