7 10/10/2009 http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ 10/10/2009 393 Those who have watched my commanding stage presence may wonder if I was just lucky enough to be born this way. I wasn't. When I started teaching Perl classes in 1993, I was petrified with stage fright. Then a friend of mine dragged me off to a Karaoke Club one night, without warning. And that's where it all began. You will experience how I've used karaoke to win friends, influence people, and even create entire industries. And yes, I do win karaoke contests, regularly. I might even sing a bit. Randal L. Schwartz is a renowned expert on the Perl and Smalltalk programming languages, having contributed to a dozen top-selling books on the subject, and over 250 magazine articles. Schwartz runs a Perl and Smalltalk training and consulting company (Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc of Portland, Oregon), and is a highly sought-after speaker for his masterful stage combination of technical skill, comedic timing, and crowd rapport. Schwartz is also infamous amongst the System Administration community for his arguable 1995 criminal conviction while performing activities for the Intel Corporation, and publicly advocates for appropriate computer crime laws. His presentation about the landmark case (titled "Just Another Convicted Perl Hacker") has inspired action for computer professionals and lobbyists at computer conferences all over the world. And he's a pretty good Karaoke singer, winning contests regularly. Books authored/coauthored: Programming Perl (multiple editions) Learning Perl (multiple editions) Learning Perl on Win32 Systems Learning Perl Objects References and Modules (multiple editions) Effective Perl Programming: Writing Better Programs with Perl Object Oriented Perl Randal Schwartz's Perls of Wisdom Magazine articles and columns: UnixReview Magazine PerformanceComputing Magazine SysAdmin Magazine and Website WebTechniques Magazine and Website Linux Magazine and Website The Perl Journal E-Magazine Apple Developer Works Website Regular contributor to online forums: perlmonks.org (The Perl Monastery) use.perl.org newsgroups comp.lang.perl.misc et. seq. newsgroup comp.lang.perl.announce (moderator since inception) perl.org mailing lists Perl mailing lists on Yahoo! Groups podcast.geekcruises.com podcast twit.tv/floss podcast Mr Randal Schwartz 244 Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. 10/10/2009