Hunter is a:
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Hacker and Hacking Trendsetter
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Programmer and Open Source Advocate |
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Computer Scientist |
Entrepeneur and Start-Up Personality |
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Musician, Composer, Android Developer (Section WIP) |
Hunter Davis is a hacker, though perhaps that doesn't mean what you think. I like to take things apart, improve them, and share what I find with others. This is the spirit of hacking. The following slides describe some of my more notable hacking projects and endeavors.
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The Zipit Z2 was a wireless communications device for teens which was able to run Linux. I ported a number of popular softwares to this platform, and popularized it as a hacking device.
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This video tutorial became popular and got a lot of folks interested in the Z2 hacking community.
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It's kind of funny that emulating Nintendo and Dosbox was what it took to popularize the Z2, as I had originally envisioned it as a portable Tor/Privoxy node for political dissidents. You can read the article where I detail porting Tor/Privoxy to this 'new Z2 platform' here.
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Regardless of where it started, I wrote many articles, released many videos, and inspired many folks to pick up a Z2 and start using Linux. Check out articles and videos on my website in the Zipit category here.
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The Dockstar is a networked media server that could be made to run Linux. I added an external video display to the Dockstar, ported a number of emulators and compilation systems, and used it as the basis for a compilation system (see my third book).
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The im-me is a small pink radio text messaging device. A reader of my website had suggested I purchase one to see how it worked, and as it was only 14$ I decided to pick it up as a 'filler' item for free shipping on amazon.com.
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I reverse engineered the protocol that was used by the device to communicate with the driver and released it as a spreadsheet and unfinished protocol.
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Others soon picked up where I left off and together we released a number of drivers for the device. It became a staple for hackers and was featured on blogs/hackaday many times.
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This got the device into the limelight, and other hackers were able to write new firmwares for the radio unit and use this for frequency analysis. You probably heard about this when it was used to jam law-enforcement radios.
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You can read articles related to my im-me work on my website.
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Not all of my hacking work can fit into the above categories. There are a number of devices, scripts, exploits, and tutorials I've done over the years related to hacking that may pique your interest.
You can read more about them on my website.
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On April 11, 2012 I created a script to generate GitHub projects from project folders. I then set about open soucing 80 closed-source applications which I had previously written. This set a number of records and blew up in the blogosphere. My website traffic shot up to 4 million hits per day following the release, a marked increase.
You can read more detail in the infographic image to the right (click the thumbnail to open in a new window), or at Hackaday, XDA Developers, my website, or google search for it.
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In the summer of 2011 I wanted to try and beat the "Jedi Challenge", which is to create 30 applications in 30 days. After 30 days had passed, I decided that I should do it again, so I ended up completing 65 Android apps in 60 days, quite a feat! They still generate a lot of downloads, and the most popular app is currently 'Easy Cat Whistle'. You can check out all my apps on the Google Play store and on my website.
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Source Tree Visualizer is an open source project that visualizes source control repositories as real growing trees. It started as a research project at my former startup Discursive Labs, but we felt it was too cool to let sit around somewhere on a hard drive.
Part of this project was to visualize the most popular source repositories on github and google code, etc at the time. Some of these turned out with really interesting features and tall branches, etc.
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Quickgrapher started as a research project at Discursive Labs. The goal of the project is to easily enable open source and freely licensed graphs for the everyday web user. You can see some of the features of the embedded version in the next slide. You can get the latest version and the source code from github here.
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Easy Inventory is the first Android app I ever wrote, and the first in the 60 day challenge. I ended up open sourcing it after a number of folks requested to use the source in their projects. You can check it out on my site.
Using Easy Inventory is simple.
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To date I've written 3 books, and have begun initial work on a fourth. You can buy my books on every major bookstore, from iTunes to Google Play to Amazon and B&N. Just do an author search for "Hunter Davis". You'll find I'm often the top rated in the category.
