BrandonSnider

Revision 1 as of 2009-12-11 02:48:44

Clear message

About Me

I live in southern Ontario, Canada. I used to work for Dell, now I am an independent contractor fixing computers in this region. I have used Ubuntu as my everyday desktop OS going back to Breezy.

Contributions to Ubuntu

My main contributions to Ubuntu have been through packaging.

I created the Nvidia Vdpau Launchpad Team early in 2009. Its purpose was to provide vdpau packages and the newest Nvidia graphics drivers across multiple distros (currently stretching back to Hardy). Vdpau was created by Stephen Warren of Nvidia, to provide GPU-accelerated playback of AVC/WMV3 high-definition video as well as MPEG2 for SD-DVD playback. The newest implementation also accerates Xvid/Divx on some chips. The result is smooth playback with the CPU typically hovering at ~5%. Currently the PPA contains the latest Nvidia graphics driver package for the past five Ubuntu releases, mplayer, smplayer, xine-lib with vdpau, and some other packages. I recommend installing mplayer-nogui and using gnome-mplayer or smplayer as the graphical frontend.

Many people must use it because I get several emails about it every week, and my main email address is not public.

I also have a Testing PPA that I use to build new packages before they go into the main ppa.

I created a package called "hdr-wallpapers", which contains some HDR photography and some abstract computer artwork. All images are extremely high-res. It is in the Nvidia Vdpau PPA.

I contribute in other ways. I submitted a feature request to "Allow Markup in PPA Descriptions" (Bug 392123), some of which has been implemented already.

I am almost always in the #ubuntu+1 channel on Freenode. From time to time, I appear in other channels asking questions about software dependencies and so on and so forth.

Future Plans

I want to continue to backport software for past distros when possible, and continue to offer updated Nvidia drivers. I'm also moving more towards keeping ffmpeg and ffmpeg-extra and the encoding libraries (libxvid, libx264, libtheora etc.) more in sync with upstream development. In other words, more bleeding-edge.

I want to continue to develop and perfect the hdr-wallpapers package.

I've gotten some friends, college classmates, and co-workers onto Ubuntu and I'd like to continue to do so in the future.

Other Interests

I am a libertarian activist. I have contributed to lewrockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and I run Scott Horton's websites and Prof. Roderick Long's blog.

I follow sports, especially basketball and American football. I follow the Toronto Raptors much too closely to remain mentally healthy.