About Me

I am a college student who works on Ubuntu as a hobby. The community has been great to me, and as a result I want to give back in any way I can. My involvement with the community started with bug triaging, but has grown to include patching/packaging for the Mozilla Team and helping new users with the Beginners Team.

BugSquad

The BugSquad team has done a lot to get me involved with Ubuntu, and it is thanks to them that I have become so involved with the community. My triaging has slowed down as of late, but that is due to my growing involvement with other teams. I still enjoy helping others learn to triage and to keep the team active.

Mentoring

One of the main ways I contribute to the BugSquad is by mentoring. I look forward to helping a lot of Ubuntu users become acquainted with bug triage and the work-flow of the Ubuntu community.

Current students: drew212, trinikrono

Apport Hooks

I have also begun writing basic Apport hooks for packages. So far this has not involved much work, but it is something I enjoy doing. Hopefully more developers will begin requesting hooks so I can get more involved and help make bug triage easier for other BugSquad members.

Hooks I have written:

• Nautilus: Non-default Gconf

• Clutter: Hardware Info

Beginners Team

For most users, the transition to Ubuntu is met with confusion and sometimes frustration. This is expected when switching to an entirely new OS, but it does not have to be that way. I have begun helping the Beginners Team in hopes of helping new users adjust to the Ubuntu OS.

Wiki Focus Group

I have just recently begun working with the wiki group, but I have already learned a lot about the wiki pages thanks to this great team. In order to help with the annual Summer of Documentation, I will be working on improving the BugSquad wiki pages.

My work on the the Ubuntu wiki includes the following:

• Sofware Center HowTo

IRC Focus Group

Since I am on IRC a lot due to my work with other teams, the majority of my contributions to the Beginners Team is on the #ubuntu-beginners channel. It is on this channel that I offer what help I can to new users whenever I am available.

Mozilla Team

The Mozilla Team has gotten a lot of my attention as I work towards becoming a member. At the moment, I am helping to keep the daily PPA maintained and working. I am also working to get Songbird updated so that PPA can start-up again.

Examples of my Mozilla Team work:

• Firefox 3.7 => 4.0

• Xulrunner 1.9.3 => 2.0

• Songbird 2.0.0

LoCos

Chicago LoCo

During the school year, I live in Chicago and try to participate in group events. During the last global jam, I met up with Micah and we worked on Mozilla bugs. When I return in the fall, I hope to work with the team to help it be more active and meet in person more often.

Michigan LoCo

For the summer, I am back home in Michigan, so I just recently started to familiarize myself with the Michigan LoCo. While I have not done anything with the team yet, I do plan to start attending the weekly GRLUG meetings. While the GRLUG members do not exclusively use Ubuntu, it will give me a chance to meet others close to where I grew up and to talk about Linux.

Plans for the future

I hope to continue improving my skills in patching/packaging for the Mozilla Team so I can begin to help them on a much larger scale. Someday I also hope to assume a leadership role in the Beginners Team, similar to my mentorship role with the BugSquad. If time will allow, there are also many apport hooks for me to write.

If possible, I am also planning on working with another member on improving Apport. Several releases ago, there were plans to try and have Apport auto-clean private info in crash reports so the reports could more easily be made public. The project lost steam, but Mitch and myself hope to start things back up again.

IRC

Below are the channels that are best for contacting me. If you want to discuss something that is personal, then private messages are always welcome.

freenode Channels:

• #ubuntu-chicago
• #ubuntu-bugs
• #ubuntu-beginners-team
• #ubuntu-mozillateam

Mozilla Channels:

• #firefox
• #developers
• #songbird

Testimonials

Ubuntu Beginners Team Membership

As the Ubuntu Beginners Wiki FG Lead I've had the opportunity to work closely with Draycen...he's a very hard worker who is always willing to help in any capacity in the Ubuntu Beginners Channels, on the forums, and he also does very well with Wiki Editing. He has my full support for his application with the Ubuntu Beginners Team. zkriesse

Dray is hard working and a quick study. He is diligent and has been a great help with Mozilla Bugs and getting Songbird back into working shape. I believe he will be an asset to any team he applies himself to. -- micahg 2010-06-08 22:59:21

Ubuntu Membership

Although I have not had the opportunity to meet up with ddecator in person at an Ubuntu Chicago LoCo event, he has been a very active member in the LoCo mailing list and IRC channel. He is always helping to come up with new ideas. Even now, while he is back home in Michigan, he is still active in our IRC channel and attends or monthly IRC meetings. He is an active member of our LoCo, and I support his application for Ubuntu Membership. -- nhandler 2010-07-09 02:29:24

I've had a chance to watch ddecator from the times that he started working on bugs till now. He's very enthusiastic and always willing to help. Almost immediately after getting into Bug Control he offered to mentors others. When I wanted a few volunteers to help with apport hooks, ddecator was among the first few to join up and learn about them. I have also heard good things about his contributions to mozillateam packages. I support his membership application fully -- nigelbabu 2010-07-09 07:49:54