about me / contact

Thursday, Jul 14. 2005

[climbing mt. tam]

whoami Stephen Lau, or just plain stevel. i was born an Englishman, in Aldershot. i’m now living in silicon valley in the beautiful bay area, california. raised in los altos, i went to los altos high (surprise), before moving on and spending six great years in san diego, SoCal, getting my BS and MS degrees in computer science. my thesis research studied the usefulness of proxy communication threads in enabling overlap of communication with computation on multi-tier SMP machines. boring? maybe to you… but it was two and a half years of my life i’m never getting back, so it warrants a mention here.

whatdoido? i’m the developer advocate doing… guess what, developer relations/outreach/evangelism. i work at Pioneers of the Inevitable, a.k.a. Songbird. i’m trying to help build out a rockin’ open source developer community. i also meet and work with customers and partners to help them figure out what they can build on top of or with Songbird. part of my responsibilities also involve building cool extensions and add-ons to Songbird to help fulfill user-requested features and “be disruptive”. i’ve authored the mashTape, SHOUTcast, and Concert Ticketing add-ons to name a few. (click on any of those 3 links to see an exhaustive list of the add-ons i’ve developed)

i’m a huge open source advocate, and currently serve on the first openly-elected OGB (OpenSolaris Governing Board), the board elected to serve and lead the OpenSolaris Community. after my first term on the OGB, i was re-elected to serve a second term.

before Songbird, i worked at Sun Microsystems. specifically, i was part of the OpenSolaris engineering team facilitating the open-sourcing of Solaris. i also worked on kernel performance projects trying to ensure the Solaris kernel kicks butt as much as possible. prior to OpenSolaris, i spent 2 years with the Solaris kernel test development team learning to poke my way around Solaris.

outside of work, my main pleasures in life are playing with my beagle Char-siu (the other beagle in those photos was my older beagle, Isis, who passed away in March 2008), ultimate frisbee, rock climbing, snowboarding, and the occasional mountain biking.

i love watching FIFA football. i follow Manchester United, and the English national team with a passion.

privacy? i use GPG (GnuPG), a GPL implementation of the OpenPGP standard for signing, verifying, and encrypting data. you can request my public key from keyservers with the keyID 0x09E5CD21 or you can download it directly. if you don’t use it, you should think about starting. :)

ping?

Add to address book photo Stephen Lau ( Oakland, CA )

3 Trackbacks to “about me / contact”

  1. that’s whacked » where do i want to go today?
    August 25th, 2006 at 20:34
  2. News » OGB: Get The Vote Out
    March 15th, 2008 at 08:04
  3. bielicki
    March 30th, 2010 at 09:33

13 Comments to “about me / contact”

  1. Grazfather Says:
    January 19th, 2009 at 08:10

    so YOU’RE the guy who was so helpful on IRC :)

  2. Martin Bodilsen Says:
    February 15th, 2009 at 07:14

    Hi Stephen

    Sorry to disturb, but could you help me with the meaning of “Grommit”? I’m currently teaching a class at a locul Community College (for adults) here in Viborg, Denmark. We are reading an article which appeared in Time magazine 19 March 2001, called Warning. It’s about a school-shooting in Santee, California. In this article I came across the following: …..Aceven called Andy’s new friends the Grommits, aterm that eludes meaning even for her.” Now, is there any chance you might be able to help me trying to identify some meaning to this word?

    Many thanks

    Martin Bodilsen English teacher Viborg Denmark

    Also proprietor of a small business in special teaching materials and educational toys.

  3. Stephen Lau Says:
    February 16th, 2009 at 07:41

    Hi Martin, sorry – I’ve no idea why they would call people “Grommits”. As best I know, “grommit” is a rubber ring used to cover sharp holes cut in metal electrical boxes to prevent cables from fraying.

    Urban Dictionary has a few (inappropriate) definitions for grommit that might match what you’re looking for though:

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grommit

  4. Dan Mick Says:
    June 10th, 2009 at 20:14

    “Grommet” is the ring-shaped thing that is used, mostly, in my experience, to describe the metal protector rings around holes cut in cloth (like tarps and tents and stuff). “Grommit” is the dog from the Nick Park cartoons.

