Professional

I have been in the web-hosting industry for over four years. I am currently employed as a System Engineer at PEER 1. Most recently, I have been acting as technology lead for a small team of developers working on a web-based CRM to be used by internal staff for billing, ticketing, provisioning and server operations, as well as being used by external customers to interface with billing, support, and customer service staff. This system is being written in Java and is making use of SOAP-compliant web services provided by Microsoft BizTalk to interact with a number of backend systems.

My employment at PEER 1 is a result of two separate acquisitions. In 2002, I was hired by Hostcentric as a Technical Support Representative and Junior System Administrator. Approximately one year later, Hostcentric was acquired by Interland, and the Hostcentric business was allowed to operate autonomously for more than a year. During this time, I was promoted to the level of System Administrator, and continued to provide advanced support for various web, e-mail, and database server platforms while taking on a larger role in ongoing deployment, maintenance and consolidation of the same. Additionally, I handled development tasks as necessary, writing and maintaining software in PHP, Perl, ASP and ColdFusion. The vast majority of these integrated with one or more databases, typically Microsoft SQL or MySQL. In other cases, various XML-based technologies, such as WDDX, were used for passing data between disparate systems.
Over a year after Interland's purchase of Hostcentric, the decision was made to downsize the former Hostcentric facility, and I was asked to stay on as a Product Developer and System Engineer for the Dedicated Hosting segment of the Interland business. In this capacity, I have been responsible for maintenance of existing platforms, development and implementation of new hosting platforms, and development and maintenance of various internal systems and applications. In 2005, PEER 1 announced its acquisition of the Dedicated Hosting segment of Interland's business. I have continued in the same position with PEER 1 since then, with my focus being shifted to the aforementioned CRM development project.
Academic

I graduated from The University of Central Florida with a BS in Digital Media: Computing for Media in August 2006. During my last two semesters at UCF, I was involved in a research project in association with Dr. Cliff Zou and a fellow student and former co-worker, Corey Kuwanoe. The focus of our research was the design and implementation of a proof of concept attack utilizing clients in a BitTorrent swarm as unknowing participants in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The research grew out of a more primitive version developed by Corey and myself in Dr. Zou's Network and Computer Security course. Dr. Zou was impressed and intrigued by our research, and encouraged us to further develop our concept for submission to an academic security conference. In the following semester, we did so, and I was the primary author of A BitTorrent-Driven Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack, which has been submitted to IEEE INFOCOM 2007 and is currently under consideration for the conference.

Personal

Music is my biggest passion in my personal life. I'm into all kinds of stuff; from hip-hop to indie rock and electronic music in all of its flavours. I love going to good shows, and checking out new bands and DJ's. I also spin records, purely as a hobby, and my record collection is somewhere between respectable and obscene. In a former life (some might call it 'my teen years'), I produced a few original tracks, and I'd like to get back into doing that sometime before I die.

I'm also into collecting and wearing sneakers and am into street fashion in general. I spend way too much money supporting this habit, but hey, you only live once, right?

Finally, I like art, particularly graphic design and design-influenced artwork, as well as street art and graffiti. Similarly, I'm interested in how design, visual art, and multimedia can enhance the presentation of ideas and data. Marshall McLuhan is still making my head spin.