The Back Page
About This Month's Authors
Bill Bennet
Bill,
the ComputerHelperGuy, lives in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada; the "Catfish
Capitol of North America" if not the world. He is on the Internet at
www.chguy.net. He tells us "I have been a PC user since 1983 when I got my start as a
Radio Shack manager. After five years in the trenches, I went into
business for myself. Now happily divorced from reality, I live next to my
Linux box and sell and support GPL distributions of all major Linux
flavours. I was a beta tester for the PC version of Playmaker Football and
I play `pentium-required' games on the i486. I want to help Linux become a
great success in the gaming world, since that will be how Linux will take
over the desktop from DOS." It is hard to believe that his five years of
university was only good for fostering creative writing skills.
Jim Dennis
Jim is the proprietor of
Starshine Technical Services and is now working for LinuxCare.
His professional experience includes work in the technical
support, quality assurance, and information services (MIS)
departments of software companies like
Quarterdeck, Symantec/Peter Norton Group and
McAfee Associates -- as well as
positions (field service rep) with smaller VAR's.
He's been using Linux since version 0.99p10 and is an active
participant on an ever-changing list of mailing lists and
newsgroups. He's just started collaborating on the 2nd Edition
for a book on Unix systems administration.
Jim is an avid science fiction fan -- and was
married at the World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim.
Bill Mote
Bill is the Technical Support Services manager for a multi-billion dollar
publishing company and is responsible for providing 1st and 2nd level
support services to their 500+ roadwarrior sales force as well as their
3,500 workstation and laptop users. He was introduced to Linux by a good
friend in 1996 and thought Slackware was the end-all-be-all of the OS world
... until he found Mandrake in early 1999. Since then he's used his
documentation skills to help those new to Linux find their way.
Mark Nielsen
Mark founded The Computer Underground, Inc. in June of 1998. Since then,
he has been working on Linux solutions for his customers ranging from custom
computer hardware sales to programming and networking. Mark specializes in Perl,
SQL, and HTML programming along with Beowulf clusters. Mark believes in the
concept of contributing back to the Linux community which helped to start his
company. Mark and his employees are always looking for exciting projects to do.
Mike Orr
Mike is the Editor of the Linux Gazette. You can read what he has to
say in the Back Page column in this issue. He has been a Linux enthusiast
since 1991 and a Debian user since 1995. He is SSC's Webmaster. He also
enjoys the Python programming language. Non-computer interests include
ska/oi! music and the international language Esperanto.
JC Pollman
I have been playing with linux since kernel 1.0.59. I spend way too much
time at the keyboard and even let my day job - the military - interfere once in
a while. My biggest concern about linux is the lack of documentation for the
intermediate user. There is already too much beginner's stuff, and the
professional material is often beyond the new enthusiast.
Jan Stumpel
Jan lives in Oegstgeest, The Netherlands. He has been
a Linux user since 1995. At the moment he is trying to get a
Debian installation just right.
Trenton G. Twining
Trenton is a process consultant for Terrapin Technologies, Inc. He specializes
in configuration management, complexity management and training in several
technical areas. After being a happy user of Coherent, he switched to using
Linux in the Summer of '94. Since then he has been a Linux evangelist.
Alan Ward
"Alan teaches CS in Andorra at highschool and university levels. He's
back to Unix this year after an 8-year forced interlude since he
graduated -- it makes networking so much easier. His hobbies include
science photography (both digital and traditional), trekking, rock and
processor collecting.
Not Linux
For what it's worth, during July 1999, www.linuxgazette.com had:
- 57703 visitors (=unique domains or IPs)
- 623394 page views (=HTML files downloaded)
- 2048966 hits (=all files downloaded including graphics)
Of course, this doesn't include the mirror sites.
I've gotten over the New Editor ("O dear, when am I going to do something
Really Stupid?") stage, and I'm beginning to really enjoy working with the
Gazette. It was fun gathering ideas for the FAQ. I also had the
opportunity this month to write some scripts in my favorite programming
language--Python--to help format the Mailbag, 2-cent Tips and News Bytes. Those
scripts alone will save my fingers three hours a month in formatting e-mail
addresses and the like. :)
-Mike Orr
Editor, Linux Gazette, gazette@linuxgazette.net
Linux Gazette Issue 45, September 1999,
http://www.linuxgazette.net
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@linuxgazette.net
Copyright © 1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.