A few days ago, I was able to interview Aaron Spuler from http://www.spuler.us. Aaron is known for some of his excellent themes for the Mozilla browser. He has been creating themes for Mozilla since mid 2002. With 10 different themes for Firefox, Thunderbird, Netscape, Mozilla Suite, and Seamonkey — he is one of the better recognized theme creators among the community. Aaron also has developed and contributed to several extensions like Adblock, Basics and Single Window. Aaron hosts his works at his personal site.
Q. Tell us about yourself and what you do.
Working onsite at a large credit card company, I perform systems and network information assurance analyses through the application of expert penetration techniques in a fast-paced, highly technical environment. I design, develop, and recommend integrated security system solutions that will ensure proprietary or confidential data and systems are protected. This includes providing technical engineering services for the support of integrated security systems and solutions, interfacing with clients in the strategic design process to translate security and business requirements into technical designs, identifying system vulnerabilities and providing recommended counter measures to reduce risk to an acceptable and manageable level, and conducting regular audits to ensure that systems are being operated securely and computer security policies and procedures are being implemented as defined in security plans.
Ok that’s a mouthful… To sum it up in layman’s terms: I get paid to break in to systems and find problems before the ‘bad guys’ have a chance to. If you were to ask my uncle what I do, he’d say simply “Aaron’s a crook.”
On the side, I also develop themes/addons for Mozilla and a few other applications.
Q. Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?
To be honest, I do my theme/addon work for fun. First and foremost, I do what I do for me. I think it looks cool and is useful, and if other people do too, then great! But if someone doesn’t like it, that’s fine too. No skin off my back.
Q. What was your first experience with a computer?
I remember playing ‘King’s Quest’ on my friend’s computer – that was back in the days of the green screen monitors…
I don’t know which was first, because I also remember playing ‘The Oregon Trail’ at the school’s computer lab in fifth grade (1987).
Q. What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?
It started out as curiosity, and then once I got things figured out, I kept it up. The one thing that made the greatest difference when I first started was community support. There were plenty of people over on the MozillaZine forums that were very willing to assist and answer questions. Without the support from them, I never would have finished creating my first Mozilla theme…
Q. What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?
My full time ‘ethical hacking’ job is the only entrepreneurial effort I’ve got going on. Not that I’m complaining — quite the opposite in fact. I’d rather work-to-live than live-to-work.
Q. What are some of the regular challenges at work?
Real job? Other than sometimes having more work to do than time to do it, there aren’t too many challenges. It’s a great fit for me, both in a technical
aspect and providing enough of a challenge that I don’t get bored.
Themes? There are some challenges there. The first is finding time to do them. Another big one would be keeping up with the boatloads of changes required to keep the themes working with current versions of Firefox, etc. Making the themes is fun, but constantly updating them is a real pain.
Q. At what point do you consider yourself successful?
Never? I don’t know… hard to answer this one. I’m a pretty humble guy so it’s hard to get in to that mindset. I’m not even competitive (comparing/competing against others) that do theme/addon work.
Q. Where do you do your best thinking?
Definitely at home. A close second would be outdoors, where there are few people around to distract me.
Q. On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is “most important” — how important do you consider visitor statistics to be, and what are some ways that you use your stats to improve the performance of your site?
I’d say that they were a 5 on the importance scale. Sometimes I check the stats a few times a month, and other times I check the stats once every few months. Sure, it’s cool to see that I had 6.7 MILLION visitors to my site in 2007 (70 gigs of traffic). But it’s not that big of a deal to me, other than the ‘wow’ factor. Pretty amazing to think there’s that many people out there that appreciate what I do.
Q. What do you do when you’re not working?
Usually I just like to relax at the house. Sorry — no big things going on. It’s just nice to kick back and relax with the wife most times. Although I do my fair share of playing video games (got Gears of War and the Simpsons Game at Christmas and I’ve been playing them right now). I also really enjoy getting in some range time. Nothing better than being outdoors and unloading some ammunition downrange.
Q. What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?
I’ve got a full-time job, and I’m typically there from 7:30 in the morning until about 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. After that, it’s ME time… I don’t do any work related stuff when I’m not at work. That time is best spent with my wife, friends, and family
Q. What’s your new-year resolution?
Don’t really have any major ones. I’m giving up eating the donuts they bring in to the office on Wednesdays (to help lower my cholesterol).
Q. What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?
Who says I haven’t given up? There have been times that I’ve just walked away from it all for a while. Mostly because with my real job and real life, I didn’t have the time. Sometimes I spend so much time looking at a computer screen all day at work, the last thing I want to do when I get home is look at one… But after some time away (or when I have more free time), I have always come back to doing the theme work because it’s fun. Case in point: I have a theme that has been in the works for about 8 months — not because that’s how long it takes to do one, but because I got busy/needed to step away from it for a while.
Q. What’s your personal mission statement?
Don’t really have one. If I had to make one up, it would probably be something along the lines of “You shouldn’t take life to seriously. You’ll never get out alive.” That’s a quote from the movie Van Wilder.
Thanks Aaron for taking out the time. It was a pleasure talking to you.
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