Advogato: Personal info for mjbrown

mjbrown is currently certified at Journeyer level.

Name: Mike Brown
Member since: 2001-01-03 21:46:24
Last Login: 2017-06-15 03:26:24

Notes:

Until mid-2007, I was a professional software developer and web technology expert based in metro Denver, Colorado. I still dabble in code, but only as a hobby now.

My contributions to the world of open-source software are fairly modest:

2017: I wrote Discogs-dump-parser, a Python script which efficiently reads a Discogs release data XML dump using cElementTree API. I also posted an explanation of the technique, as it is rather underdocumented.

2017: I wrote FSTool, a Windows PowerShell script which finds shortcut files linking to folders, and converts them to folder shortcuts (folder shell links).

2013–present: On my own wiki, I've been publishing, among other things, notes and how-tos related to FreeBSD system administration (particularly for running FreeBSD on the BeagleBone Black) and the use of open-source tools like FFmpeg, MP4Box.

2013: I wrote TOCtoCUE, a little JavaScript function to produce a rudimentary cue sheet fragment from a CD table-of-contents string obtained from the MusicBrainz website. It's mainly for when you have an "image rip" (all audio tracks in one file) for a specific CD pressing that's on MusicBrainz, but you don't have a cue sheet to tell you where the track boundaries are, and you don't have the original CD from which to generate a proper cue sheet.

2013: I enhanced mailbrute, a small C app that launches a "RCPT TO:"-based dictionary attack on an SMTP server in an attempt to enumerate usernames. The original 1999 version from the b0f (buffer0verflow) security research group was erroneously printing the whole receive buffer, rather than just the newly received text.

2010: I wrote FixRIFF, a Python script to fix a very specific, obscure type of RIFF header problem affecting some WAV files found in the wild.

2007: Following up on my contributions to STD 66/RFC 3986 (the URI spec), I wrote a JavaScript-based library of URI processing functions and a rigorous, generic, in-browser test suite for JavaScript-based URI relative reference resolvers.

2001–2006: I fixed bugs, added and improved features, wrote documentation, supported users, and did behind-the-scenes co-sysadmin work in support of 4Suite, a Python-based toolkit for XML and RDF application development.

1997–2000: I produced an alternate icon set and occasional bug reports for the core Apache HTTP server, and I was co-sysadmin of apache.org.

1999–2001: I provided occasional technical consultation for the XML portions of the Jabber instant messaging platform

1996: I contributed character sets and related fixes to the Lynx console-based web browser

Also, in the early 2000s, I wrote and compiled a collection of XML and XSLT related resources of interest to developers, especially those who need to be brought up to speed on Unicode and character encoding issues.

After the early success of that venture, in late 2002, I resolved to share as much of my expertise as possible through Wikipedia and any other public outlets.

See, I strongly feel that whatever you learn, you should teach. It's something you have to make time for, and you have to look at the people you're helping as potential colleagues, rather than competitors. Too many people jealously guard their tech knowledge, fearful of their job security. They've stood on the shoulders of giants, but they aren't going to let anyone stand on their shoulders...and what does that make them?