The first computer I owned was the Acorn Electron on which I taught myself the BASIC programming language, typing out pages and pages of code from a magazine to create simple programs such as text based adventure games.
A got my first PC in 1995, where I got hold of a C++ compiler and started to write programs that ran on Microsoft’s DOS. The most useful program I wrote was a multiplayer interface for id Software’s Doom II: Hell on Earth called Digiware Doom Device Driver (DDDD). Doom II allowed up to 4 players to play over an IPX network or 2 players over either a modem or serial connection. DDDD allowed up to 4 players to play using any combination of connection. (e.g. 3 people could be playing over an IPX network and a 4th could be playing via a modem connection).
Today most of my development is done for the Windows operating system.
Through the years I have worked with many Microsoft products, but focusing on server based computing technologies such as Terminal Services and Citrix XenApp. I have worked as a technical consultant where I was responsible for the design, implementation of many enterprise customer projects, using a wide range of technologies such as Microsoft Windows Server 2003 / 2008, Active Directory, Citrix XenApp, VMware ESX and Microsoft’s App-V. I was also heavy involved in the Citrix Access Gateway product line implementing some of the first installations of CAG Advanced Access Control in the UK.
During my time as a consultant I also worked in a software development team, designing and developing products which at the time ‘filled the gaps’, providing customers with the security, reliability and performance they required from server based computing environments. Features of these products are still used today in other applications including AppSense Technologies’ Environment Manager.
More recently I was responsible for the design and development of a clientless application virtualisation engine known as VirtuaWrapper.