Do me a favor, go to WWW.CHANN3LZ.COM, I swear you will not be sorry!!

My personal (poorly updated) homepage is www.bl3nder.com .

Note: Demos of Windows Games running in Linux with Wine, many of the games I demonstrate I have completed entirely in wine. This includes: Guild Wars (First and Factions), Valve Orangebox (except deathmatch), Prey. Currently working on completing: Oblivion, Flatout 2, COD4, COD2. Caveat: Though Windows Games run in Wine, there is no substitute for a native game, so Windows games will (almost) always run faster on windows than with Wine. Linux currently only has a few mainstream games like "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars" and Prey available with native executables (meaning they don't require wine to play, but run directly on linux).

BTW, I refer to Ubuntu in place of Linux, no offense, the focus is for simplification. Over time I expect people will begin to learn the difference between Ubuntu and other distributions of linux, but I feel too many conflicting words leads to confusion. My intent of advocating linux is to focus on application of the tools and the living use of the operating system. Discussion of distros is boring as hell, as all rivers lead to the same pool. Often people are left installing and reinstalling linux, then once they get to their destination they don't know what to do with it or why they've installed it. That's where I come in.

Much of the software I talk about that pertains to Ubuntu, also runs on Windows and MacOSX.. Open source software knows no bounds. But keep this in mind, Linux is the perfect platform for the development and distribution of open source (free) software. And if you want to access to bleeding edge versions of free software, it's best to have linux. Linux is also best for the development of free software as so much of the software available to you on linux package managers comes without strings attached, available for you to add to and modify to your hearts content. In this is the power for one to address ones specific needs without the limitations of commercial (closed source) software which is often designed not to permit the same freedoms that free software allows, as some freedoms would ruin a commercial "shelf" software developer's ability to leverage you into things you don't need or want and drive you to pay lots of money for it too.

Remember, there was open source software long before there was commercial software. Companies hired programmers to write software for mainframes, the software was passed around freely when it was seen to benefit others, the sole purpose for Usenet was to permit unix users in the 70s to share source code and help to learn to use Unix. I believe that when computers became affordable for consumers, hiring the programmers was unaffordable, which lead to the mass production and sales of software. The Internet is swinging things back to the old way (one way or another), and I feel it's for the better.

By commercial software development I mean "shelf" software, not (enterprise) software configuration or private custom development. The difference being "focused" development, not arbitrary development.

Open Source or freeware applications tend to "flatten-out" (picture a logarithmic curve) over time, as the use is realized and no further modification is needed. Commercial software is made to sell, and thus to grow. But growth for the sake of making money, is a bad thing. Money is the reward for good work.

The focus with freeware applications is to address needs, not to satisfy investors and current/potential users. Think about what that means.. If software is always made to satisfy the users, do they better themselves, does the software cause them to think? That's what I believe Richard Stallman is talking about when he says free software is about "free speech", not "free beer".




The length of my videos: I've been told I got into a "director" status when youtube was offering unlimited video recording time. Something I guess they don't do anymore, but I got in just at the right time, so until I close my account, I can produce long videos, so long as I don't make youtube guys mad at me. Assuming Google uses ubuntu in house, I'd like to think that has something to do with it. But I'm not going to question it too much.. I'm thankful that I have unlimited time as I think it's the only way I could demonstrate stuff fully.

I personally don't believe manicured videos make for good presentation because they don't show everything. Besides they require more time than I want to spend on a tutorial, it's so much easier to record, compress and upload.