paulmellors dot net

I’ve seen this on a few blogs now, so i thought it was about time i had a go. As the title suggests ask me anything and i’ll endevour to answer it.

I’m using this in the Get to know a Fedora Ambassador/user series, perhaps you could try it too?

Obvioulsy i’m keeping the comments moderated to filter out the stupid questions i’m bound to get :p but feel free to ask away!

Through no fault of their own (or maybe just a liitle) my brother in law got, what we at first thought was a virus on their pc. It’s a little strange as i know they keep their virus definitions up todate, they need to really as it’s their business pc. Off i trot to fix it, what i found blew my stack.

Ok so it wasn’t a virus, at first i thought it was due to the pop ups that showed it was infected with some pretty savage beasties. Funny thing was no body knew what XP ANTIVIRUS PRO was, it’s not something that we’ve installed? Trusty google to the rescue, it was bloody malware. Somehow it was installed on their machine and started everytime you started a web browser or did anything internet related. Took me about an hour of research and cleaning…..major suckage.

I left them happy campers with a clean working machine.

So what did i do next? Well i went home, backed up my laptop and removed the Vista installed that i dual boot fedora with. Surely MS can do something better currently to prevent this? I’m not sure if it’s Windows that is so crap for allowing this, or that the malware/virus writers are just good at integrating their code with it? Is it down to education as well, do we need to better teach people on how to use their pc? Teach them about social engineering yada yada yada. Needless to say i’ve removed vista from my laptop and have it totally dedicated to Fedora.

Now comes the shout “Why didn’t you tell them about Fedora?” Actually i did, but it’s not something they could use. They have too many packages that they need that are windows only, i suppose i could find or code workarounds, but that would take time…..

Bloody Windows, Bloody Malware, Bloody Virus Writers…..

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks a number of employment opportunities either on the planet, on the mailing lists or via blogs. I thought to myself that once the planets updated all these posts eventually disappear so why not have an alternate location to mention employment opportunities. As I was on the wiki i quickly knocked up

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Linux_Jobs

If you have a employment opportunity in Open Source/Linux or need someone with Fedora Skills, then why not add it here.

If there is another page like this can someone let me know and i’ll remove it

Although we’ve only had the Fedora UK planet site online a few weeks, it’s being noticed. Well at least by these Linux Outlaws Podcast

Well stoked

There are various reasons i use Fedora, if you’re reading this on the planet, then i’m sure you can figure them out. I’ve been thinking to myself about all the people in the Fedora world that inspire me to use, promote and enjoy fedora as much as i do. As i’m feeling nice today, i’m going to name and shame a few. If i don’t mention your name it’s not because i appreciate you any less, it’s that there are so many and i’m lazy and can’t be bothered to type any more

As an amateur photographer i’ve wanted to use free software that helps me show off my photos, with photoshop being expensive it’s come down to using GIMP, without the tutorials, blog posts and general helpfulness of Tatica, Nicu and Máirín Duffy I don’t think they would have come out as good as they have.

#fedora-ambassadors – Every one in this channel has been nothing more than fantastic. Every single day there is someone there waiting to help, guide and sometimes mock me

I wanted to also mention a new ambassador that’s been helping me setup and develop the fedora-uk community, both the website and IRC and that’s Carl “nullsys” Walker. Although being relatively new to the ambassador program, he’s been helpful, courteous and a generall good egg

There are tens , if not hundreds of others that inspire me to use Fedora, and i wish i could name everysingle one, but that’s impossible. I just want to thank you and long may Fedora reign.

Does someone in the Fedora World inpsire you? Did you want to personally thank them for anything. Did you just want to big someone up because you can…..DO IT NOW!

I’ve been using Fedora for quite awhile now, and have been part of the Fedora Ambassadors project for about the same period. I’ve been trying to improve the UK visability as part of this but with a wife and a 1.5 year old it’s proving a bit mental However as a first step, with the grateful help of nullsys (Carl Walker) a fellow UK ambassador, we have our IRC channel up and running.

If you’re in the UK (or anywhere really) and want to come along and talk about Fedora, ask questions or just come along for a general chit chat then please do.

#fedora-uk on irc.freenode.net I’m MooDoo (as if you didn’t know )

The next step is to create a community website. I’ve purchased the domain (just need to sign a few things) and need to plan what is actually needed from a community site.

Here’s a question for you.

What would you like to see on a fedora related community website?? All suggestions gratefully welcomed. Once i have a list, i’ll palm the webdev onto nullsys (shhhhh don’t tell him)

I’m glad to see that Fedora in the UK is now starting to get the love it so desperately needs (imho)…..yippeeeee

I’ve received a little pressie today, and to say i’m happy is an understatement. If not for the thought then for the gesture. I’m happy and will say a proper thanks to the person if it’s ok for me to mention their name……In the meantime, what did i get. Take a look

I think you’ve worked out it’s a Fedora Baseball cap

**UPDATE** yes yes ok it was Tatica, thank you :*