I'm happy to hear from you
The most likely reason you are reading this, is that you sent me an email asking for help with some technical problem. That's understandable. Asking somebody you think is more knowledgeable about a subject for help is frequently a good idea when you need help with something.

However, I do not recommend asking me or anybody else such questions in private unless there are specific reasons you need to do so. There are several public mailing lists and news groups such as misc@openbsd.org, pf@benzedrine.ch, freebsd-pf and a few others (including several operated by local or regional user groups) where you are likely to get good answers to sensibly formulated questions. Discussing your question in public has several advantages.

Asking in public helps build the community
A well formulated problem description and the eventual solution posted in a public forum is likely to be useful to other users, and in some cases your message could motivate somebody you don't know already to figure out a smart solution or get a developer started on a useful feature. So asking a question in public is likely to be helful to others. And of course, any help you get in a public forum is free.

Be prepared to pay for private consultations
If you are convinced that using the public resources is somehow not appropriate for your situation, it is possible to get the attention of somebody like myself. The method is very simple: indicate up front when you contact me that you are willing to pay for my time. My rates are not the cheapest in the industry, but not unreasonable either. Be prepared to pay for at least half a day's work at agreed rates, however small the task. Further background is available in my CV (resume), which is usually in sync with my Linkedin profile.

Using something I've written
If you want to use something I've written to publish somewhere, check the copyright and license on the material you are interested in. Some of the stuff I've written is under a BSD license, which means essentially you can do anything you like with it as long as you do not claim to have written it all yourself. Other stuff is under a plain copyright, which generally is not a problem if your idea might fall under 'fair use'. Contact me if you are not sure what the situation is. If you want me to write something for you, contact me and we'll discuss the project.

Talks and travel
Do you want me to come to your conference or user group and do a talk? It is quite possible that I will come if you ask me. For non-commercial events like user group meetings and some conferences I will not ask for a fee, but you will need to cover travel (from Bergen, Norway to where you want me to be and back), some reasonable sort of accomodation while I'm there and meals. Norwegians are under few, if any, restrictions on travel, but experience suggests that some borders are easier to cross with some sort of letter of invitation.

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and similar services
I have profiles visible on these services and a few others, and you're of course welcome to add me as a contact or equivalent. Whether or not I will return the favor depends on a number of variables that do not need to be made public. In general, however, the chance that I'll respond favorably to such requests increases significantly if I can see some indication that we've had direct contact before you try invoking the service's magic. All kinds of annoying behavior such as using LinkedIn's nagging feature (it's possible they call them 'reminders') will reduce, not increase, your chance of successful contact.

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