How it started

I grew up with computers and around technology. Although I had never planned to work in informatics, I really enjoyed it as a hobby. One of my uncles, Richard not to say his name, was working in IT in technical support and was kind enough to share his knowledge with me. He taught me everything I had to know back then and he answered all of my questions about computers. I can't tell you how many times I called him, he spent many hours on the phone trying to explain and teach me how to do things. This is how everything started! My parents bought me my first real computer when I was in my mid teen, it was a Tandy 128k believe it or not!

Knowing the basics like Microsoft DOS was challenging and quite the learning curve but today it is a great asset to be able to navigate in command line. Today, I have more than 30 years of experience with computers and in IT in general. I started expanding my knowledge when I decided to learn and experiment with Bulletin Board System (BBS) back when I was a teenager, way before the Internet! It worked out well for me, to the point where I became a System Operator (SysOp), operating my own BBS under the Renegade Software.

Training & Experience

I graduated as a Network Administrator back in 2001, thanks to my uncle Richard (again) who supported and guided me through that. Without him I don't think I would be in this position today.   

Over the years, I worked with many Operating Systems starting with MS-DOS up to Microsoft Windows 2008 Servers and everything in between including Active Directory and Kixtart scripting. Although I am far from being an expert, I also worked with a variety of Linux Systems / version and with Mac OS X as well.

On the hardware side, I started my learning curve with my Tandy 128k (commonly known as coco3, the one loading programs from a cassette recorder lol) then I upgraded to a 386SX-25mhz where my first task was to upgrade the RAM. Since then, I did pretty much everything going from upgrading and / or fixing machine up to building entire computers from scratch.

Over the years I received many courses & trainings, i.e.: Microsoft, Cisco, Linux, Dell, etc. I found work as an IT technician / technical support right out of school in a big engineer firm in 2001. Our department was supporting approx. 500 employees. A year later I transitioned as a network administrator for a transport company. The company had sites across the Province therefore I managed not only their local area network (LAN) but also their wide area network (WAN). This was a great challenge for me where I gained tremendous experience as a network administrator. While working for the engineering firm, I started my first company where I offered my IT / Consulting services mostly to residential customers. Four years later, I decided to merge my company and created IDS Communications. At this point, I was offering all kind of services ranging from technical support to consulting, cabling and development. I worked with partners which allowed me to offer a variety of service. The name IDS Communications came from:

I -> Informatics
D-> Development
S-> Services
Communications; was the Networking part of it where a network needs to communicate with all the equipment / devices to properly operate.

In 2008, I made a big decision, following my dream, I changed vocation. Although I was not working in IT anymore, I kept my skills up to date as much as I could. I read online, watch videos (thanks to YouTube and some of the great channels out there) and kept up with the latest technology IT related. I also had a fairly sophisticated network at home where I used commercial grade equipment which forced me to keep my skills sharp (you can see some photos of my setup over the years in my Blog section).

In 2015 my career took another turn bringing me closer to the World I knew - IT! In 2020, I started working in Forensics where I became a Digital Evidence Specialist, adding to my belt courses and certifications from Cellebrite, Graykey, Magnet Forensics, X-Ways Forensics, etc. 

Hobbies

Maintaining this Website and writing articles on my Blog is obviously one of my hobbies, like I said, I love sharing my knowledge hoping it will help people. I still spend a lot of time hands on, mostly working on my personal setup, qualified by some of my friends as "overkill" but it helps me stay on top of my networking skills! If you take a look at my Blog, you'll find interesting articles on miscellaneous technical topics but also pictures of my setup over the years. 

A few years ago, I purchased a DJI Drone as I always loved remote controls "toys". I started taking aerial footage of different locations, mostly the Province I lived at the time and put together little videos. If you would like to have a look at those videos, they are available on my site but also on my YouTube Channel (link below).