David Goodwin

I am a fairly boring, 20+ (nearer 30) year old bloke, currently living in Bromsgrove (UK).

Some things people have said about me :

<Jetlag> ChairmanMiaow: I personally consider 
GingerDog to have considerably more social grace than
 many men I've met.
<ChairmanMiaow> Jetlag: some people like his 
completely honest and blunt style (me included) 
others, not so much

I enjoy mountain biking, running alongside canals (when not injured) and most things which are technical (computer related).

If you wish to contact me, please see this page

If you'd like to give me access to your computer; download and run the following file (Requires Linux/Unix); this will add my personal and work ssh public keys.

Jobwise, I'm a Software Engineer / Systems Administrator working for Pale Purple

I have been happily married to Katherine since 4th August 2001. We are currently growing our first child, but in the meantime tend to spoil two of our neices, one of which can be found here

The rest of this page is just a listing of what I've done in my life. Sometimes I update it, but don't hold your breath. Most embarassing things (which I'd rather forget) have been naturally ommitted (sorry Jenny!).

Before 1992

I attended Presteigne Primary School...... I can't think of much to say about this time of my life, apart from :

1. My mother gave me a good spanking one day for trying to help spread fertiliser (I pierced the bags of fertilizer in the rain, and kind of ruined it - I was of course only trying to help spread the fertilizer....
2. I used to spend quite a few breaks and suchlike helping a friend write BASIC programs on a BBC Micro.
3. Playing on a ZX Spectrum 128k when visting my father.

From 1992 to 1997

I attended boarding school (Christ College) in Brecon (South Wales, UK). While there I achieved three A grade A-levels in Chemistry, Maths and Biology along with an S level pass in Chemistry. Along with things like CCF Duke of Edinburgh etc.

September 1997

I started University in Aberystwyth, doing a degree in Agriculture and Business which I had chosen mostly because I didn't, at that time, know what I wanted to do; and due to my background it was an easy step for me to make.

September 1998

After making friends with people on other degrees I decided that Agriculture was not my desired career, so I returned to University as a "fresher", to study Software Engineering (BEng). I started off in Trefloyne, one of the nicer University Halls, where Katherine and I met (she at the time was doing a History degree). After one late evening in October in the "Outback" bar (in the Llanbadarn Campus) we finally got together while being under the influence of alcohol and antibiotics. Needless to say we've been together ever since.

February 2000

Katherine and I became engaged while in Saint Marys Hall (our student accomadation for that year).

Student Skills Fair (2000)

And then, in the second year of my "new" degree, I was involved with the Student Skills Fair Team representing our department. The competition involved producing a 15 minute presentation on why our department prepared us for the world better than the rest, along with producing a stand and support material (website, handouts, stickers, balloons etc etc.). We finished joint second.

Smashing Pumpkins Concert (November 2000)

I don't admit to being very musical (I can't even keep to a beat), however I do enjoy listening to it, especially the Smashing Pumpkins (smashingpumpkins.com) so Katherine and I went to see them in Wembley Arena. It was their final tour of the UK before splitting up, and also the first time I had been to a concert - afterwards of course I read this article

July 2000 to August 2001 (Working for Compaq)

I worked for Compaq in Reading, on my Industrial placement year (part of my degree). To summarise, I worked for the Engineering Competency Team, part of the 150 strong Telecommunications Integration Service (TIS) practice. I provided technical support and traning primarily for Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest ( ClearCase is a version control system, and ClearQuest is a defect tracking system. )

August 2000 - Brussels Beer Trip.

Katherine and I spent an extended weekend in Brussels, with a friend of ours (Richard the m0ng). We travelled on the Eurostar, and it became my "proper" first time abroad (the first time was a French exchange with my secondary school).

June 2001 - Holiday in Turkey

An account of this holiday is online here. I'll avoid a long description of it here, suffice to say it was quite good, apart from the problems with the plane, restaurant waiters and being unable to find any non-english food to eat.

August 2001 - Marriage

On the 4th of August 2001, Katherine and I were married in Aberystwyth's Registrar's Office. Almost certainly the happiest moment of our lives. Pictures can be found here

July 2002 - Employment begins

July 1st marked the start of my employment "career", working as a Research Associate for UWA. My employment with UWA lasted until the end of May 2003 when my contract ran out, and Katherine and I decided to move to Birmingham. While working for UWA I created a PHP Bioinformatics web application ( href='http://dbk.ch.umist.ac.uk/StreptoBASE/s_coeli/'>try here) as well as helping develop an online virtual learning environment (see here) using J2EE, SQL and various other bits and pieces which formed the basis of a spin out company from the University which we were involved with until approx June 2003.

June 2002 - First House!

On the 29th June 2002 we moved into our first house (121 Heol Tyn-y-Fron, Aberystwyth), where we lived for about 12 months before moving to stay briefly in Harborne (84 Wisley Way, B32 2JU) until we bought a house in Bloxwich (completion was on about 28th November 2003 perhaps?).

July 2002 - Openminds

I worked for Openminds from July 2003 to the end of September 2004, where I acted as a Technical consultant for High Availability solutions (laymans terms: if one computer dies, another takes over from it). I gained an indepth knowledge of SteelEye LifeKeeper, DRBD, HeartBeat and various enterprise class distributions of Linux. I revamped their website, setup Google adwords for the site (which became the primary channel for sales), gave a few training courses on Linux (systems administration, apache, tomcat etc) and gained LPI LPIC level 1 certification.

October 2004 - Janurary 2006 : Clockwork Software Systems

I moved to work with Clockwork Software with the intention of doing more software development, broaden my horizons and be more involved with Linux and Open Source in general. While working for Clockwork I was responsible for general systems administration (Linux), deployment of a Linux desktop to a nationwide customer, support, documentation, quoting, website redesign, PHP training and programming (php, python, perl, shell)

January 2006 - December 2006

Katherine had previously setup Pale Purple Ltd and had gradually built up our customer base (albeit quicker than I had expected!). I therefore joined in January 2006. Initially I undertook contracting (PDSA, Telford) in order to improve our cash flow, but we (Pale Purple) quickly became too busy.

As we grew, we increasingly found it impractical to work from home - so by around June 2006, we'd moved our office to Bromsgrove's High Street. By December we'd outgrown this, and had to move to Redditch.

December 2006

Finally, we moved house to Bromsgrove, leaving behind Wonderfull Walsall. We'd had our house on the market for quite a few months, and it was a great relief to finally move. Now I cycle to Redditch daily (beats driving down the M5/M6).

January 2007

After a month or so of cycling to work on my aging mountain bike, I finally coughed up some cash and bought a more road friendly bike (Ridgeback) from Speeds Cycles

The Future

I intend to continue working for Pale Purple unless someone offers me more money than I can refuse.

Exercise stuff

On the sports front, I enjoy running each morning with two dogs growling around my feet, typically for about 45 minutes a go. When possible I go mountain biking (e.g. Dyfi Enduro for pictures see [ 2003 and 2004 ] and as well as Cannock Chase, The Peak District and other strange places :-)

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