Geek

A random sampling of some of my gear & gadgets. More info below.

My technology-focused interests vary pretty cyclically. I have a wide breadth experience with a number of different subject areas, each of which with I have a degree of knowledge that ranges from “aware of” to “can teach someone about.”

Computer Hardware

Through experience alone, I’ve become pretty darn savvy with most aspects of computer hardware: internal components (motherboards, CPUs, RAM, hard drives, optical drives, video cards, network cards); peripherals (monitors, keyboards, mice, game controllers, audio, printers [but let’s be honest – does anyone even really like printers??]); and networking elements (routers and cabling and modems, oh my).

Business & Desktop software

• Self-taught (with the help of Google, of course) MS Office guru
  • Word: crazy mail merges, adaptive formatting, and above all: making it look good are all areas in which I take pleasure.
  • Excel: three-or-four deep formulas (hello VLOOKUP and MATCH) & conditional formatting don’t scare me.
  • PowerPoint: Less is more. But effective & attractive ‘less’ is even better than regular ‘less.’
  • Access: I’ll be honest; I’m not as good at Access as I want to be, mostly because I haven’t had the opportunity to get my hands dirty with a real-life “this matters” project. But I’m always on the lookout for one.
• Windows: I know a half dozen hotkeys that you probably haven’t even heard of.
• Google: Heavy user of Drive, GMail/Inbox, YouTube, Calendar, Keep etc for personal & work use.
• Android: I get pumped for every new release (even Lollipop, can flash roms without batting an eye (though I do read all the documentation first… two or three times… just in case…)
• Apple: Not a hater. My main rigs are Windows based, but I can navigate in this ecosystem without flinching.
• Linux: Another instance of “I know the idea behind it but I’ve never experimented in depth.” Happy to change that if given the chance.

Graphic Design

• Several years’ experience designing posters & logos for student organizations at SUNY Potsdam
• Two years as photo & layout editor of school newspaper at SUNY Potsdam
• Great basic photo editing; darn good image manipulator (creator of ‘photoshops’)

Web Design

• 10+ years dabbling in HTML, CSS
• CMS (WordPress, Drupal) experience for personal & business projects
  • Helped manage websites & content for Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Whitney Houston, others during Sony Music internship
• Some MySQL & PHP work for hobby projects
• Webmaster of scratch-made websites for college groups

Programming

AP Computer science & enough hobby-related exploration to have a very solid grasp on core concepts, and the drive & determination to learn (or re-learn) whatever language the task at hand calls for.

No fancy graphics for this one, just a list of some of the languages I have experience with:

• Java
• JavaScript
• C++
• PHP
• Python
• ActionScript

Music composition, engraving, & DAWs

Through my experiences as a musician, I’ve gotten to know several pieces of music software quite intimately:

Learning Management Software

Through my work with the NEF, I’ve become familiar with the ins and outs of the Moodle content management system.

My Gear