What work do I do? What hobbies do I have that require more than just one- or two-word descriptions? Well, that's a hard one to answer, but I'll do my best.

For starters, until we moved to Canada in March 2010, I was a senior consultant (specifically DBA), trained programmer, computer technician, software support specialist, Business Intelligence specialist, and that's where it should end, but doesn't. I can (but prefer not to) read at 1000 words a minute, I can write (see Writing), I have edited college newspapers, written and edited content for my various employers, and so on. I have a musical ear, but it's a bit difficult to play the piano with my earlobe, and lots of other stuff!

a bit of history

My first hands-on experience with computers was at the age of 8 or 9, and it was on a console system called "CreatiVision". Aside from the really cool 8-bit cartridge games, there was one cartridge called BASIC. The console had a full keyboard PLUS a cassette deck, where you could save and run your BASIC programs. My father had a programmer friend who wrote a few lines of code and saved it to a cassette, and I picked up a lot from that single program. PEEK and POKE aside (so much homo-erotic syntax has found its way into the IT world), it was fun.

In 1986 (Grade Four), I moved schools and discovered the computer centre. My natural curiosity for blinking lights, flashing screens and that infernal Logo Turtle had me hooked, and three weeks into the year I was the teacher's assistant. It went downhill from there.

In high school (Grade Eight), we were allowed to choose a seventh subject to go with the compulsory six that we needed to pass Matric. So that's where I got started on GW-BASIC and Turbo Pascal. For the record, I hate Pascal. I detest it. I refuse to have anything to do with it, and that goes for Delphi too. I'm a BASIC man, and you can take that how you please. Fortunately, in recent years, my love for C# has overtaken that of VB.

My father bought a computer in 1991 (I was then in Grade Nine), a 286 running at 15MHz, with 1664KB RAM and a 177MB hard drive. He got MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 with it, and as everyone knows, that was the beginning of Microsoft's huge success, and I rode it from the start.

In 1994, the PC was upgraded to a 486 DX2-66, with 8MB RAM and a 500MB hard drive. We got rid of the 1.2MB floppy drive, kept the 1.44MB stiffy drive, and bought a 2X CD-ROM drive with sound card. Then, in 1995, towards the end of August, Windows 95 was released. I bought it the day after, and became engrossed in it. I got Microsoft Office for Windows 95, and became somewhat of an expert in Microsoft Word 2.0 / 95, as it was the tool we used to produce the college newspaper for that year.

The PC was upgraded in 1996 to a Pentium 133MHz with 32MB RAM, a 1GB hard drive and a 8X CD-ROM. For comparative purposes, this was almost a 1000% performance increase over the first PC, and we still used the same tower! I eventually sold this PC in 1999 when I upgraded to a Celeron 400MHz with 64MB RAM, a 4GB hard drive, scanner, and so on. I left this PC behind when I moved out of home, and in 2002 I acquired a suitably quick AMD Athlon 900MHz with all the bells and whistles.

2004 brought on the Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott CPU, and in 2007 I finally become only minorly obsolete, with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, with 4GB RAM, 2 x 500GB drives, 1 x 80GB drive, and an LG DVD Rewriter. My notebook, purchased in Feb 2004, finally died this year, so I'm running with an Asus, plus the one I got for my day job.

I own a G5 iMac, with 1.5GB RAM. I'm not ashamed of this. I want the new 27" iMac. It runs OS X Leopard.

I run Windows 7 wherever else I can.

My experience has allowed me to absorb and understand new technology, software and hardware, to the extent that I am good at what I do, and I can learn almost anything. This is not always a good thing. One needs to keep in mind that most problems with technology are simple.

software support

Software support is an interesting place to start. I did the equivalent of the A+ and MOUS (MCOU) coursework, with a bit extra on the side. This was all covered by my Diploma in Software Support in 1997 (from Damelin Computer School). I then did the unthinkable and followed it up with the popular MCSE in 1998. I chose not to write the Windows 2000 upgrade, as I am certainly not planning to make a career out of installing Microsoft Windows :-). Then again, I might pursue the Windows Server 2003 certification.

Unfortunately, though, I was discovered as having hidden talents at each of my employers, so now I have a reputation of being able to troubleshoot a lot of operating systems and applications, trained or not (see History).

programming

Are you ready? Here goes: I've worked with BASIC, Q-BASIC, GW-BASIC, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, C++, Java, C# and COBOL. I've done them all, and I love Visual Basic C# the most. Say what you like about Microsoft, but C# is what Java should have been (like Windows 7 is what Vista should have been).

At the end of 1998, I did something they called "Advanced Visual Basic", which was a proper Microsoft course. I got a 50% discount on the course, so I took it. Five days later, I had a pretty yellow file and a piece of paper telling me something I already knew. So I decided to undertake the real challenge of writing a program I would need, rather than relying on what I consider really dodgy examples from said yellow file.

The result was a small VB 6 application which started out as "how do we force computers to log off after hours so that the login scripts will run every day?". ShutOff 2000 was the name of this beast, which evolved into a program that can log off or shut down your computer in a number of ways. Tens of thousands of people have downloaded it. Not many have paid.

ShutOff 2010, the new version of this tool, is due for release in 2010. I hope. It will cost $5.00 for a single-user licence. It is not written in Visual Basic.

career

Apart from my stint as an entrepreneur and high school teacher in 2004 - 2005, I've had a proper day job. I do SQL Server, a bit of Oracle, and a bit of C#. I enjoy my work.

future

I don't know, but I have a pretty good idea. I want to retire at 35. I want to write (and publish) a book or three. I want to become a radio personality. I want to become an actor even. I want to work smarter, to make the millions that comes from a good idea that is raised effectively. I also want to find out how the universe works.

Until then, I'll be here.