So, who the heck are you?

I’m the News Editor for LinuxJournal.com. I write news articles — gasp! — on Linux and Open Source, as well as the occasional bit of oddity tossed in. My favorite part involves being witty and catty about the stories; some days I’m in full twirl spouting off about some injustice, and others I’m quoting Bob Dylan and Richard II in the same post.

I’m a full-time freelancer, mostly as a writer/blogger/editor. Beyond glamorous gigs like Linux Journal, I do more mundane work like writing online copy, business materials, and ghostwriting articles/posts for online and offline use. I dabble in a bit of web design, some for old clients and occasionally something for someone new.

What else have you done?

I used to blog on Wisebread, a personal finance blog. It was really fun, but made me absolutely no money whatsoever. I wrote some interesting stuff while I was there, and even picked up some love from Lifehacker and The Consumerist. The best thing to come out of writing from Wisebread, though, was Linux Journal. The wonderfully amazing Carlie Fairchild, publisher extraordinaire, saw me ranting about the tyranny of Microsoft and inciting Linux-based rebellion, and decided it would be a good idea to put me in charge of a newsdesk. I did a stint as Managing Editor of an online women’s magazine/community, doing all the stuff you’d imagine a Managing Editor does. I also wrote celebrity gossip, and I think I was somewhat good at it — then again, finding something snarky to say about Britney Spears is not exactly summiting Everest.

Before I wandered into writing full-time, I had a tech consulting firm that worked with small businesses. I love working with technology — though I’m not anything close to a real coder — and I get a kick out of the reaction the completely un-technical have when two clicks and a refresh fix their “broken computer.”

Why the penguin?

Anyone who spends much time around me knows that I love Open Source in a way that’s illegal in forty-two states, the District of Colombia, and the Virgin Islands (but not Guam). There are several Free/Open Source causes I support with cheerleader-like fanaticism — if you’re picturing me in a short skirt with pom-poms, stop it, you could end up blind — including the Creative Commons, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Above all, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool, give-me-penguin-or-give-me-death Linux geek — sorry, socially-inept enthusiast. The penguin’s name is Tux, and he’s the Linux mascot. Anyone foolhardy enough to actually ask me about Linux will receive an unrelenting flow of detailed pontifications on the wonders of Linux. Most end up faking their own death in order to escape.

Why would you want an “underblog”?

Because others having way too much fun on their blogs, and Twitter stops at 140 characters.

I have two separate agendas online: getting and keeping clients, and saying what I have to say. With a single site, I was missing out, because I could only focus on one or the other. justin-ryan.com is a business site. I want it to say “Oh, doesn’t this look like a competent, talented writer works here.” It needs to be the best examples of my work, so they hire me to drone on at their readers and make cheap jokes at uber-corporations who have sold their souls to Satan. u.nderblog.com is a personal blog, where things don’t have to be pretty and perfect. It’s not that I’m going to say anything here I wouldn’t want clients to see — I wouldn’t be putting it on the internet if I was — it’s that I want to make the distinction that this is what I write in my personal time, for me.

Is writing and tech all you care about?

Not at all. I’m interested in a lot of other things: music, photography, art, fashion & style, literature, food & wine… Becoming a better photographer — and getting better equipment — is perpetually at the top of my to-do list, though I never seem to make it happen. I have a few shots in my Slickr gallery, primarily because they’re all I’ve had time to edit and upload. The two of the sunrise I really like, not because they’re particularly good shots, but because they were taken from on a hill looking over a giant, sprawling Walmart store — beauty in the oddest places.

I love to cook, especially new or improvised dishes. I enjoy good wine, though my real love is premium spirits — as I’ll tell anyone who will listen, “Life is too short to drink wallpaper stripper.” I appreciate all kinds of music, and when I get the chance, I like to take in an art exhibition. Part of being a writer is reading constantly, and I throw myself into it with books, magazines, and more web content than I ever dreamed existed. I’m also a bit of a fashion fan, though not of the “look, on the runway — oh, I must have it!” variety. Think Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, and the The Duke of Windsor. It puts me a bit outside of the stereotype of the t-shirt and jeans-clad tech geek.

Alright, what’s next?

If you’ve read this far and are still interested in whatever I’m babbling on about, you’ll find plenty of it. This site is littered with random thoughts I’ve left laying about, and I can be found spouting even more on both Twitter and Plurk as JustinRyan. My latest babbling is in the sidebar on each page — I make no promises to make any sense whatever. Bonus points for figuring out the references in my moments of random thought.

If you can’t stand the thought of missing a single exposition eruption, you can follow me via RSS. Linux Journal has an IRC channel — #linuxjournal — on the freenode network, and I’m usually lurking around there and a few other channels as JustinRyan. I can also be hunted down as staninjury on gTalk, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger. Otherwise, the contact form would be a good place to start.