Chris Brunner .com » Announcement

Code Bounties: An Explanation

Chris Brunner — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:05:42 +0000

For many years, I’ve told myself that if I ever had the money, I’d start creating bounties for the purpose of improving the software available to the Open Source community.

That day has come, and for this just purpose, I’ve created a new “Bounties” section of my blog.

My posted bounties will always be reachable at: http://bounties.chrisbrunner.com/

Here’s how it works:

1. I have an idea for a piece of software, or if I find an annoying bug that I know affects others.

2. Rather than waiting around, and doing nothing to improve the situation, I will create a bounty. Bounties will be posted in this new category, and I will probably also tweet them.

For example, I may post something like, “$200 to the first person who can fix this bug,” along with a link to the bug report.

3. If you see a bounty that you would like to take on, post a comment to let myself and others know that you’ve started working on it.

4. Once the piece of code, application, or bug fix is complete, I will immediately send you the money and announce in my post that the bounty has been awarded to you.

Watch bounties.chrisbrunner.com closely or subscribe to my Bounty RSS feed for the first bounty! Good luck!

I finally joined Twitter. You should add me.

Chris Brunner — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:44:18 +0000

Okay, so I actually joined Twitter ages ago to check it out. I just couldn’t understand why someone would want to use a site that was basically Facebook minus everything except for the status updates. It seemed pretty stupid, so I just left it alone.

But after about six months, I got an email. Someone was following me on Twitter, which puzzled me because I hadn’t ever posted a single tweet. I deleted the email and went on with life.

But a week later, I got another email. Delete. Move on.

Gradually, the frequency increased until I had accrued forty followers without posting a single Tweet!

Today I finally decided to give in and see what it was all about, and I must admit, it’s kind of fun.

Sure, it’s true that the functionality basically boils down to Facebook status updates without the rest of Facebook, but people use it a little differently.

I do like having the option of being able to post tiny updates from anywhere, using my cell phone, without having to commit to writing an entire blog post. Sure, I have an Android application on my G1 that let’s me blog remotely, but it’s still a pain in the ass to type several paragraphs on a mobile device, even with a nice QWERTY keyboard. I like that I can integrate my twitter updates with my existing blog. I also like that my “tweets” can show up as status updates on Facebook and as instant messaging status, even when I’m away from my computer.

It turns out that in practice, micro-blogging is a pretty fun. So, give in and join me!

R.I.P. Shawn Lonsdale

Chris Brunner — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:10:36 +0000

Shawn, an American hero and verbal critic of the Cult of Scientology, was found dead on February 16th, 2008.

Rest in peace, Shawn Lonsdale.

Homegrown Libertarianism Prevention Act of 2007

Chris Brunner — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:55:07 +0000

Thanks to, well, just about every member of the House of Representatives, a bill that eviscerates free speech and empowers the government to deem anything an “extremist belief system” is up for vote in the senate. Once an “extremist belief system” is declared, the associated “terrorists” shall be stripped of US citizenship, tortured, and/or executed with no habeas corpus rights and no ability to challenge, even in the supreme court.

The good news is that government tends to be very responsible and will probably limit the use of this power to extremists who want to harm the citizens of America. It’s not like citizens with traditional conservative values could ever possibly be fingered as terrorists. If you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm of that last statement, click here.

For the love of God, please pick up your phone RIGHT NOW and call your senators. This lunacy must be stopped, and public outcry is the only way to kill this bill.

Ron Paul Fans Plan National “Paint the Town Ron” Event

Chris Brunner — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 00:47:29 +0000

On the weekend of September 29th, Ron Paul Meetup groups around the country will be banning together to "Paint the Town Ron", in which hundreds of Ron Paul signs will be placed around the cities of participating Meetup groups. "The point is on the morning of Oct 1st people on their way to work will learn the name of Ron Paul", explains Chris Holley who organizes the participating Memphis Meetup.

From the event posted on RonPaulNation.com:

Get your local meetup to join!! Let’s make this a national event!!
Let’s make this event SO BIG THE ENTIRE COUNTRY will be talking about it!
We want this event to be so big the local and national media will have to cover this story.
Each one of you is in a town, and you can help make this happen in
your area!

Mr. Holley offers his contact information for those who wish to get involved: chrisholley1975 @ gmail. com
If you are an organizer or assistant organizer of a meetup that wishes to participate, please

click here and join

Jacksonville

Phoenix

Alabama

Louisiana

Memphis

b2evolution users, rid yourself of comment spam in one shot!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I declare victory over comment spam!! I’ve decided to resurrect my blog, and, of course, the first thing I wanted to do is remove all of the comment spam I’ve collected over the months the blog has been inactive. So, after studying almost two hundred comment spam records, I was able to wipe out over 3,000 bogus comments all at once, without deleting a single welcomed comment.

If any evo users want to try their luck with my query, here it is. To use it, simply copy and past the SQL code into phpMyAdmin or any other SQL front end. You could also execute it from the command prompt, if you have shell access to your hosting server. I’m not saying this will get rid of more than half of anyone else’s spam, but I’d be willing it would wipe out a ton of it… enjoy.

Anyhow, I plan on posting to my blog more often now and I hope to regain some of my old regulars.

Halloween Kegger on Friday, October 28

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: The original date for this party was the 29th. Due to several schedule conflicts, the party will now be held on Friday, October 28.

The biggest Halloween party Auburn has ever seen is going down on Friday, October the 28th! You don’t want to miss this! Seriously, you should come.

