2003-04-24
Hey, we sold our company! Our largest customer, Google, decided they needed to bring the software and talent in-house, and we let them. So, yes, that means I'm back to commuting down to the south bay in my ever continuing yo-yo commute saga, but the career continues a pace. Google's working on some cool stuff, and the competitive landscape is something else. We're just doing our part...

2001-09-07
Time for a new startup, this time it's my own: The Neotonic Software Corporation. We're working on a bunch of software:

• Trakken, an email customer relations management solution
• ClearSilver, a web templating and CGI Kit
• Retrieve, a scalable full text indexing system

2001-01-01
The startup I worked for, eGroups, was bought in July, 2000 by Yahoo!. This was not the windfall you might think it to be, especially given the recent pounding Yahoo and other Internet and Tech stocks took in the market recently. Easy come, easy go. Guess my retirement is going to be put off a bit longer...

1999-06-01
Ok, I'm back to the web. I'm working for a web start up in San Francisco called eGroups. They facilitate group communications. Startup life is interesting. Fast paced, long hours, python and email.

Previously, I worked for Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, CA. I was a microprocessor designer on the Mendocino design team. You may know the Mendocino as the Celeron (TM) Processor at 333 Mhz and up. Before that, I worked in Hillsboro, OR for Server SV, which means I got to try to break faster/better/stronger Pentium Pro and Pentium II Processors in a multiprocessor configuration with server chipsets (or even something like NUMA-Q).

Before Intel, I was a Graduate Research Assistant for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. I worked for the Software Development Group on NCSA HTTPd. I first became involved in NCSA HTTPd when I was an undergraduate, and I took a look at the code to try and "fix" it so that it wouldn't kill the ACM Webserver, host of Rob's Multimedia Lab. This was my first networking project under Unix, and NCSA HTTPd 1.4 wasn't too bad (considering the state of the server before I got there). NCSA HTTPd 1.5 was better, but I never did get a chance to rewrite the whole thing. Perhaps that's because the Apache group beat me to it.

Those people I worked with at NCSA are pretty wacky.

While I was an undergrad, I worked for Professors M.C. Loui and W. Kent Fuchs as an undergraduate teaching assistant for ECE 291 - Computer Engineering II. The goals of this course are to teach students real time computing, assembly language concepts, and computers from a system level. It was taught on Intel x86 class machines, and was a blast because most of the machine problems were games. My final project was a networked version of Combat from the old Atari 2600 days. If you have any desires to write an IP network interface in x86 assembly, I suggest not doing it.

Previously, I worked for Advantis, a division of IBM. I was doing all sorts of stuff with a product called EDI Magic for Windows. EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange, and is a format for Businesses to send standardized information to each other, such as Purchase Orders, Invoices, etc. Working for IBM was quite an experience.

Before that, I worked for Go-Jo Industries in Akron, OH as a consultant programmer. I designed a rather extensive inventory control system under DOS using Borland Pascal. It took longer than it should have for my roommate, David Jeske, to convince me to switch to C, but I haven't looked back.

I also worked for Revco Drug Stores (which merged with someone else and doesn't exist anymore) as a Pharmacy Technician and Senior Sales Associate. This means I know way too much about running a drug store and about prescription drugs. It is interesting to note that as I write this, Revco is using my server, NCSA HTTPd 1.4.2. Ah, Life.

Play

I try hard to "play" some times, but with work, this is no easy task. When I get away from the computer, I enjoy physical activities like In-line Skating, Hockey (both on Ice and asphalt), mountain biking, Wallyball, volleyball, skiing, and skydiving. Ok, so I've only gone skydiving once, but it was awesome, and I'd like to do it again someday.

For entertainment, I generally turn to Books, Movies, and TV. I'm a plot junkie. I enjoy Science Fiction and Fantasy, with Isaac Asimov and David Eddings topping my list as favorite authors, though Robert Heinlein, Robert Anton Wilson, Greg Bear, and L. E. Modesitt, Jr. are more recent favorites.. In movies, I like a smorgasborg of different things, and I will generally see anything once. Favorite TV shows include The West Wing, Babylon 5, Highlander, Law & Order, Animaniacs and whatever happens to be on after 2am (generally the Discovery Channel). I have a very hard time watching any sitcoms, as I generally find them to be very obvious.