About

My name’s Luke. I am a 22 year old self-confessed geek, currently studying BS(c) Computing Networks at Sheffield Hallam University. In between studying, I also work for a company called 8Networks as Project Lead, planning and managing the rollout of networks to a growing client base.

Once upon a time (read: around a year ago), I was a member of the merchant navy, working for Cunard Line as a Computer Systems Officer on board the (in)famous QE2, and the much larger Queen Mary 2 ‘ocean liner’.

Believe it or not, they actually had me in charge of a lifeboat of 200 people, and I was a trained emergency firefighter – thankfully niether my seafaring nor my fire-fighting skills were ever put to the test in a real-life emergency. To think of the dozens of evenings I wasted watching Backdraft and Castaway

Before that, I maintained a successful hardware review site from the age of fourteen, which saw me liasing with the likes of Microsoft and Western Digital, and still have my first ‘acceptance e-mail’ saved somewhere.

I now find myself becoming more and more immersed in the ‘world of Linux’, though a large part of my time is still spent within a Windows environment (specifically server-side..). Whilst I appreciate that Microsoft provide good, solid solutions to corporate scenarios – I am also extremely appreciative of and inspired by the culture of goodwill that has seen the development of Linux into what it is today (I still remember having my mind warped by FreeBSD4 and Gentoo Stage 1 installs).

And of course there is its lack of price tag. (Yes, the Windows’ fanboys are screaming TCO – come back to me when you’ve got a good bar chart, or better still, have spent the same amount of time in Linux as you have in Windows).

There is a place for both Windows and Linux in the marketplace, but I’m increasingly finding that Linux can cater for the same ‘big corporation’ problems, and in an increasing majority of cases – provide an easier solution.

I have a thirst for knowledge where technology is concerned, and if you hadn’t already guessed the vast majority of my time is spent in or around computers in one guise or another. Be it trying to learn another programming language, or toying with different RAID configurations on old rackmount ‘big iron’ servers, my mind is constantly drawn back to technology.

I think that’ll do for now – I’m already sounding far too conceited. I’m quite modest in person, honest.