Résumé
In the mid-1990s I decided that instead of shouting at my Windows machine daily, and despite a complete lack of formal computer knowledge, I was going to take the plunge and switch over to Linux, the free UNIX-like operating system for PCs.
I came to realize that my personal anti-Windows stance was more than a little hypocritical. I mean, I was not exactly a ground-breaking hacker: at the time, my only other practical experience in the computing world was on Macintosh.
Spending my time bashing something instead of learning about it is as useful as those guys who shout out "tips" from the stands at a ball game. And when I get on my own nerves it's time to do something. So I started tinkering.
Since 2004 I have been experimenting with system adminstration and more specifically, security, working on web application security for Flyguides, providing security assessments with Delmar Open Source Associates and, from October, 2005, leading the security practice at independent industry analyst firm, The 451 Group.
Currently run test network comprising multiple Ubuntu, SuSE and Gentoo Linux with virtual hosts, LAMP stack; and SMTP/postfix/amavis/clamav/LMTP/courier-imap based mail server, SAMBA and CIFS interface with Windows machines, NFS client/server configuration.
Run Snort and StillSecure IDS , Immunity Canvas and Metasploit for testing, running exploits against virtual machines (in VMWare and Parallels) Windows (XP, 2000) and Linux image targets. Note: this does not make me a pen-tester, and I don't claim to be one. I use these tools as learning aids.
Hand-write valid XHTML 1.0, HTML 3.x code and CSS-based websites with PHP/MySql (such as nickselby.com).
Good working knowledge of GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and similar. Some limited use of Microsoft FrontPage and similar WYSIWYG editors.
