The following members are nominated for the LOSURS Board of Directors at the AGM on Sunday, October 29th, 2006:
- Alex Marz
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Hey There! I'm Alex Marz, and I have been a member of LOSURS since Mid 2001. I'm currently employed with SaskTel in the IPSC division and have been with them for 2 years.
Over the past couple years I have been involved in a number of LOSURS events; the recent Demo day at the Book and Brier, as well as the last expo at the Ramada, and various meetings. I've been using Linux since almost the day I joined LOSURS. Since being introduced to Linux and open source by my friend whom encouraged me to join, I have prided myself on being a Linux and open source advocate.
I believe I have fresh ideas and the drive to help the LOSURS board of directors to ultimately achieve it's current and future goals. It's my hope that you will let me prove that I am a good choice for board.
- Jim Mackenzie
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Jim is an insurance broker and part-time lecturer at the U of R Faculty of Business Administration. He's been using open-source operating systems for about five years. He currently uses Ubuntu Linux, Debian Linux, NetBSD and OpenBSD on computers both new and fancy (AMD64) and old and interesting (Sun Sparcs and Ultrasparcs and even a VAX!). He is a past-president of the Insurance Institute of Saskatchewan and served on the national board of the Insurance Institute of Canada. Currently he is 2nd Vice-President of the Canadian Condominium Institute (South Saskatchewan Chapter) and is a member of the Institute's national board. He has a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Regina.
Platform: I am a big supporter of open source computing and have been eagerly learning all I can about it over the past few years. I come to the movement as a user and not a developer. Although I have been using computers since the 8-bit days and did a lot of programming on them, I have a non-IT career and now use existing solutions to address my computing needs. I use a mix of closed- and open-source solutions. I like many closed-source solutions because of their polish and level of development, but open source software has come a long way and can do many things well, and some things better than closed-source solutions.
My desire to create a server in my own home was the impetus to learn Linux. I also have a soft spot for obsolete computers - I believe that there is a tendency to create excessively bloated software just because memory and gigahertz are relatively inexpensive. I miss the days when developers got every bit of power out of a computer but I definitely don't mind the low prices that we have as a result of this incredible pace of hardware development!
Most of my computers (and I have too many!) are what mainstream users would consider to be hopelessly outdated, but they still perform valuable functions for me. I find it very enjoyable to keep them useful and I find Linux and BSD to be great ways to do precisely that.
I'd like to see open source become even more popular. We're never going to replace Windows or MacOS ... nor should we. We offer our own advantages. Let's educate the public about the availability of excellent open source applications like OpenOffice and the GIMP (no need to pirate MS Office and PhotoShop). Let's build the momentum and keep increasing the viability of open source, both for enterprise and for end users.
- Mike Warnecke
- A LOSURS member for over eight years, Mike has made several presentations at our monthly meetings. He has been involved in the organization as a board member for the last two years as well as volunteering for last years demo days. Furthermore, prior to becoming a board member he was involved in both Expos, captaining a booth at the first Expo, and arranging for the impressive 42" plasma TV at the MythTV booth at the second Expo. In his time as a student at the U of R, Mike was actively involved in the CSSS, even serving as CSSS President. It is only natural that Mike now seek election to the LOSURS Board of Directors, to bring his ideas and abilities to contribute to our group.
