Ubuntu Wiki

Contact Details

About Me

I'm a 32 year old father of two living near [wiki:Wikipedia/Wigton Wigton], [wiki:Wikipedia/Cumbria Cumbria] in the [wiki:Wikipedia/UK UK]. I was introduced to Linux for the first time in 1996 by a colleague. After trying various distributions, another colleague introduced me to OpenBSD which gave me my proper introduction to UNIX. After that I settled on Red Hat Linux, and subsequently Fedora. I switched to Ubuntu when Warty was released and have been running (and supporting) it ever since.

I'm currently running Feisty on my main machine, and a mixture of Dapper, Edgy, Debian and IPCop on my other machines.

Outside of computers and Linux, I am a Scout Leader with a local Baden-Powell Scout Group. I also help out with the Beaver, Wolf Cub and Senior Scout sections of the same group.

What I do for Ubuntu

The Official Ubuntu Book

I am currently co-authoring the second edition of [http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0132354136,00.html The Official Ubuntu Book].

Translations

I am a member of [https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-en-gb Ubuntu English (United Kingdom)] translation team, and have contributed translations to Dapper and Feisty.

UK LoCo Team

I am member of the [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam UK LoCo team], active on both the [http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk mailing list] and our [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/IRC irc channel]. Along with other members I represented the team at the recent Linux World Expo in London, where I answered questions and generally promoted Ubuntu and the UK LoCo team. Finally I created the UK Loco Team [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/Logo logo] (created entirely using FOSS) which has been approved by Canonical as an acceptable derivative of the Ubuntu logo.

General Support

I am active in the #ubuntu, #ubuntu-uk and #ubuntu+1 channels on IRC providing support where I can.

Wiki Pages

• I wrote the community document [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MonoFromSource Mono From Source] for Hoary as the packaged version of Mono was quite out-of-date at that point

• I rewrote the [http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsOnUbuntu Rails on Ubuntu] page for the Ruby on Rails wiki for Dapper

Non-Ubuntu, but Linux related

• I co-ordinate the Cumbria LUG

• I wrote [http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/22/1718242 "How to run your own yum repository"] - for linux.com

• I contributed hacks #49 "Share Applications and Monitors with screen" and #59 "Convert Your Mailbox" to [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdeskhks/ Linux Desktop Hacks] published by O'Reilly

• [http://www.cumbria.lug.org.uk/index.php?id=6 "Introducing Screen"] is an article I wrote for my LUG, and formed the basis for my "Share Applications and Monitors with screen" hack for Linux Desktop Hacks

• My article about Open Source software for children was [http://schwuk.com/articles/2006/9/27/published-again published] in issue 66 of Linux User & Developer

• My article "RADical Python" - an introduction to Rapid Application Development with Python and GTK - was [http://schwuk.com/articles/2006/12/8/radical-python published] in issue 68 of Linux User & Developer