(this is work in progress, I’ve probably overlooked some stuff)
I’ve been working with computers since I was a child, my first computer was an Atari XE that I got when I was 8, a hybrid of a computer and game console that unfortunately came out at the same time as the original NES. I moved on from that to my first real PC, a 386SX with 1MB of ram, running MS-DOS and the now-forgotten Geoworks desktop. We still had Apple II’s and TRS-80s in school, so I would program on those.
Started building my own computers by the time I was 12, with a lovely 486 system, which unfortunately, would later succumb to a lightning strike. I made use of the local BBS scene to download shareware games.
By the time I was 15 or so, I was back on a 386, but with 4MB of ram, since my family didn’t have money for another real computer. Windows wouldn’t run on it, and I’d been using DOS for years, so I took the plunge into Linux, specifically, Debian 1.3 “Bo”, downloaded on a set of floppy disks from the community college’s computer lab, where I was taking a PC repair class at the time.
Around that time, I discovered IRC, Internet Relay Chat, and the EFNet IRC network, and began to learn more about computers and tech from there and from Usenet. I worked for a while at the college’s computer lab as a lab assistant, and later, at a local PC repair shop as a technician.
My interest in computers and technology remained a constant, and even when not working in technology as a career, I was working on it as a hobby. By the time I was 18, I moved to NY to take a job working as both a support technician and a sysadmin at an ISP. Somewhere along the way, I became an IRC operator on EFNet, just before the “birth” of botnets and DDoS attacks.
I got an education from EFNet, over the years, learning about DDoS mitigation, malware analysis, botnet command and control, shellcode, and social engineering, and also being exposed to some of the most brilliant minds in software engineering at the time.
Moved on quickly from NY back to home, and worked for a couple of local ISPs here. Founded and operated a DNSBL along with a good friend of mine, one of the earliest attempts at an organized response to the increase in email spam. Worked for a while at a call center providing tech support for PC extended warranty customers somewhere in there as well.
From there, I moved on into IT support for a large, fortune 500 company, while dealing with the difficult process of coming out and transitioning. I eventually moved on from my IRC Operator position on EFnet during this time as well, and I started spending spare time helping Mozilla with bug triage and other QA efforts for Firefox as a volunteer.
After leaving that support position, I ended up working at a medical equipment vendor, providing support for their hardware and the software used to operate it. After that, there was a brief stent as a waitress, then I moved west and did tier 3 support for a mobile carrier, supporting their smartphone and data card customers.
Came back to NC again, helped a non-profit for a while with their IT and website needs. Started talking with the owner of a lounge and e-cigarette shop in Raleigh, and ended up engineering a replacement for their Point of Sale System that better met his needs, and then later, working as a manager for the shop.
After that ended, I helped another e-cigarette vendor overhaul their e-commerce storefront from a badly coded and heavily customized Joomla and PretaShop to a more scalable Magento installation living in the AWS cloud.
All in all, I’ve been doing this for a bit over 20 years, and I’m trying to figure out what next.