Come in costume or not, it doesn�t really matter. Kegs will be available at no charge!

The indoor heated pool and hot tub will be running in case some nut case shows up in a bathing suit.

Directions are available at the following sites:

Click here for a map and directions from Google

Click here for directions from MapQuest

If you know Auburn, we’re the first house on Ivy Lane, which is between the Kroger and Bruno’s off of Glenn. If you need better directions, my mobile number is (205) 401-4081.

Blackout in California

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: Large Portion of Los Angeles Loses Power (AP)

Woah… a friend in Los Angeles, California just called and told me that they’re experiencing a blackout. This reaches as far as one of his friends over 400 miles away. All TV stations are offline. This isn’t on the news yet. I hope this has nothing to do with the recent al Qaeda threat.

Recover Saved Passwords In Firefox

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So, I needed my Delta Skymiles PIN so I could find out whether or not Hurricane Dennis caused me any flight delays… One problem… I haven’t typed my PIN in almost a year because it’s been saved in my Firefox browser, and my laptop wasn’t around for me to use. So, out of frustration, I created a firefox extension that displays the stored passwords in the “View Saved Passwords” dialog in preferences, instead of (deceptively, IMHO) displaying only the user and host and providing a button to remove. Quite frankly from a security/privacy perspective I have no problems with this approach, it’s only the naming of the button that pisses me off, since I’m sitting there trying to get at a password only to be repeatedly confronted with a button that says “View Saved Passwords” which in fact, does everything BUT.

Click here to download Password Viewer.

Once installed, the View Saved Passwords button should now work as advertised. If you’d prefer to keep your privacy, just remove it again.

Orlando Vacation

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I finally took some time off work last weekend and flew down to Orlando. It was great seeing Batten again… Overall, I had a blast. However, I ended up leaving my cell phone somewhere. I have no idea where… I called several places and it’s nowhere to be found. Major bummer since I paid I-don’t-even-want-to-think-about-how-much for it. Oh well. I couldn’t get used to the swivel form-factor anyway. I think I’m going to go back to the candy bar style phone that I’m used to. The phone I’m looking at right now is the K750i. It’s a little smaller and the features are almost identical except that it’s lacking EDGE but has a 2.0 Megapixel camera (as opposed to 1.3MP) and includes an FM radio. Since EDGE isn’t available in my area(s) yet, I really don’t need it, and a higher quality camera will be very nice to have. Oh yeah, the K750i supports up to 4GB of flash memory as opposed to the 256MB that the S710a supported, which means I’ll be able to carry around several MP3 albums at once.

If anyone reading this has experience with the K750i, I’d leave to hear some comments.

You’re coming to the New Years party!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Joseph, Donald, and I are having the biggest party Auburn has ever seen for New Years, and YOU are coming. Yep… whatever plans you had are officially canceled. This will be much more fun anyway.

Click here for directions from anywhere… Ignore the estimated time — it’s usually only takes a fraction of the time it says. Kegs, indoor hot tub, and heated pool will be provided… bring a sleeping bag if you’re gonna crash here.

That’s all you need to know… Oh, my cell is (205) 401-4081 in case you get lost. Seeya Friday.

Moving to Auburn Tomorrow!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I’m way too tired to say much about this right now, but tomorrow I’m moving to Auburn for a semester of work, for those who didn’t already know. I’ll be living with Donald and Joseph, and I’ll have the house with a hot tub, heated pool, and big screen HDTV to myself for two weeks while they’re in Birmingham for the holidays. =] You should come check it out.

Lycos pulls anti-spam campaign, better idea

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Damn. Looks like Lycos gave into outside pressure and pulled the spam-fighting campaign that I blogged about earlier. It’s a shame. This was probably the best way so far to end spam, and it was working before they pulled it.

No worries. I have a better idea anyway. Someone (me, if I get time) should write an Open Source cross-platform stand-alone app that starts with the same functionality but adds some new tricks:

The program should be capable of running all the time with idle-priority instead of just running as a screensaver. The user should be given the option of letting the app run all the time instead of just when the screensaver is active.
The program should have the ability to minimize to the system tray.
The program should allow the user to select the level of aggressiveness. Some users, like myself, would be willing to dedicate a great amount of resources. This might allow the program to be effective with as few as a couple dozen users.
The program should be completely decentralized. Since almost everyone receives spam, an email client plugin could be created to keep track of URLs, and if you wanted to take it even farther (maybe to far) you could use a peer to peer network to vote on URLs. Decentralizing would alleviate some of the liability issues and could be more effective at catching all spam instead of just some.

Since the program would be open source, it would be almost impossible to stop. There’d be no one group or campaign to put a stop to. Once people have copies of the source code, anyone could pick up the torch and run with it. Also, since it would be open source, anyone could contribute features.

Anyway, just an idea. If anyone is interested in coding such an app, I would be very willing to provide free high-speed hosting for it.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Bush won, thank god. I stayed up til 9am this morning waiting for the Kerry concession that didn’t come until much later. So, I’m tired of hearing and talking about this now. I just wanted to note this historic event. Later.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, Katie’s back in town!
So yeah, I haven’t seen her in about two years and I wasn’t really sure how things were going to be, but I’m glad she’s back. We rented some movie and watched it at her house and it was like old times, maybe better. I realized how much I’ve missed her. Anyway, it was good to be with her again and I’m glad she’s back. We have alot of catching up to do.
Hmm… strange how things change. We’ve both grown up alot. Things are better now, for both of us I think.
Anyway, life is good.