===== Tim Howe =====

I work with a variety of FOSS at BendTel, a local phone and Internet provider.  I am also starting The 130 Collective, a hosting collective for hosting web and email for projects that are a benefit to the community.  This site is hosted on one of the 130 Collective servers.

I have used a wide array of Linux distros, but I always seem to come back to OpenBSD.  My main desktop and most of my servers have been OpenBSD machines for years, but I am slowly introducing FreeBSD to the mix.  I got my start on OS/2 Warp 4 back in 1996 and also installed my first Slackware system that same year (I think it was 3.1).  Some time not long after that I got a set of OpenBSD 2.5 CDs and I have been using that ever since.

I've used a lot of WMs over the years...  I have liked WindowMaker and BlackBox.  I tried some of the tiling window managers and don't like them.  I wish e17 would reach some kind of stability because it always feels fast and slick.  For a while now I have settled on OpenBox, and I am hard pressed to find something I like better (but e17 still calls to me).

I almost always use Z Shell on my own systems.  I think it's time I started using urxvt...

I always get interested in programming languages that have whipuptitude, but I also like clean code.  This should mean I shun C++ but I find I often get sucked into it pretty deep for days on end.  I have liked Perl 5 in the past, but Ruby is nicer.  Python feels wrong no matter how hard I try to like it.  I am watching Perl 6 with great interest as it looks like it will be awesome to behold.  I do some zsh scripting even though it always feels inelegant.

Lately I'm trying to build a FreeBSD workstation that feels as right as my OpenBSD workstation.