About The Webmaster
Hello! My Name Is Dan.
Dan. The man, the myth, the legend. Here I hope to list any achievements or credentials I may have as sort of a pseudo-résumé, as well as a bit of personal information if you feel so inclined to read that. My official resume can be presented on demand, so if you're interested please visit my Contact Me page for any requests, or even if you just want to say hi. Despite my picture, I really am a nice guy.
General Experience
I've wanted to be involved with computers since grade school when I was programming stupid little text adventure games in BASIC on my old IBM PC 386. The monitor was a VGA 256 color box that buzzed when it was on but I could always be found on it. This was long before any form of GUI was around unless you count Direct Access, but we won't. I grew up wanting to program but as my knowledge became more extensive I branched out into other fields in Computer Science, such as hardware, networking and telecommunication, system administration, etc. One of my biggest attributes that anyone that's worked with me can attest to is that I am constantly learning new things and trying to better myself. From books to hands-on experience, I've always felt that knowledge is indeed power and as a result I have learned so much from simply taking things apart and putting them back together again.
Server Administration is not only my profession, but also my hobby. My entire network is rigged so that if any change occurs to the structural integrity of my servers, I will be notified in minutes. If data is lost on a production server, I always have a backup ready. And thanks to the marvel of heartbeat, if a production box is out of comission for whatever reason, a fresh backup server is always ready to step in place. All of this and I have a wiki on my local network that I use to store recipes.
Software Experience
I started my career as a programmer, dabbling in Coldfusion and SQL for fun and then finally for a career choice. From there I've branched into other forms of web-based programming, such as php which this site is currently using, to much more low-level programming languages like Perl and C. However as my career grew and my computer knowledge matured, I decided that the only way I could possibly enjoy programming was if I was programming things I actually had a vested interest in, which sadly was not anything I was being paid to do. I made a lateral move to System Administration, something I enjoyed doing and was willing to learn more about, and I haven't looked back since. I am a Linux Tech Engineer and proud of it.
This site is created using a framework called the fusebox architecture. I have extensive experience in this as well, as I have created the fusebox backbone for my former employer's intranet from the ground up. If you are a site programmer, I suggest you take a look at it as it is beneficial in terms of Object-Oriented Programming, organization, and generally making site management a billion times easier! I can't stress enough how great fusebox architecture is from a programmer's perspective.
Hardware Experience
In my spare time and also as side work, I will build custom-made PC's. Building it custom allows me to tailor a computer to my specific needs, as well as gives me the peace of mind knowing what I have going on inside my PC. Building computers has also given me a fairly decent knowledge of the inner workings of a workstation, and I've used this knowledge to fix several hardware-related issues with other people's computers. Protip: If your hard drive starts to make strange noises, back up your data and break open your piggy bank.
I enjoy voiding warranties. I have successfully hacked an xbox into a Linux box, and it ran quite stable until I got bored with it and modded it back to normal. Had I really wanted to, I could have turned it into a webserver, media server, or basically anything I wanted. But it was a stupid gimmick that served no merit to being an actual production server but just a "look at what I can do" thing. It is currently collecting dust as I am now using my xbox 360 for legitimate gaming.
Personal Stuff
I have plenty of hobbies, most of which take up a majority of my free time so I never really have time to be bored anymore. I like hiking, geocaching, cooking, gaming (xbox and WoW of course), winetasting, cocktail-mixing, and of course yo-yoing, an admittedly obscure hobby. I've been throwing since I was a kid but you can usually find me in my basement swinging a yoyo around into some pretty neat tricks (not to brag or anything...). I think I'm pretty good but nowhere near as good as Doctor Popular, Andre Bouley, Yuuki Spencer, or Augie Fash. These guys are nuts, and having seen some of them perform in person, they make it all look so easy.
I love movies. I like to consider myself a movie buff but I'm sure you've seen more obscure movies than I have. Sadly I prefer catching a movie on Netflix than going to the theater, as it pains me to say that it's a rarity to go to a movie theater nowadays and not have the experience ruined by some jerk that won't shut up. I love music and am very eclectic, but I can usually be found listening to all kinds of metal/rock, but most notably my favorite band Dream Theater.
When I'm not doing any of the above by my lonesome, I spend my quality free time with my wife and two cats in our house on Long Island, NY.
What does "Einados" mean?
Ugh, I can't tell you how many times I hear this. It started as an inside joke between my friends and I (the roots of which I'll never tell), and it just sorta evolved into me buying it as my first domain name. It has since stuck with me through the good times and the bad. It's pronounced "EIN - uh - dose". That's it, that's all you'll ever hear about it from me.
What lies in the shadow of the statue?
Ille qui nos omnes servabit.
I guess that's all I can think of now. Glad you read all of that, if you did.
-Dan