Computers

I started when I was six. My dad brought home a Sharp MZ80K and started buying those magazines with BASIC program listings. I had played Space Invaders a couple of times on my cousin's Atari 2600, but other than that didn't know much about computers. I watched my dad copying the program listings from the magazines, letter-for-letter into the computer, saving it to tape cassette, and running the program. My dad noticed the opportunity for cheap labour and eventually delegated the program entry part to me. It wasn't long before I started to understand what I was typing in (heck, it was BASIC after all!). Thus began my career as a hacker, which at that stage mostly only involved giving myself extra lives or adding extra monsters to whatever BASIC game I'd typed in.

Later, I think it was for my 8th birthday, my dad bought me an Amstrad CPC464, so I began experimenting with basic pixel-based colour graphics. At some point during that period, my dad brought home an Osborne-1 luggable computer, with which I learned about CP/M and 5.25" floppy disks!

Eventually, I moved on to an Amstrad PCW8256, and then later (I think for my 12th birthday) onto a Amstrad PC1512 which started me off in the 'big bad world' of business computing. I was quickly sucked into Intel 8086 assembly, PC architecture, MSDOS v3.2, Borland C Professional and various other geekery from the late eighties. I wrote some programs in C for my dad's company, processing data from their Wang VS mainframe system. They paid me with a 32Mb hard-disk (impressive in those days) for a 'D:' drive!

A few years later, I left school and went to work. From there, the rest of the story is covered in my CV.

Free software

As a long-term user and advocate of Linux and Free Software, I like to contribute some of my time and skills back into the free software community. One of my roles in the community is as the GNOME project sysadmin team leader. I am also the maintainer of the gtranslator application, which helps translators all over the world translate software and documentation into their local language. I, and thousands of other technical and non-technical members of the community, do this to constantly improve the quality of open source software, so that normal people can break out of the trap that their proprietary operating system has put them in, and free them of all the problems that come with using poor quality closed source operating systems and applications software. More about my work on this later.

Motorbikes

When I'm not fighting evil companies bent on taking over the world, I like to ride motorbikes. I have owned several in my lifetime, and I intend to try to document them here when I get some time.

My favourite so far was my Kawasaki ZX6R (2000 J3 model), which I bought new in England but had to sell when I moved to Thailand. Here in Thailand, I own two Honda Dream scooters, a Yamaha WR200 motocross bike, a Honda CBR400RR sports/race-replica. I also own a Honda CR250 motocross and a Kawasaki KDX200 motocross. The CR250 is with a friend in Koh Samui, and P'Bot is using the KDX200 here in Ban Krut. More about my bikes, including pictures and hopefully some video, can be found here... later.

Flying

Even more than motorbikes, I enjoy flying. Particularly hang-gliding and free (unpowered) flight. I learned to hang-glide in Byron Bay, Australia. Currently, I am unable to pursue this hobby, as there doesn't appear to be much of a hang-gliding community in Thailand (at least, not where I live). Among my current ambitions is to back head to Australia at some point for a few months to fly some of the sites I didn't get a chance to fly last time and, if possible, to get my PPL (Private Pilots License) so I can also fly small powered aircraft. More about that later.

I also run the website and mailing list for Chiltern Flyers hang-gliding club. OK, so the site isn't all that impressive, but it works and I didn't have long to spend on it!

Links

Chiltern Flyers

My GNOME presence