Ubuntu Wiki

Contact Information

About Me

My name is David Pires, I am 45 years old, live in Porto, a fabulous city in the north of Portugal, and I work in a Portuguese government agency as a programmer, primarily in Java and SQL, since 1994. Aside from my family, there are three things without which I could not keep my mental sanity, which are cinema, music and my books.
My first contact with computers goes back to 1984, when my parents offer me my first computer, a ZX Spectrum 48K, and with it I started to learn my first programming language, Basic.
I started using Linux by the time of Jaunty Jackalope release, in 2009, and since then I've tried several other Linux distributions such as Arch Linux, CentOS and Debian, but I always came back, one way or the other, to the one I feel more comfortable with, which is (X)Ubuntu.

Involvement

Currently, in Launchpad, I'm a member of the following teams:

• Laptop Testing Team	Ubuntu Manual Team
  NewDocs Team	Ubuntu Portuguese Translators
  U+1 - Ubuntu Development Releases Testing Team	Ubuntu Quality
  Ubuntu BugSquad	Xubuntu Documentation
  Ubuntu Documentation Project Team	Xubuntu Quality Assurance
  Ubuntu Portugal	Xubuntu Team
  	Xubuntu Testers

Contributions

Despite having started to use Ubuntu and Linux-based operating systems in 2009, it was only in late 2012 that I began to somehow try to reciprocate what I always received from the Ubuntu Communities, which is help and a sense of purpose. So in November 7th, 2012, I joined the Ubuntu Forums, and in November 9th, 2012, I joined Launchpad.

Launchpad

As a member of the U+1 - Ubuntu Development Releases Testing Team, I keep several virtual machines to perform not only ISO testing of the development releases in Ubuntu ISO Testing but also package testing on Ubuntu Package Testing.
I first join the Ubuntu Manual Team in January 17th, 2013, proof-reading spelling and grammar, checking consistency of formatting, checking consistency of language and style, writing glossary entries and adding entries to the index. Since then I helped producing, as an editor, the Getting Started with Ubuntu 13.04 and the Getting Started with Ubuntu 13.10 editions of the Ubuntu Manual.
One of the goals I set for myself when I became a member of the Ubuntu Portuguese Translators, was to try to produce as much documentation translated into Portuguese as I could, not only of the Ubuntu operating system but also of applications, since there are very few translations made. To date, I have translated in its entirety the the onboard system documentation shipped with Xubuntu and the Catfish, Mugshot and TestDrive applications, plus some of excerpts from Silva CMS and Terminator.
I wrote several manual tests utilized by Ubuntu Quality for testing Ubuntu (and its flavors) packages and images, namely:

Other than my involvement in the aforementioned teams, I am a answer contact in Launchpad Answers, answering support questions as much as I'm able to, whenever I can spare some time to do it.

Ubuntu Forums

In the Ubuntu Forums I try to provide help to the extent of my knowledge, mainly in the Programming Talk sub-forum, particularly in questions regarding my area of work, like in the DB Queries in Java Program and Dynamic Displays in Java threads.
One sub-forum where I try to be as much active as I can is the General Help section of the forums, where sometimes a few challenges arise like in The installation or removal of a software package failed thread or a surprising misplaced thread, like Backup databases to desktop.
One of the sub-forums for which I have a special predilection it's the Absolute Beginners Section, and from where I recall this thread, Not fully installed java problems.
Ubuntu Forums is for me, and always has been, not only a place where I continuously delve my level of knowledge in Linux and programming, but is also the place where I turn when I need help, like when I faced myself with an Error on iptables implementation.

Other contributions

I, and some of the regular contributors of the Ubuntu Forums, created an alphabetical index of the most popular Ubuntu Documentation Pages, with links to the actual documentation pages.
The index is called NewDocs and it aims not only to be a learning medium and resource tool, regardless of the user's degree of knowledge of the Ubuntu/Linux universe, but also a versatile and fast work tool, as it enables faster searches and is user friendly.

I also helped building up the Parole media player documentation, having written the Command-line Options section and the Play Media, Playback, Audio and the Video items of the Usage section.

Future Goals

My immediate goals are to become even more active and involved with Xubuntu, whether helping on documentation or elaborating some more package and image tests for Xubuntu QA, and widen the scope of my collaboration with Xfce Docs.

One area I also will be focusing is the Community help wiki where, with other members of the community, we intend to make the already existing documentation more easily and readily available for end-users.

Besides that, I want to continue to spread awareness of Ubuntu in my country and to continue my participation on the Ubuntu Forums helping as much as I'm able to and trying to make everyone's user experience better.

Comments

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Testimonials

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