Self-Introduction: Mike Naughton

[Michael Naughton]

Hi all:

My name is Mike Naughton.  I'm a criminal defense attorney (associate at 
James C. Thomas, P.C.) from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.  I first tried 
Linux when I installed Fedora Core 3.  I am running Fedora 10 x64 and it 
feels very sharp and responsive.

As far as how I can contribute, in my role as a criminal defense 
attorney I have a lot of experience with advocacy, community outreach 
and working with media.  In fact, I have been involved in cases in the 
Detroit area that garnered national and local media attention.  My 
participation required working with attorneys around the country and 
media outlets.  If you google my name you will see Michigan Supreme 
Court and Michigan Court of Appeals briefs I wrote over the summer and 
for what case.

I think Fedora and Red Hat have really done a terrific job of creating a 
more vibrant community and putting together some really nice resources 
online (fedoraproject.org, fedoraforum.org, fedorafaq.org, etc.).   I 
would like to be more involved in this community.  I believe that, for 
better or worse, the economy and Vista have really created an 
opportunity for people to discover Fedora and be very pleasantly surprised.

I would really like to get more involved in marketing Fedora, especially 
to professionals like myself who are solo-practitioners or small 
business owners.  Fedora really provides all the tools necessary for a 
person to build a business right out of the box.  In fact, I have been 
using Linux in my practice.  I use Openoffice.org to prepare 
correspondence, motions, orders and other forms of legal writing.  I use 
Thunderbird with the Lightning plugin to keep track of my calendar.  I 
listen to music with Rhythmbox, mount NTFS drives, play games (World of 
Goo is really incredible and a great example of the traction Linux is 
starting to gain) and run the occasional Windows app in Crossover Office. 

Admittedly, I would like to see more billable programs for Linux.  I 
have tried Gnu Cash but I find it a bit cumbersome for simple time 
tracking and invoicing.  Additionally (like a lot of other people), I'd 
like to able to use Adobe programs in Linux.  Obviously this is not a 
Fedora gripe but an Adobe one.  I am confident that as Linux desktop 
adoption grows, Adobe will reach out to this market and provide 
products.  It already has with Flash and Acrobat.  I am also a part-time 
web developer and use Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator.  It 
would be nice to not have to boot into OS X use these tools.

Thanks for reading.  I am really excited about joining the marketing 
team and making some contributions to the community.
--Mike