  5. jack namer Says:
    May 26th, 2010 at 11:53

    We are putthing together a web site for music and movie downloads, must have a fully functional shopping cart. Can you help?

  6. Iren Bereziuk Says:
    June 7th, 2011 at 09:04

    Dear whacked team,

    We are looking for more Android applications for LG application store.

    Handster is an independent Appstore with 20.000 unique visitors daily. We also offer an Android Appstore solution for our OEM partners with Android phones and tablets. We are powering white label Android store for HP, Toshiba and managing developer relations for LG appstore. We also serve as a content aggregator for Huawei, MTS and Ericsson.

    Please reply, if you are interested in distribution of your apps via Handster and our partner channels. There is a great opportunity to get higher promotion for your apps and generate additional revenue.

    You can find Handster distribution agreement here: http://www.handster.com/docs/DistributionAgreementHandster_standard.pdf

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    With best regards,

    Kind regards, Iren Bereziuk

    Handster.com | Content manager | Phone: +1 847 380 1551 | Fax: +1 866 626 958

  7. Ellyn Siegel Says:
    November 1st, 2011 at 08:48

    Hello Stephen,

    I’m a Tech Recruiter at Andiamo Group in San Francisco.

    One of our social search engine clients, located in SF, is seeking a full-time Backend Developer w/ C++, Perl and Python.

    Focus is on: Optimizing data collection across different systems. Participation in desing, implementation and eveloution of dompany’s systems.

    Please let me know if you’d be interested in hearing more, or, know of someonne who might be.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    All the best, Ellyn Siegel (415) 374-8033

    P.S. In the office by 7:30 am, I welcome early morning phone calls.

  8. Shine Says:
    November 18th, 2011 at 18:13

    You seem to be enjoying your work and play. Good for you. :)

  9. Ted Ladd Says:
    November 30th, 2011 at 13:58

    SteveL, you have the time and desire to create new versions of ConnectIn and GestureLock for a wearable Android device based in your home town?

    Ted Ladd WIMM Labs

  10. Rob Savoie Says:
    December 5th, 2011 at 12:05

    Hi Stephen,

    Your background & experience are impressive, especially from Google and Rdio! I’d very much like to learn more about your interests as a developer. Trulia is about to launch a number of exciting and innovative projects and is looking for an ace Android Developer.

    Trulia offers users the Inside Scoop on Real Estate. We are a profitable, fast-moving company on an IPO path. Our mobile applications are experiencing 400% growth with over 6 million unique monthly users.

    Our engineering team is committed to innovation, launching innovative features like the gamification of our mobile apps and the beta of our new crime map:

    http://www.trulia.com/crime

    Please email your resume to rsavoie@trulia.com. Looking forward to speaking with you soon!

    Cheers, Rob Savoie

  11. Maria Wilson Says:
    January 30th, 2012 at 23:42

    Whacked.Net Team,

    I thought you might like to know some of the reasons why you are not getting enough Social Media and Organic search engine traffic for Whacked.Net

    1. Social profile is not available in top Social Media websites.

    2. Your site has 73 Google back links, this can be improved further.

    There are many additional improvements that could be made to your website, and if you would like to learn about them, and are curious to know what our working together would involve, then I would be glad to provide you with a detailed analysis in the form of a WEBSITE AUDIT REPORT for FREE.

    Our clients consistently tell us that their customers find them because they are at the top of the Google search rankings. Being at the top left of Google (#1- #3 organic positions) is the best thing you can do for your company’s website traffic and online reputation.

    Sounds interesting? Feel free to email us or alternatively you can provide me with your phone number and the best time to call you.

    Best Regards, Maria Wilson SEO Consultant

    (347) 329-2976

    PS1: This is onetime email and you may ask us to “REMOVE” you from our mailing list. PS2: I found your site from online advertising but did not click. PS3: We operate 24 x7. I will be happy to send you links to price list, money back guarantee, client rankings, client testimonials, “How we are different from others?”, and “Why should you choose us?” on receiving a response from you.

  12. Marga Says:
    February 2nd, 2012 at 00:19

    You must inlove in taking adventure :)

  13. Nicole Says:
    February 2nd, 2012 at 02:07

    Keep up your good work Steve! It’s nice to hear you do outreach and evangelism too.

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