Introduction

Hi, I'm Daniel Saunders. Most people know me by the nickname Dan. I'm eighteen years old and hail from Elmira, New York. Born and raised a majority of my life in both Southside and the village of Horseheads, I've had a deep passion for computing since I was a child. I started with a Gateway 2000 with Windows 95 when I was just 7 years old, and things grew from there. I started programming when I grew interested in websites at the age of 11, making websites for Pokemon and the like in primitive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I began to learn other languages such as Perl and PHP as my interest in websites grew and I discovered chatterbots. Through tweaking with existing chatterbot code I learned Python and Ruby and began creating my own goofy chatterbots. Through this course I really want to learn more about my favorite OS environments - Linux & UNIX. I have been familiar with shell programming since I was 16 but I am certain there's still pieces missing in that puzzle. Outside of programming, I highly enjoy music and music production, gaming - whether it's tabletop or videogaming, long distance cycling, swimming, IRC, dark and satirical humor, and visual art. I also love the idea of freedom (think GNU!) as it allows for the endless use of human resources.