I prefer to think of “career” as a verb rather than a noun, having worked in academic and telecoms research, as well as having been the CTO of a startup, before several years in IT strategy consultancy. That’s led me to building elements of megawatt radio systems, writing electromagnetic finite element analysis software, designing protocols for high speed wireless networks, as well as building and running the technical side of one of the UK’s first national ISPs from an old brewery in rural Somerset.
I’ve also designed and delivered many large-scale web applications, including one of the first consumer photo services, with a multi-terabyte online image store, designed the infrastructure for the first multi-million user webmail service, implemented secure global B2B information hubs, and come up with next-generation mobile network architectures.
And that was all before I became a full time writer.
“I built stuff, I coded stuff, I thought about stuff, I ran stuff, I designed stuff, I told people how to do stuff, now I write about stuff.”
I’ve been a freelance journalist since the early days of the web and writes about everything from enterprise architecture to gadgets, specialising in developer and enterprise.
You’ll have seen my words in magazines, national newspapers, and online. Places I’ve written for include The Guardian, The Financial Times, InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, TechRepublic, The New Stack, Woody’s Watch, ZDNet, IT Pro, PC Plus, .Net, The Register, Internet Works, PC Answers, Computer Arts, Computing, Computer Weekly, Cloud Pro, Code Matters, Data Center Knowledge, Data Center Dynamics, Grey Matter’s Hardcopy, IT Pro Today, Techradar, Application Development Advisor, CITEWorld, CreativBloq, Data Business, IT Expert, Information Age, It’s Open, IT Week, Know Your Mobile, PC Advisor, PC Format, PC Magazine, PCW, Petri, Practical Web Pages, International Developer, Server Management, Network News, Bluetooth World, The BlackBerry Bookazine, Network News, Mobile Business, Recombu, The H, Tom’s Guide, Web Designer, The Official Windows XP Magazine, Demon Dispatches, and T3.
My work has been translated into many languages, including Korean, French, Japanese, and German.
I’ve also written fiction reviews for SFX and Vector.
Some of my earliest writing has been excavated from a dying hard disk.
I’ve also inadvertantly been an alternate history.