Tech Princess

What was your first computer? The first computer I used was a Packard Bell - stocked with a screaming fast Pentium Processor clocked at 133 Mhz ( a big upgrade at the time ). Windows 3.1 never looked so good. No really - it never looked good. My first computer that I could call my own was a Dell Dimension 900 - it was the last holdout to use a Pentium slot CPU - a P-III 500 Mhz with 128 MB Ram. I still have it to this day and will never get rid of it - sentimental value and such. When did you start using Ubuntu? Late 2004 - 4.10 was my first release. It was - as my friends explained it - Debian with a bit of sensibility to having a release schedule. What is the first distro that you used? Slackware! I believe my first release was right around the 4.0 time... 1999/2000? Up until 2002 or so Slack was king in my book - it's still a very solid distribution, but the Debian package management system stole my heart. That and solid hardware support. When is your Birthday?

System76 is kicking off Spring with more than 5,000 Facebook Fans! We posted a HUGE Thank You to our fans on all of our social networks. We truly appreciate the support and can't wait to see more awesome fans as we continue to grow. We love Ubuntu and everyone who supports our mission! Thank you! Join our community! http://www.facebook.com/system76

My boss brought cupcakes from "Big Fat Cupcake" for my birthday. They were Yummy! We had pizza for lunch too! My FAVORITE Foods!

Ubuntu Women power leader, Lyz Krumbach promoted the Ubuntu Nail Decals on the Ubuntu Women Blog. Here's the link! http://blog.ubuntu-women.org/2012/03/ubuntu-nail-decals-from-system76/ Huge thanks to Emma and the System76 folks for offering these, requests are still welcome if you’re interested in getting some for yourself!

I finally had the opportunity to meet with the Ubuntu Women  group for the monthly meeting in IRC chat!   The group welcomes new women with open arms and has great leadership within the Ubuntu Project . I joined the group when I started working at System76 because their mission is to involve more women, mentor and inspire others to contribute to the Ubuntu project. Lyz is the head chick and does a ton for the project. I can't believe how much she contributes while working full-time! I felt out-of-place when I discovered Ubuntu because I'm not a developer and the project mostly consists of males. I stumbled across Ubuntu Women , the Colorado Loco group, and the Ubuntu News Team and instantly felt comfortable with the community. I'm thankful there are so many groups to be involved with and I'm totally excited to contribute as much as I can to the Ubuntu project through these groups!

Working for a boss who is a mentor is a different experience for me. I'm getting used to these weekly conversations where we sit down and discuss areas of improvement without it feeling like I did something wrong. The most important thing I learned recently was to be someone who is constantly learning with a positive attitude . Instead of trying to teach, I have to take a step down and observe my surroundings. If I want to report my observations, I have to choose my words carefully . Most importantly, I have to put myself in other's shoes to understand different perceptions . These are simple lessons that I know I've been told many times before. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of important life lessons, especially when those lessons apply at different stages of life. It's also good to be reminded by someone new. The perception of the lesson can change and if the right person teaches it to you, it will stick. For this realization, I am thankful. I am thankful to learn

Chris, Matt and Bryan at the Linux Action Show reviewed our Leopard Extreme on their show yesterday. It was hilarious!

Out of the box, a customer can expect a laptop to start up and initiate the account setup prompts within 30 seconds. This video posted in February by YouTube user "fancrusher" demonstrates the first seconds of his System76 laptop experience with the Lemur Ultra .

I was checking out apps for photography and came across Fotowall. It's an awesome app for wallpaper creation and photo collages. After a few minutes of clicking around, I was able to teach myself how to use the program and make collages extremely fast. The developer website is  http://www.enricoros.com/opensource/fotowall/  and I've included a couple screenshots if you want to see if it's an app you might like! Starting with a blank canvas, you can drag your mouse to the bottom right corner and click a gradient color for the background, or upload an image to create your own background. For my example, I chose a picture file that I created which I thought would be a cute background. I clicked on the top left corner on the 'add picture' button. Double-click and there's the background! You can add all your pictures at one time by clicking that top left "add picture" button. It's easy to move the photos around.