User:Lemi4

Lemi4 is a nick. I don't consider it a Pseudonym, since its easy enough to find my real name via ordinary web search. Nor is it a Stage Name, since I'm not aiming to entertain anyone while using the name (or at least I don't think so).

I am the same Lemi4 as the one registered at the English Wikipedia. My blog is the mind-Dumpster. Both should give more than adequate information about me-the-person than I have the will, energy, and (most importantly) time to expend here.

For some strange reason my mind-Dumpster has been identified as a spam page. Whatev. If interested its at lemi4.blogdrive.com

My interest in Mozilla's work

I have been a Firefox user from version 0.8 if I'm not mistaken. Before that I had been using the Mozilla Suite from version 1.2 or later. Can't remember which exactly but I don't think it was version 1.0. I remember downloading it because I wanted to see what all this CSS fuss was about, after encountering Eric Meyer's css/edge, and subsequently the Zen Garden. Plus I had wanted to see whether Open Source has improved its relations to 'mere mortal' users, since my first experiences with Linux 'zealots' and 'demigod' hackers had left a sour taste in my mouth. And I also kinda missed Navigator.

I had used Netscape Navigator up to version 4.68-ish, which was bundled with my first ISP subscription, paid by my parents, somewhere around 1996. Somewhere along the way it just became unusable, and gone with it was the last non-Microsoft piece of critical software on my system.

I now have on my Windows machine native versions of the GIMP, Inkscape, Open Office, Gaim, Limewire, Freemind, Nvu, WinDirStat, CD-EX, VLC, and others. I still dual-boot with Mandrake 10, primarily because I'm too scared to do anything which might damage my machine's LILO boot sector and render it unbootable, a production machine which I rely upon to earn a living as a generic jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none digital artisan. For all the Ubuntu CDs I've given to my friends, I've yet to do anything more than boot a Live CD session with them. I've gathered some information though, and I feel confident that I can nuke LILO and dual-boot Edgy as soon as I have time.

As for the rest, aside from some freeware and shareware most everything else is pirated. WinXP, Photoshop, Freehand, both full Adobe and Macromedia suites, Nero, Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools, SPSS, Norton, Corel Graphics, 3DSMax, Maya, games, lots and lots of games, you name it.

Free Software has come a long way since 1984. Quite a distance after the "letter to hobbyists" had almost all but sealed software beyond the reach of the have-nots. But it still has a journey ahead of it before people in 3rd world countries can be truly liberated. Most of it is in fighting inertia.

It feels like we're getting awful close, though.