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Hacks is a collection of my most popular tutorials, scripts, tweaks, Zipit Z2 work, and source code. Within these forty some chapters reside some of my most interesting work, and certainly some of the most viewed tutorials and hacks on the Internet today. Featured on Hackaday, Engadget, Make online, and hundreds of other blogs and forums, these hacks are meant to enlighten and entertain while providing the reader with concrete examples and launching platforms for future work. Whether you are wanting to reorganize your desktop, reboot your modem, port software to a new platform, administer a Linux box, or just entertain yourself on a lazy sunday, you’ll find something of interest in the chapters ahead. At just over 200 pages on most eReader devices it’s a terrific bargain and an excellent reference guide.
Currently you can buy Hacks from
- Barnes and Nobles Store
- Amazon Store
- Preview, purchase, and rent my books from Google Books in all territories (NO DRM, full copy-paste support).
- Sony eBook Store
- Kobo Store
- Android Market
- Apple and Apple App Store
- Diesel eBook Store
- Scrollmotion eBook Store
- Smashwords eBook Store
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Live For Free is an ebook I wrote and distributed in part on www.liveforfree.net from 2008 to 2010. In it, I chronicle the trials and tips I accumulated whilst saving for my startup, Discursive Labs. In a series of 27 easy to digest chapters, I detail the methodologies and money saving practices which allowed me to "live for free" and save the capital necessary to bootstrap a successful startup. From selling items online to gauging market fluctuations and historical pricing metrics, these concrete examples can help you save tremendous amounts of money, while still living the cutting edge high tech lifestyle. An enjoyable afternoon read, I present you this eBook in the hopes that it helps you, in a concrete and direct fashion, achieve your dream. It helped me achieve mine.
Currently you can buy the book at:
- Barnes and Nobles
- Amazon Kindle Store
- Preview, purchase, and rent my books from Google Books in all territories (NO DRM, full copy-paste support).
- Sony eBook Store
- Kobo Store
- Android Market
- Apple and Apple App Store
- Diesel eBook Store
- Scrollmotion eBook Store
- Smashwords eBook Store
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My second eBook, Build Your Own Distributed Compilation Cluster - A Practical Walkthrough is a collected volume of my article series of the same name. Throughout the 6 in-depth how-to articles, I’ll take you through the process of building a fully working cross-compilation distributed build system. The canonical example is of building a distributed ARM to X86-64 cross-compilation cluster. This system is also generic enough to apply to most any compilation environment, while remaining powerful enough to outperform all but the most advanced compilation systems. With source code examples provided and easy step by step instructions, this 60+ page instructional eBook is a valuable introductory and practical resource for those interested in distributed compilation, cross compilation, low power computing clusters, and so much more. It’s also one terrific bargain, and an excellent reference.
Currently you can buy the book at:
- Barnes and Nobles
- Amazon Kindle Store
- Preview, purchase, and rent my books from Google Books in all territories (NO DRM, full copy-paste support).
- Sony eBook Store
- Kobo Store
- Android Market
- Apple and Apple App Store
- Diesel eBook Store
- Scrollmotion eBook Store
- Smashwords eBook Store
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I am a formally trained computer scientist. I will probably end up putting a picture of my cat here. Here's one to start.
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I was the CEO of Discursive Labs from 2010 to 2011. I was the Android team lead at Miso Media from 2011 to 2012. I designed and presented Air Beats along with the rest of the Miso 2011 Hackathon team in 2011.
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Discursive Labs was the startup I founded along with Mark Christensen that ran from 2010 to 2011. We were a bootstrapped startup that did a combination of military contracts and software research. The main fruits of our labors are the open source projects QuickGrapher and Source Tree Visualizer.
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During my tenure at Miso Media I ported their proprietary pitch detection and FFT analysis algorithms to webGL and Javascript. You can view the full version of the tuner (with Flash microphone-in) I wrote at their corporate site here. A demo version using HTML5 audio (no flash required) is running on the next slide.
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Airbeats is an augmented realited drum kit I designed for the 2011 San Francisco TechCrunch Hackathon. I lead a team of designers, muscians, and engineers to create a fully working iOS and Android app in just under 15 hours. You can read an overview here, view a video of my colleague discussing it here, or watch me present it below.
Video streaming by Ustream
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Video streaming by Ustream
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