Computer Technology ...

For the past twenty years I have focused on building a computer network, maintaining a full range of network services, and providing user support for 500 individuals in 3 departments. Success at this sort of endeavor requires a full time commitment (24/7/365).

Information Technology (IT) has been a major part of my life since I bought my first Apple II in 1979. Included in the box with these computers was a red manual that not only had the instructions for use but also contained the circuit diagrams AND the program code listing for the operating system. Within a few years I'd worn out this book along with many more. (I still own that first Apple II and I've accumulated many more of these elegant machines over the years - as others were throwing them away. )

Since computers were expensive at the time (I nearly sold my first car to buy a floppy drive) I was drawn to jobs where I could 'play' with someone else's toys. Since at the time computer jobs were pretty scarce, I took a job in agricultural research. These folks spent a lot of time analyzing data and were quick to jump into the digital age. It wasn't long before I got my fingers in this pie and quickly became obvious that this was something I had a knack for and soon it became a direction for the rest of my career.

The Beginning of a new career

In 1990 I took over management (part time) of the network that had been installed in our departmental office. It had one server, one hub, and 13 IBM-PC computers connected together with this new thing called Ethernet ( 10BaseT- topology ). I grew this small local network (LAN) to keep time with the technology and with the Internet and I leveraged it into an integral- and indispensable - part of the department's infrastructure.


I consider myself very fortunate to have forged a career out of my intense desire to learn everything I could about technology. At every stage of my development I was allowed to pursue training - both formal and informal - and apply what I'd learned toward building the best systems possible with state-of-the-art hardware and software. This doesn't mean I was given a blank check - quite the contrary - but I was allowed to improvise and work outside the box on both financing and implementation. The resulting systems were well suited to the people who used them mainly because we shared the same background (research and education) and I built these systems to meet MY professional needs. And guided by my obsession with perfection ( I can't stand when something doesn't work right) I built them to be rock solid reliable, efficient, and easy to maintain. This is because I was the only IT staff in the department and I expected things to work 24/7/365 and if they didn't, I had to be there to fix them (I'm a perfectionist, not a glutton for punishment).

Creative Financing

Since these systems were carefully designed and built, it was a practical (and cheap) matter to scale things up to handle the load as more and more people in our department connected in to the system (and as other departments joined our network). This sharing and collaboration with other departments was something I was careful to nurture since it alone made it possible for me to build the financial backing needed to keep our systems current and to afford quality hardware and software. One of the fundamental rules guiding the distribution of research monies on campus was to get the most bang for the buck. Multi-department projects were looked on very favorably for funding. Also, if one department agreed to pay their share of a certain expense item then the other departments were pretty much compelled to kick in their share. One of the tools I used to foster this phenomenon was to keep very careful records of who paid for what and to present a detailed budget to each department every fiscal year, detailing what I'd spent the previous year - and why - and what improvements I would need the following year. From this it was clear to everyone how much more they were getting than they were paying for (eg. a new server didn't cost $10,000.00, it only cost 'our department' $3,000.00 ). What a deal that was - and usually the college or some granting agency in the University could be convinced to kick in half (off the top). What a better deal. It worked and everyone benefited from the quality, reliable, systems. I benefited because I could build systems that I could maintain without living the life of a grad student (all my time at work).



Feel free to wander around. Most of this is here as a convenient place for me to assemble information that I use and web resources that I have found helpful. The primary use for this site is to experiment with various techniques and technologies for developing web sites. Many pages will be 'under construction' so please bear with me.

Stuart