Another good thing about having all of this free time is that I have a chance to do some hacking!  A few weeks ago I started reading up on how to make a packet dissector for Wireshark.  Wireshark has some fantastic documentation, and the biggest barrier to entry I think is just the fact that there is so much written.  I’ve worked my way through a couple of 1000+ line documents and believe I have a solid handle on how it all works.  My other work in the open source world has definitely made it much easier.  For example, I’m already familiar with autotools and GObject libraries.  That said, however, I’m not so good at C programming, yet.  I’ve spent most of my free time hacking in C# (w/ mono) or Vala (a C# like language developed to be a better fit with the GObject type system).  I really enjoy getting back into C, though.  I’ve done a bit of C programming for embedded systems, but always wished I could do more.

On the topic of Wireshark, that software really is amazing.  It’s so great to see such well written software representing the open source community.

I also haven’t blogged about Docky yet. I’ve spent a lot of my free time there. I’ll have to explain more soon.