SEUL: Introduction

[Simon Waldman <swaldman@bigfoot.com>]

I emailed seul@seul.org yesterday wondering what I could do to help on
the project... Arma suggested that I introduce myself to seul-pub.

My name is Simon Waldman, I am from England. I am 18 and currently doing
a year out working for a software company (but I only know Visual Basic,
so can't do any coding on SEUL) before going on to a 4-year course
in Physics at Durham University, England.
I would call myself experienced and well-informed on DOS, Win3.x and 95,
and have a working knowledge of NT 4.
I have installed Red Hat 4.1 a few months ago on a stand-alone box, and
have been playing around with it on and off since. I have managed to get
X11R6 working, but have not managed PPP. I have failed at recompiling my
kernel (in an attempt to get VFAT support). That hopefully gives a rough
idea of my linux competancy, or near lack thereof.
I would guess that I am therefore towards the upper end of the intended
SEUL user spectrum.

I have a good understanding of the net from the point of view of using
it, although not at the level of routing tables, etc. I have been
connected for around 18 months now. 
I have a working knowledge of HTML, and a tiny bit of client-side
JavaScript. I don't know any server-side scripting languages, but I
could learn if necessary. If anybody wants to
see a WWW site I have designed, check out
http://www.waldman.demon.co.uk/yearof97/
Be sure to select the framed version.
You won't find it interesting unless you went to the same school as me,
though... ;-)

I am interested in doing whatever I can to help on the WWW site, or
anywhere else. As you can see from the above URL, I have some experience
with planning & designing a site. My talents on the artistic/creative
side are, however, quite limited.
Being computer-literate but not a Linux guru, I might also have the
right mix of knowledge to write end-user documentation when there is
something to document.

There are two real limitations on what I can do:
1. Until I get PPP working from Linux, everything has to come thru
Win95. This is not really a problem for WWW site development, but may be
for anything else.
2. I am using a dial-up connection (until next October, anyway), and in
the UK we pay for local phone calls by the minute. This effectively
means no (or very limited) IRC, and no long telnet sessions. The latter
of these two means that (a) limitation no 1 cannot be solved by the use
of a linux box at MIT, as was suggested by Arma; (b) any HTML
development must be done locally and then uploaded.

Martin, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on what I can
help with.

-Simon Waldman

PS - I don't really like Win95... it's just that I need compatibility
(so I will only ever be duel-booting with linux) and I can't afford NT
workstation! Honest!
--

--
God is real, unless declared integer.
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Simon Waldman            email:  swaldman@bigfoot.com
Surrey, England.                 starburst@jazzandjava.com
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Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That
way,if he doesn't like what you have to say, it'll be OK because you'll
be a mile away and you'll have his shoes.