Ruud
van der Linden.

Game servers · Websites

It started with
getting people connected.

Around 1999, I was running Unreal Tournament and Counter-Strike servers. I assembled my first rack server myself, from the chassis to the components inside. Over time, that grew to include TeamSpeak and Ventrilo voice servers, alongside building and hosting websites.

I liked making things people could actually use, connect through, and take part in.

Co-production & programming · Interactive film

What if the audience
could change the story?

I co-produced and programd the first Dutch interactive film, combining a branching story with small games and elements that changed for different viewers.

The viewer could take part and shape what happened next. I found that power of participation so compelling that it became the connecting thread through everything I built.

Libraries · Art installations

Step into the exhibit.
Make it your own.

My work took me into libraries and art installations. For an exhibition about a Dutch cartoonist, writer, and translator, I built several interactive experiences, including one where visitors could dub their own cartoon.

These projects gave visitors a way to contribute something of their own and become part of the experience.

Product & development · EduStream / Unilogic

Built mostly solo.
Hundreds of schools.

For Unilogic, I built EduStream, an IPTV and video platform, almost entirely myself. Hundreds of schools used it to watch and record television.

We put DVB-T receivers in a rack, mounted an antenna, and distributed the signal by multicast across school networks and a dark-fiber network. iPads received HLS streams; for compatible laptops, we configured the Wi-Fi access points to carry multicast video.

I also built recording around an imported electronic program guide: click a title to schedule it, and the recording would follow changes to the broadcast schedule. Internal program IDs and matching logic using titles and start and end times helped keep track of the right program, even when similar programs ran back to back.

Searchable video · Onze Mijnwerkers

A way into
100+ hours of history.

I worked on Onze Mijnwerkers (Our Miners), an oral-history archive about the Dutch State Mines: more than 100 hours of interviews, organized into over 1,000 searchable segments.

Giving video structure meant people could find the moment that mattered to them. This was years before today's AI tools made that kind of work much easier.