About Me

I am a college student who works on Ubuntu as a hobby. While the community has been great to me and I still hope to continue contributing back, school has unfortunately taken up a lot of my time. While I work on finishing my undergrad education so I can continue on to grad school for my PhD, I will be postponing my official participation with Ubuntu teams. If anyone wants to contact me, you're still more than welcome to send me an email or see if I'm on IRC.

Below is a list of what teams I have worked with in the past and hope to work with again in the future.

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: Mentoring is postponed

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

• New style for BugSquad pages (undergoing approval from team)

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 4.0*

• Xulrunner 2.0*

• Songbird 1.9.0

• *See the revisions for what work of mine has been merged

LoCo

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.

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-beginners-team

Ubuntu Classroom

During the last Ubuntu User Day (July 10th, 2010), I led a session on "Using Launchpad." This work was part of my commitment to help new users who are transitioning to Ubuntu and want to become involved with the community.

• Using Launchpad

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

Draycen has been working on the BugSquad and BugControl team for a while now, he's really enthusiastic and always there to help new comers, he's also working on the BugSquad mentoring program and triaging a lot of bug reports specially on the Firefox side. I do support his membership application. -- pvillavi 2010-07-09

+1 with Pedro above; additionally, Dray and Mitch are really helping with the apport hooks (including a stacktrace cleaner, which they are writing now). Full support for his membership application. -- hggdh 2010-07-10

Since ddecator first started out, I've been waiting and waiting for this day. The day that I could give him a testimonial for Ubuntu Membership. I did not know whence that day would come but I knew that it'd come soon because dray has earned it. He's earned it beyond earning it...his work with the Firefox stuff has just been amazing and his Wiki skills?! OH MY GOSH!!! I could not have hoped for a better Wiki guy...he's an awesome guy, a great friend, and a superb contributor to the Ubuntu Community. I support his application for Ubuntu Membership 200%...GO DRAY!!!! zkriesse 2010-07-11

I first met Draycen through the Bug Squad. Since then I have had the pleasure of working on numerous projects with him. I now work with Dray on an almost daily basis in various teams & I have found him to always be willing to go the extra mile to help out with whatever he can. I unequivocally support his membership application. Mitch 2010-07-12

I've been working with Dray for several months now, first triaging Firefox bugs and now he is helping to maintain the Firefox daily builds. He is always trying to learn new things and I think he'd make a great candidate for Ubuntu membership. I see him contributing to the project for a long time. -- micahg 2010-07-14 03:52:11