What I Do
This is where I tell you a little bit about what I can do. If you have any questions or interest in my skills, please give me a shout at fred@geekhideout.com.
For more information than is shown here, be sure to check out my resume.
Special Expertise
My main area of interest and thus the one in which I am strongest is I/O interfacing and data acquisition. Over the years, I have done things with a PCs parallel port under Windows that many thought simply couldn't be done, including real-time stepper motor and servo motor control.
I have also designed and written drivers for several A/D and D/A ISA/PCI boards for the collection of real time data.
More recently I have shifted my focus to newer technologies that are changing the way the PC is interfaced, particularly USB.
System Security
I have considerable experience in security hardening Unix installations, particularily those that are Linux and OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD based. Some of my skills (but by no means all) include writing firewall rules, patching insecure software, securing sendmail and other MTAs, configuring intruder detections systems, and setting up secure user environments. I am also skilled with writing secure web interfaces via CGI that interact with the system.
My own home server is live on the internet and running OpenBSD 3.0. Despite getting several pokes per day as well as the occasional serious attempt, it has remained secure.
Web/Internet
Since before the world wide web was a household term, I have been developing web pages. I am familiar with a wide variety of web technologies, as outlined here:
- HTML
- CSS
- Macromedia Flash
- Java/Java Script
- PHP
- CGI (Perl, C, Shell Scripts)
Software
I have been behind a keyboard longer than I can remember.
- C/C++
- Delphi/Pascal
- Visual Basic/QuickBasic
- Assembler
- Perl
- Forth
OS-wise, I've developed in all of the following:
- All flavors of Windows
- Unix (SCO, FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD, Linux, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, QNX)
- OS/2
- OS9 (the realtime OS, not the Mac product of the same name)
- DOS
- Macintosh System 1 - 9, OS X
- Proprietary OS's
Electronic
I have 10+ years of expertise in the field of electronic design and development. I have worked on a wide variety of products, ranging from data acquisition systems for chemical analysis to automated voice warning systems in military aircraft.
- Pal/Gal
- Microcontrollers/Embedded Systems
- Analog/Digital/Discrete
- Circuit Boards
I've also designed enclosures (mechanical drawings -> fabrication) and custom keypads.
Technical Writing
I am an accomplished technical writer, having written two books and many articles. I always strive to look at what I am writing from the perspective of the reader rather than my own because it is assumed that while I know the material like the back of my hand, a reader coming into it knows either very little or nothing at all. I am able to adjust my tone to suit the material at hand, from a very casual conversational type tone to very technical.
Graphic Design
I'm no graphic artist. I can barely draw a stick man with any degree of accuracy, but I am comfortable with modern tools and have the ability to make them produce impressive results.
Consulting
Let's face it, if you run a business, you are a very busy person. You have meetings, phone calls and travel to worry about. You have customers and clients that need to be handled just right. All of this leaves precious little time for writing a device driver for your latest widget, laying out that circuit board that you've been meaning to get to, or finding the time to work on the corporate web page.
For a reasonable fee, I'm willing to lighten your load and let you take care of what really matters to you: your business. You will find that I am professional, fast and courteous, and that I really care about what you need done.
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