My name is Adam, and I am a hacker. No, not a "hactivist", not a cracker, not a script kiddie - I am a hacker in the traditional sense as written by Stephen Levy in his book called "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution". Here is a better definition which describes what I do: Words to Avoid (or Use with Care)

I love to play with software code and make it better, or make code do things that the original designer did not make available or did not intend. I don't do this maliciously, but sometimes I need to get something else done and that feature is not avaiIable or has not been considered by the software author. Here is an example: running Linux on an xbox 360. Making custom ROMs for a smartphone is another example.

I am not a cracker - I don't break into networks or systems or break user passwords. I'm a benevolent person who helps others and hates script kiddies and other malicious types who break into networks and servers for fun and/or profit.

My favorite programming language is Python. I current program in Python version 2.7.x because so many things are written in version 2, virtualenv uses version 2, and Django uses version 2.

This site/blog is running on Django with a project called Mezzanine. I had a site up that I made from scratch from tutorials, but that took a lot of work and time and tears; recently I've decided that I want more features, but don't have the time and energy to make a site from scratch with all of what I want. There's a concept in software engineering called DRY which means "Don't repeat yourself". In my view and for this site, this concept applies to not reinventing the wheel as much as it applies to using "pythonic" standards when making python code. Object Oriented Programming is a DRY concept that goes a long way toward helping a programmer thrive instead of stagnate.

I had an "about me" page on my previous site where I talked about having touched just about every type of hardware, used nearly every operating system, etc., I think I'm at a point where I don't need to sell myself to you on that - if we meet and work together, you will know all of that inside of a few minutes.

To describe my programming experience: I am largely self-taught; and though I have had university computer classes, my degree is a BA in Psychology which helps me more in a lot of ways with user interfaces, compassion, and general understanding of what humans want and need from technology. I am a quick study and a good person to know; feel free to say hello and visit my github site (it is fairly new to me, so not many projects are there yet). I like to program and work with as much open source software as possible, but I also have to pay the bills, so some very inexpensive android projects will be in my future, and most work done for employers ends up as closed source.

Feel free to check out some of my projects if you like, and feel free to comment on any blog posts you find interesting.

--Adam