Finally, on-line!

A few years ago, I bought this domain name, just in case…

I thought about publishing a blog with IT tips and tricks of my own. It took some time to start this project. I was too lazy (I’m just working 75 to 100 hours a week) to bring the server on line, choose a blogging platform and finally write my first post.

First of all, a few words about me (be.linkedin.com/in/pascalfuks/): My name is really Pascal Fuks, it’s (unfortunately) not a joke (it’s just FOX in German with a spelling mistake — FUCHS). I did start to build and play with computers around 1979. In those times, one of my hobbies was electronics. In my magazines, they began to write about digital electronics (vs. analogue), and I wanted to try those things. I had an Altos computer (the one that was used to create CP/M), and built a few things around microprocessors (SC/MP, 6502, 8080, Z80, 6809,…). I also convinced my school to buy a computer (TRS80-Model 1) and started a computer club there. After that, I worked with computers for companies during nights and weekends, while still at school. I had the opportunity to work for Schneider/Amstrad (among others). I developed what should be one of the first dongles in computer history (first for the Commodore 64, then for the Amstrad CPC). I also wrote BIOSes, worked on Wang computers, wrote the first ODBC driver for DB2 running on mainframes (1993), and had a lot of other funny experiences. I had my first contact with Unix in 1987. It was a real revelation. Linux caught me around 1992 (early stage), and I also wrote the first driver for the Creative 3dfx graphic card for Windows 2000 (you can still find it by googling for it). This illustrates my main aspect about IT: “There are a lot of solutions to achieve some goal, some of them are proprietary, some of them are open source, and they all have advantages and drawbacks. It just depends on who is using them and how.” I’m against trolling about what’s best or not. I like to find a good way to give my customers (http://www.financialart.be) the best results without sticking to products.

Anyway, there is only one religion: “Fear Murphy’s law!”, and my favourite sentence is:

“When you’re in trouble, if you think it can’t be worse, you just lack imagination.”

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.” (G. B. Shaw)

Now, feel free to contact me, and I’ll start posting interesting things I’ve developed, or just managed to make work, in my fascinating “Network & Security Architect” working life.