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| By Christophe Verdier (cc) Some rights reserved |
I began my career in computers as a graphic designer before
I was old enough to drink– although my eye for art and design is very subpar
now. My first experience with a PC was on MS-DOS 6.21 or 22 then Windows 3.1.
When I had my first professional job as a Layout Designer for a local
newspaper, I bought my first Hewlett Packard, with all of 8MB of RAM, 1GB hard
drive, 14.4 mbps modem and Windows 95. I doubled the RAM instantly and set me
back about $100 – for 8 more MB of memory mind you. At my day job, I would
design graphics with Freelance, Aldus Photoshop and layouts on Aldus PageMaker.
Aldus was later bought out by Adobe. At night, I became an enthusiast of the
Internet and Telneting into the World Wide Web. I liked the black screen and
green text and I heard of this thing called “Netscape” and something called “Geocities”.
So I learned HTML like any good boy did, on Notepad, or was it WordPad then on Windows
95, I can’t remember. So I created my first site, “Extofer’s World”. I switched
my day job from design soon after. I since dabbled in all sorts of computer
work, from data entry and computer operator of AS-400s, to Assistant Engineer and
Systems Analyst, then VBA and VB6 developer, Web Developer into the arena of
ASP and SQL Server (2.0 and 7.0 respectively) and then there was .Net and SQL
2000. In its inception, I did what any hardcore programmer would do and dive
into C#, but I digressed, went to my comfort zone of VB.Net. I took a hiatus from
full time development and into management, however, I still took the time to
work with open source software and experienced the LAMP stack, and grew fond of
Linux, particularly Fedora and at times, Debian. The businesses I was managing
were soon equipped with PHP sites with MySQL databases. I left the world of business
and management and went back to work as a fulltime developer in the government
contractor sector, this time, full on C#. I commenced my track to become
certified, and I became a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in SQL
Server 2008 Development and a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer in
ASP.Net 3.5.
Did you guess my age? Today I turn 37, and life has been
good. I wound up in Colorado Springs a year and a half ago to work with a small
ISV. I really enjoyed working for that company, and I still keep in touch with
the people I worked with. Nonetheless, I took a turn to challenge myself, be
adventurous and take a stab at consulting. I’m a contract developer for a
public company specialized in virtual meetings and telecommunications and am
open for other contracts. In my career as a developer, I’ve learned a lot of
things, most importantly; I’ve learned that you never stop learning.
What am I saying here? Yes, I’m getting old, and it’s never
too late to learn something new. I’ve set several goals for myself over the
next year. One of which will benefit you – I hope. In attempt to learn
something new each day, I intend to post each and every day now for the next
365 days. I diligently try to post something each week, and will continue to do
so, but in the days that I don’t have a topic, I’d like to share what inspires
me, a quote or video. I feel we can all learn something new each day, and by
the time I’m 38, I will have learned 365 new things I didn’t know.
