Code

I have been using computers pretty much nonstop (probably never more than 2-3 weeks interruption at any time) for 22 years and counting. They've always been part of my life. I'm not fascinated by them or anything - although I was at one time - I just see them as really versatile tools.

After all that time you'd think I'd have a lot of stuff to contribute here. Unfortunately most of what I did is either worthless crap (because I was still learning, or it's antediluvian software such as my PC-1500 assembler for the TRS-80) or is proprietary (because it was written on the job - this is, after all, what I do for a living).

Still, there are a few things. Here they are.

Software

I am the maintainer for the Parallel::Pvm CPAN Perl Module. I am not the original author, the module was originally written by Edward Walker. But the module had fallen into disrepair as of late, to the point that it wouldn't compile. I updated it, and after many attempts trying to reach Edward to update the distrib, the CPAN curators simply handed me the module.
Not much development is needed on that module - just keeping it up to date with both Perl and PVM, and that's about it.
This is a module that is really useful when you work with a Beowulf cluster. Using it I have managed to parse 50,000 web server log entries per second on a relatively modest 6-cpu cluster. That's 180 million hits an hour!

Wsnitch is a little proxy server that informs on everything that happens between a browser and an HTTP server. Very useful when you are developing web applications with a lot of hidden message passing (cookies, redirects, etc). This was written mostly as an early experiment with GTK, but I published in on gnome.org and a few people seem to like it.

Database-backed micro-applications

I run a server with the standard Apache/Perl/MySQL combo at home. I have discovered that it is a wonderful environment to develop very useful (and very small) web applications, usually 1 or 2 tables with a Perl::DBI interface. We have computers at strategic locations, that are usually on when we're home, and so the information is always close by. Here are a couple of the more useful ones.

Things is a 1-table searchable database with a web interface to keep and organize short notes. Sort of the equivalent of Post-its or a scratch pad. It's so simple that I'm almost embarrassed to put it here, but this is one of the apps I find myself using the most. I put everything in there, such as hardware configurations for my machines, reminders about online account, the gift wish lists for my loved ones, time capsules about movies that I'd like to see when they come out on video, anything really.

Phone is a phone/email/address database. Enough said.