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About This Month's Authors

Larry Ayers

Larry lives on a small farm in northern Missouri, where he is currently engaged in building a timber-frame house for his family. He operates a portable band-saw mill, does general woodworking, plays the fiddle and searches for rare prairie plants, as well as growing shiitake mushrooms. He is also struggling with configuring a Usenet news server for his local ISP.

Randolph Bentson

Randolph's first UNIX experience was booting a BSD VAX system on July 3, 1981--the whole town had a celebration the next day. He began contributing to the Linux kernel in May 1994, and his book Inside Linux: A Look at Operating System Development describes how many modern operating system features have evolved and become essential parts of Linux.

Ken O. Burtch

Ken has been using Linux since kernel 0.97. During the early 1990's he wrote software for the Apple IIgs computer, including Pegasus Pascal (an Ada-Turing hybrid language) and the award winning shareware game "Quest for the Hoard". His hobbies include reading and writing fantasy literature and collecting cartoons. He is currently the president of PegaSoft Canada, a Linux development company based in southern Ontario. He can be reached via the PegaSoft web site at http://www.vaxxine.com/pegasoft.

Jurgen Defurne

Jason is an Analyst/programmer in financial company (Y2K and Euro). He became interested in microprocessors 18 years ago, when my eyes saw the TRS-80 in the Tandy (Radio Shack) catalog. I read all I could find about microprocessors, which was then mostly confined to 8080/8088/Z80. The only thing he could do back then was write programs in assembler without even having a computer. When he was 18, he gathered enough money to buy his first computer, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. He studied electronics and learned programming mostly on his own. He worked with several languages (C, C++, xBase/Clipper, Cobol, FORTH) and several different systems in different areas: programming of test equipment, single- and multi-user databases in quality control and customer support, and PLCs in an aluminium foundry/milling factory.

Jim Dennis

Jim is the proprietor of Starshine Technical Services. 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.

Michael J. Hammel

A Computer Science graduate of Texas Tech University, Michael J. Hammel , is an software developer specializing in X/Motif living in Dallas, Texas (but calls Boulder, CO home for some reason). His background includes everything from data communications to GUI development to Interactive Cable systems, all based in Unix. He has worked for companies such as Nortel, Dell Computer, and Xi Graphics. Michael writes the monthly Graphics Muse column in the Linux Gazette, maintains the Graphics Muse Web site and theLinux Graphics mini-Howto, helps administer the Internet Ray Tracing Competition (http://irtc.org) and recently completed work on his new book "The Artist's Guide to the Gimp", published by SSC, Inc. His outside interests include running, basketball, Thai food, gardening, and dogs.

Andrew Johnson

Andrew is currently a full-time student working on his Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology and a part-time programmer and technical writer. He resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his wife and two sons and enjoys a good dark ale whenever he can.

John Kacur

John has a degree in Fine Arts and Russian. After two years in the former Soviet Union and two years in Germany, he has returned to Canada to pursue a second degree in Computer Science and rediscover his love of computer programming.

Damir Naden

Damir is a mechanical Engineer, working as a Manager of Special Projects with Brampton Engineering Inc. in Ontario, Canada. During the day he tries to figure out how to make special machinery for plastic extrusion, and he splits his spare time between his own small business, L&D Technologies (specializing in machine design and project management), tinkering with Linux, and mountain biking.

David Nelson

David manages scientific research at the U.S. Department of Energy. Before that he earned his living as a theoretical plasma physicist. He started programming on the IBM 650 using absolute machine language and later graduated to CDC, DEC and Cray machines for his research. But Linux is the most fun. He and his wife, Kathy, enjoy tennis, skiing, sailing, music, theater, and good food.

Mike Richardson

Having variously worked an academia and industry, Mike is now a self-employed programmer and general-purpose computer dogsbody. Mostly he writes C and C++ for Linux (good) and Windows (bad). In his spare time he crawls down holes in the ground, and is fixing up a house that the surveyor described as "not so much neglected as abandoned....."

Jim Schweizer

Jim is currently a Consultant in web site administration and design. He is the author of an on-line textbook about Computer and Internet use and is an Instructor of English at several universities in Western Japan. His main hobby is being the Webmaster for the Tokyo Linux Users Group.

Alex Vrenios

Alex is a Lead Software Engineer at Motorola and has his ows consulting business. He is always taking some sort of class. He just finished the class work toward a Ph.D. in computer science, but only time will tell if it goes any further. His wife, Diane, is certainly his best friend and biggest fan. He enjoys his two Schnauzers, Brutus and Cleo, and his dozens of African Ciclids, too. He is a licensed amateur radio operator, as is Diane, and they spend more than a few nights together observing the skies through their 5-inch telescope. They like to get out and stay active, to enjoy life together.

Colin C. Wilson

Colin has been programming and administering UNIX systems since 1985. He has been happily playing with Linux for the past four years while employed at the University of Washington, developing DNA analysis software and keeping the systems up at the Human Genome Center.

Dan York

Dan York is a technical instructor and author who has been working with UNIX systems and the Internet for 13 years. He will, under questioning, also confess to being a Microsoft Certified System Engineer and Microsoft Certified Trainer. He currently teaches Windows NT and Microsoft BackOffice classes but would really like to be teaching people how to use Linux!

Not Linux

Thanks to all our authors, not just the ones above, but also those who wrote giving us their tips and tricks and making suggestions. Thanks also to our new mirror sites. And of course, thanks to Ellen Dahl for her help with News Bytes.

About a month ago, my doctor diagnosed me as having diabetes. Since then, I have found I am becoming quite self-absorbed. I've had to go back to always thinking about what I am going to eat and when--a habit I had given up years ago. For a time, I've decided to become essentially vegan (though not fanatic about it--I ate one piece of bacon this morning). I'm quite amazed at the difference giving up meat and dairy products has made in my energy level. Of course, getting my blood sugar down has certainly been the best help in that area. At any rate, I'm feeling better than I have in at least 6 months if not longer, and that's good!

I will be going to San Diego this weekend to visit my grandchildren there. Haven't seen them in quite a while, so I am looking forward to it.

Have fun!

Marjorie L. Richardson
Editor, Linux Gazette,

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Linux Gazette Issue 33, October 1998, http://www.linuxgazette.com
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,