I'm a Comp Sci graduate student from Christchurch. I converted my parents' computer to linux and then I moved to Hamilton to continue my studies. They have a bit of difficulty with linux, but they had just as much difficulty with windows, and this way their confidential files don't get emailed around the world (they are therapists, so this is A Good Thing(tm)). Actually, they seem to be getting on OK - word processing and emailing and browsing aren't too difficult once it's all set up.

My research while I'm here is on Optical Music Recognition -- how to convert a scanned image of music into machine-readable music formats, a bit like Optical Character Recognition.

I prefer gnome, although I think both gnome and kde try to mimic other operating systems too much. I dislike vi and emacs about equally, although I'll never forgive vi for not telling a newbie how to quit if it's invoked accidently (eg press "v" while in "less").

I think I've rambled on for long enough now, I'll stop.