History
I started programming (in BASIC) when I was about 8, on a Commodore 16! I had a Commodore 64 soon after that, and an Amiga 500 at the end of the 80s. My last computer before I went PC was an Amiga 1200 in the early 90s. My first PC (about 1995) was second hand and cost £500, it was an Apricot Xen LS II 486 DX2 66 with 8MB of RAM and a 1.2GB hard disk.
Up until 2002 (when I bought my Dell 590) I always used to build my own PCs, but I don't have the time or inclination to do that anymore. I'm currently using a Dell Precision 690 for all of my PC development (and games!) and a Mac mini for iPhone/iPod touch development.
For a full list of my current PC setup see the link to the left.
Coding
I have programmed for many systems over the years; Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Amiga 500/1200 / BBC Micro / Gameboy and of course PC (DOS and Windows), Windows Mobile and iPhone/iPod touch.
On a day-to-day basis I use Borland Delphi 7 and 2007, C#, ASP.NET and XML with XSLT. In the past I've done lots of coding with 68000 assembler, PHP, C++ but Delphi is my favourite :)
The software on this site has been developed with Delphi (Win32 and .NET) and C#.
The Mac/iPhone/iPod development is all done with Xcode in Objective-C on my Mac mini.
Hobbies
A lot of my spare time is now being taken up by my Open University studies, a degree in Physical Sciences. I'm also learning to play the guitar (again), I have an Ibanez SAS36FM that I intend to play as often as I can...
I have interests in Astronomy, Maths, Physics, History and all things Science-y. I am a hard core skeptic (I have been one forever). I have recently started collecting fossils, and hope to go out prospecting for them soon. I also collect stamps and silver coins.
I've rekindled my love for electronics and low-level programming with a PICAXE kit, it should keep me busy! Have a look at my PICAXE sections for my schematics and code!
I've just bought a new digital SLR so I'm spending some of my time taking photos of random things!
Music Interests
When I'm coding I always have some music playing. I would like to mention the following musicians for making my coding sessions more enjoyable:
ac/dc | alanis morrisette | mike oldfield | pink floyd | dido | bjorne lynne | queen | wheatus | electric 6 | dire straits | tenacious d | rage against the machine | enya | men at work | vangelis | elo | steve vai | joe satriani | santana | chris rea | kate bush | lene marlin | natalie imbruglia | ennio morricone | chickenfoot
Because I'm an ex-Amiga and Commodore 64 owner I also have a huge library of Amiga and C64 tunes that get played a lot.
C64 tunes: High Voltage SID Collection / Def Guide to C64 Remixes / SOAC= (MP3s)
Amiga: The MOD archive
Currently...
I'm currently playing with my new Mac and learning Objective-C....
RSS Feed
Twitter