Gagné, Marcel

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GAGNÉ, Marcel

(Marcel G. Gagné)

PERSONAL: Married, wife's name Sally.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Addison-Wesley, 75 Arlington St., Ste. 300, Boston, MA 02116.

CAREER: Writer and consultant. Salmar Consulting, Inc. (computer consulting firm), co-owner; coeditor and copublisher of magazine Transversions. Former pilot, disc jockey, and cab driver.

AWARDS, HONORS: Reader's Choice Award, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, for "Cooking with Linux" column in Linux Journal.

WRITINGS:

Linux System Administration: A User's Guide, Addison-Wesley (Boston, MA), 2002.

Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, Addison-Wesley (Boston, MA), 2004.

Moving to the Linux Business Desktop, edited by Mark Taub, Kayla Dugger, and Gina Kanouse, Addison Wesley Professional (Indianapolis, IN), 2004.

Also author of Romancing The Sail (television documentary), 1984. Contributor of articles and short stories to On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Fiction, and to anthology Tales from the Wonder Zone: Explorer, edited by Julie Czerneda, Trifolium Books, 2002. Author of "Cooking with Linux" column for Linux Journal.

SIDELIGHTS: A writer and computer consultant, Marcel Gagné has written several books about the Linux computer operating system, which works on a number of platforms and is gaining popularity because of its low cost and high security features. In Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, Gagné begins by explaining the Linux operating system and how it works. Discussing both its advantages and disadvantages, the author gives tips on how to best use the system and includes side bars containing other recommendations and warnings. The book also includes pictures of the various screens that appear on the operation system and a CD that contains other software programs for Linux, including e-mail applications, word processing programs, web browsers, and even games. A Worldwide Computer Products News contributor wrote that "the overall layout of the book is excellent," noting that clear subheads and other stylistic aspects of the book allow readers to browse instead of having to read the book from beginning to end. The reviewer went on to comment that the book "provided a valuable insight into the operating system."

Gagné is also the author of Moving to the Linux Business Desktop. According to Rachel Singer Gordon in a review in the Library Journal, the book primarily "targets Microsoft administrators wanting to switch their business networks to a Linux environment."