Let me help you solve your computer system problems. For ten years I managed development, implementation and support at SAM Business Systems, a small to medium-sized UK software house of which I was co-founder and a director. I combined those entrepreneurial and management functions with the role of chief technical officer. SAM specialised in providing software for the automation ("straight through processing") of trading, administration and accounting of shares and other financial instruments. My full time involvement with the company ceased in early 2003 with the sale of half the business to its management. The company was absorbed by another London financial systems software house Summer 2005. Since leaving SAM I have been involved independently in some interesting projects. I am always willing to consider one more. Any ideas? Nowadays, from time to time, I am happy to find myself in the role of a hands-on software engineer. Essentially I'm an itinerant freelance IT consultant specialising in solutions using "free" and/or "open source" software. Perl might be my favourite programming language but I am also very fluent in C and some other languages. Databases are second nature to me. I have worked in a Unix/GNU/Linux environment for most of the last 20+ years and so I can dream in Shell Script and Awk. Debian rocks as does Ubuntu. I can boot MS Windows on my laptop but that happens quite rarely nowadays. Networking, both the programming and the configuration, just isn't difficult if you have the right background knowledge and, you guessed it, I do. But all this is just detail: The list is too long. Let me just say I have a broad understanding of technical computing issues and in many areas that knowledge is quite deep. I have wide ranging skills and I am able to pick up new ones as required. What I do is combine deep technical understanding with proven strategic vision and tactical experience. That's enough boasting and enough jargon: Let me help you solve your computer system problems. I can be lazy: I don't want to work too hard and I am no longer greedy enough to need to. What I want is to do something easy for me which makes a big difference to others. From time to time I satisfy this ambition. As was once said of me: Paul can provide a $200 solution to your $20,000 problem. Another way of putting this is: I will waste neither your time nor your money. If you have an interesting problem, opportunity or idea drop me a line or give me a call. If you want to pay me that would be fine but I'll work for free if I can contribute to something worthy but cash-starved. Or, if there is profit to be made, then maybe I'll take a share, either in lieu of wages or as an investment. Current areas of interest are not limited to: Free/open software solutions for schools and businesses, wiki web sites, automated trading and web-bots, Python, Haskell, ...
Paul Beardsell
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