About

Background

Over 25 years ago I starting in tech support helping users run Windows desktops, setting up and maintaining printers, running network and phone cables, building and configuring servers of all types (Windows NT, Novell Netware, Sun Solaris, GNU/Linux), and I quickly felt discovered an affinity in helping make technology work for the users. Its this quality I've built on over the years, always providing solutions that others could use to make their lives better, or at least less frustrating in terms of using technology.

Open Source software and Linux

Once I discovered Open Source, and Linux in particular, around 1999 changed the game for me, and set me on the path I still proudly explore. Having the ability to learn on my own, playing in not only various Linux varieties (distributions like Red Hat, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, etc), but being able to run any Open Source software I wanted to try out and learned gave me the freedom to explore and learn.

Public speaking and published papers

While learning along with discovery is the fun part of IT (for me), sharing that later via online posts on blogs, or presented as a talk, or even a published paper, is an important final piece of the puzzle. As we 'stand on the shoulders of giants' (see more a few sections down), this allows us to continue that practice that allows others to learn from our ideas and approaches. I have all of my former talks, presentations, and published papers online for review. I've presented on IT security at information security (infosec) conferences like DEF CON, BSidesLV, Derbycon, and others. Earlier work focused on my day job, building systems that presented and preserved biodiversity data publicly, free for all to access and learn from. Papers about setting up systems at the architecture level detailed considerations to provide a secure and stable system to rely on.

Goals

When starting Silverbeet Technology I had some goals in mind, the gist of those concepts are as follows.

• Make the most of technology for our clients by utilizing open source software, proven DevOps ideals and automated builds for reliability, security and reproducibility.
• In creating my own IT consultancy as an opinionated expert, I want to focus on 'right-sizing' client's software solutions, with a strong focus on Linux and Open Source software where applicable, but being amenable to work with customers' existing solutions.
• Every company needs software, but few know enough to make smart decisions; knowing when to buy versus when to build. Often building is just a matter of knowing about free, open source solutions that can provide all you need, for no, or little, cost. Trust me, I care about this stuff, and I'm not afraid to share my opinions on the topic.
• Provide Computer Systems Design and Related Services, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, Computer related consulting services, Business services at non-commercial site, Middle-ware Configuration and Administration, Web Presence Services, Technical Support Services

Standing on the shoulders of giants

The beginning of free software, eventually referred to as open source, started as a concept that Eric S. Raymond detailed in his book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, where traditional software development follows the cathedral model of source code (the building blocks of the software) is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers contrasts with the bazaar model, where the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public, and the source code is open and available for anyone to download, modify, build, and depending on the type of Open Source license, redistribute with those changes. It is noteworthy that Raymond credited Linus Torvalds, the leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process.

The ideas started by Raymond and Torvalds redefined how we use computers, in fact if you're reading this you're accessing files on a Linux server, which runs a Docker container with a Rust based static webserver for your browser to display the html. The fact that it's all open source, and all of the source code is freely available is a concept which used to be unheard of, but has now shown its worth as the way to develop software.