Mambo News

Meet Arpee

In this section, we present interviews of various members of Team Mambo. This month we're talking to Richard Ong, better known to most as "arpee." Arpee is a member of the MSC and is the man driving the new Mambo documentation efforts.

A Brief Introduction

Name: Richard Peter Ong

Handle on Forums: arpee

Age: 21

Location: Aklan, Philippines

Profession: CG and Multimedia Artist / Programmer

The Interview

In what ways do you make a contribution to Mambo?

• I'm the current Documentation Team Leader. Aside from constantly writing task-specific manuals for Mambo, I’m also consolidating existing Mambo documentation, filtering those that can be included in the official Mambo docs. As one of the Mambo Steering Committee, I also take part with project planning to push Mambo onwards.

When did you first hear of Mambo?

• December 2005, when the newly hired Lead programmer and Web Administrator (James Puro) of our University showed me the new official website.

How and when did you get involved in the Mambo Project?

• Sometime February 2006, I joined the Mambo forums upon an invitation. Ever since I got hooked and joined MF as an active member of the Maintenance Team on March 2006. I planned to leave Mambo on the last week of April 2006 due to the time management conflicts I encountered. But instead I decided to transfer to the Documentation Team and ended filling up the Doc Team Leader position. I didn’t find the nerve to leave Mambo at such situation (long story).

Are you being paid to work on Mambo?

• Not at all.

How much time do you usually spend on Mambo?

• Believe it or not. About 6 to 10 hours a day. I have an 8 hour office work daily, but I still manage to work for Mambo after those long clerical/graphic designing/programming hours.

Do you have any specific goals for Mambo?

• I want mambo to be the most stable, documented, 3pd supported, standards compliant, accessible, widely-used CMS to be ever around 2nd to none.

What keeps you motivated to work on Mambo?

• The Open Source thought of it all keeps me motivated, knowing how people from around the globe work on something so brilliant. I feel honored being a part of it and getting to share workspace with fantastic people

What is Mambo's killer app? Why? -

• Mambo’s scalability is killer by itself -- the ability of Mambo to be defined using freely available and commercial add-ons which enables the admins to customize a Mambo site according to the clientele needs. It just goes down to the basic principles of web site making, as it is service oriented by its modularity, ready to expand functionality through these add-ons.

What is your favorite add-on? -

• Although I don’t use WYSIWYG editors, my favorite add-on has got to be the MOStlyCE Editor. It enables even those who have no knowledge with HTML set up a nicely layed-out content. Chad poured a great amount of time and effort in making it to be what I think the best WYSIWYG editor.

In addition to Mambo, what other Open Source applications do you use regularly?

• I use LiVes for cleaning/editing videos, Audacity for audio editing, Inkscape for poster making, Blender for 3d modeling/animation and CAD-ing, NvU for web design, and of course Apache, PHP and MySQL.

What Operating system do you use & why?

• Windows 2003 Server until recently switched to Fedora Core 5. For one - It has the latest versions of Apache, PHP and MySQL which I use to play around with Mambo, 2nd is its nice printing support I never experienced from other Linux distros., and lastly, the 31337 feel I get using server OSs’ that is Linux. :)

What do you think is still badly missing in Mambo?

• Straight answer – Documentation, both API and basic. . . We are heavily working on this and personally burning midnight oil to push things through.

Are there particular opportunities for Mambo in your country?

• I say a lot. Most of the Philippine Government sites run this wonder, even our National Information and Communications Commission web site runs Mambo.

Personal Questions

Married, partner or still looking?

• I’m a family man married to my 20 yr old wife Rea with 2 yr. old daughter Lana.

If you have a partner or children, how do they cope with your Mambo mania?

• Not really good at 1st. I had arguments with my wife about how I juggle my time with Mambo, office work and my health. But now she’s beginning to understand the passion and getting used with the late hour to early morning encounters with the CMS.

What are you passionate about?

• Computer-related tasks. I seem to get obsessed with all of it.

If someone visits your country, which spot is a must-see?

• Boracay, Bakhaw Eco-Park, Aklan State University, Sampaguita Gardens. All in my hometown Province of Aklan. Google it and you’ll see.

Which book is on your bedside table?

• Right now: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and A+ Core Hardware Reviewer from Sybex.

What’s the worst job you ever had?

• I have the worst job now. Although I enjoy what I do being tasked to do database programming and CG stuff for the office, I go underpaid because I lack educational qualifications (sniff sniff). So I have to freelance at times and work twice as hard to keep up with the dues.

What’s your dream job?

• To be able to work full 16 hours a day for a Mambo-related job and get reasonably paid for doing something I really love.

What is your most embarrassing Mambo Moment?

• Probably my first ten or so posts on the Mambo Forums...

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