Hi,
My name is Ben Spade, and I have been working with computers for a very long time. My first original program was written in 1963, to run on an IBM 7094 (Most of you wern't alive then - I was just learning what my life could be...).
My second computer was an IBM 1170 (1967). At this point, I was hooked. I got my MS CS degree from Calif. State University, Chico, in 1974, and moved to the San Jose, Calif. area to work for a little medical computing company now called ADAC Labs. While I was there, I programmed Intel 8008's, 8080's, 8086's, ..., HP 2100's, DEC PDP-11 and LSI-11's, Vaxen, Sun 386i's, Sun SPARC's, and a variety of proprietary computers. I also did a bit of software management, configuration control, and system administration. I left ADAC after 20 years (some of the best years of my life - 1976, 1984, 1989, and I think, 1992).
Upon leaving ADAC, I went to work as a System Administrator for Quantum Corporation (Buy more Disk Drives!), where I did ASIC workstation support, and have set up Linux computers to be FTP servers, internal WWW servers, print servers, dialback modems, and desktop workstations. I also have a Linux computers at home, which I use to connect to the world via PPP and Best Internet Communications (well named!).
After six years at Quantum, I moved on to Linuxcare where I work as a Linux consultant, helping client companies port products to Linux, deploy Linux into their infrastructure, or otherwise move into the world of Open Source. Now that I have left Linuxcare, I am consulting on my own.
When I am not computing, I juggle (since college), or, when I can, I video tape jugglers, and juggling performances. I have taped two International Juggler's Association conventions, several festivals, and a 'bunch' of other shows. Jugglers are swell people, even if they sometimes act a little odd.
I am married, no kids (some people are luckier than others), two cats, a garden, and a small woodshop. I have four or five (six at last count) computers around the house, a Linux gateway machine, two INTEL Linux workstations, one AMD Linux workstation, one SPARC IPX Linux workstation, and one Windows 95 system.
I have read that 90 percent of the World Wide Web is pointers to other places on the Web, and only 10 percent is real useful or interesting stuff. I haven't figured out what my 10 percent will be yet, but it will probably have to do with Linux or juggling.
Thanks for stopping by for a visit, and please come back again real soon!