Colinizer - tech geek inside your mind

Hi.  I’m Colin.

I’d like to get in your head and make you think.  Sometimes you may not like what I write, but that’s OK because you can stop reading at will, …. or you can think about what I wrote and whether it matters.

I may write about Microsoft technologies quite a bit: I live and breath Microsoft stuff including the latest version of everything; I architect/develop for Windows on desktop, server and mobile doing stuff that there isn’t a kid-proof SDK for yet, using C++ and .NET; I’m not anti-unix, anti-linux or anti-mac; I just don’t have the head space (really?) to fit it all in and even if I did (OK I do), I wouldn’t be able to do anything useful with it (except some cross-platform stuff or write reviews that don’t matter) but I served my time with them* before making Windows my thing.

Personally I’m:

• British but now living on the other side of the puddle, accent intact;

• single and in my 30s;

• a technology geek sucking up information like a sponge;

• a cinemia movie lover, never eating popcorn, and not afraid to tell people to shut up in theatres;

• a network/Internet TV watcher, recording everything so I can watch it when I want without giving up 33% of the time to commercials which I am immune to anyway (unless it’s for other TV or movies, then I’ll listen);

• a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but not enough to go to a convention, yet;

• a gadget hoarder, and I keep the boxes;

• learning new things every day and looking at ways to apply it;

• constantly discovering (but no longer surprised about) how totally niave we all are about each other around the world.

Professionally I am or have been:

• a CTO of 2 companies for 10+ years;

• a Company Director for 14+ years;

• a Software Architect for 12+ years;

• a Software Developer for 20+ years;

• a convergent technology innovator and trend analyst, having built award winning software and Internet-hosted enterprise solutions used around the globe by customers such a HP, IBM, Ford, Nortel, JWT, Abbey, O2 & GE;

• a creator of a popular consumer Internet video community.

Definitions that are part of my life philosophy:

• Knowledgeable: knowing stuff

• Intelligent: able to discern the difference between stuff

• Wise: knowing if stuff matters, which is not the same as knowing what stuff matters as that may require knowing lots of stuff unnecessarily (which would not be wise) versus knowing if a specific thing under consideration matters - got that? …and does it matter?

Credit to: Robert Scoble for (unwittingly/unwillingly/unknowingly) inspiring the format of the blog name; I however claim that mine not only uses my name but also sounds like coloniser too which I hope to give some meaning to ; I’ve spoken to the guy a few times and he’s quite pleasant though I’ve not had anything to say to him that matters so far but I will eventually.

Contact:

If you’d like to contact me for professional purposes, please leave a comment below (including your email address that does not get shown) with a note and what you’d like to talk about

*I did run Linux on a PC for a few years and before that in 1990 wrote both a chat client-server (”king of sockets”) system for Unix on an IBM RS6000 running with VT-52 terminals and Sun workstations (wooo), and a bloody brilliant “man” command-line replacement with a path caching service and client that made it useable.  I also ported a Mac arcade game to Windows in C++.  Prior to all that I had a Sinclair ZX81, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Sinclair Z88, BBC Electron, Amstrad x68 PC. Sir Clive Sinclair was bloody clever: if he brought out the C5 now people may listen… OK, only an idiot would drive it in UK traffic but he was miles ahead and a visionary.  If you didn’t understand much of this then you’ll now realise while it was a footnote.