I'm an IT professional (performance testing), musician & motorcyclist living
in Melbourne, Australia. In the past I've been a Civil Engineer, musician, and now IT. This site is mainly a place
for me to keep useful stuff, but it's also for the benefit of those who may employ me.
IT stuff...
- Software load &
performance testing, mostly with Hewlett Packard (formerley
Mercury Interactive) tools LoadRunner,
Quality Centre, Performance Centre, WinRunner, QuickTestPro, etc. I've got certifications for a lot
of this stuff (a little dated now tho).
- System Administration
- mostly UNIX stuff, & some Windows, but not exactly current experience.
- Programming languages - C,
C++, Perl, Java, JavaScript, UNIX shell, Expect,
VB, VB Script, etc. I pickup & use stuff as I need it to get the job done.
- Performance monitoring
& tuning.
- Database testing,
monitoring, tuning, etc. Mostly Oracle, but lately quite a bit of DB2.
- I've also dealt with
various other technologies - middlewares, CORBA,
MQSeries, WebSphere,
Siebel, etc.
While I have quite broad technical experience, the past 5-7 years has been focused mainly on
performance testing. I enjoy technical work, and despite my advancing years, I have no desire to move into
team-leader / management roles. So don't bother calling me for that kind of work - you're
wasting your time and mine.
Here is my CV in MS Word format.
I have worked in many different market sectors: Telco, Automotive, Finance, Insurance & Government.
You can email me at
I play guitar. I prefer the stratocaster, but I also have some teles & a Gibson Les Paul
(bought for the Fleetwood Mac stuff). I have some other guitars, mostly relics from the
eighties. For amps I have Marshalls & Fenders. Fairly traditional tastes all round when I
see it all written down... I'd classify my playing as classic rock with some 80's
influences thrown in. Blues based, but with some weirdness lurking on the edges.
My early inspirations were Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. I started on electric
bass but soon switched to guitar. During the early-mid 1980's I played in
original bands with friends, namely Justice then Fair Warning. We played
big-hair hard rock - which was popular at the time. Fair Warning released one
EP called Love To Rock'n'Roll (mp3s here, and some demos here, and some live stuff here), and had a
reasonable following on the Melbourne
pub scene. It self-destructed in 1987 so I started playing covers. These were
the best of times for cover bands - lots of venues, lots of bands, lots of
money. Ah, those were the days.
I liked some of the heavier grunge bands of the 90's: Soundgarden,
Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains.
In 1991/2 I got the chance to play in the US
with a talented Melbourne-based songwriter friend of mine, Kaliopi.
We get together every few years to play & renew our musical relationship, which I enjoy very much. I have
also played on another friend's project, the Crazy Diamond CD "Age of
Descent".
Until recently I was playing with a Fleetwood Mac tribute band called Fleetwood To The Max. That band is
unfortunately no longer. I also play in a country rock outfit called "Bad
Habits" (MySpace link below), and lately have joined another Fleetwood Mac tribute called
"Gypsy".
We're working around town (& the country) so check us out...
Performing with Bad Habits, 2009.
I still like a big loud guitar. Current favourites are Muse, Porcupine Tree,
Opeth, Foo Fighters, Rod Hot Chilli Peppers, Tool, The Mars Volta, Chris Cornell, Queens of the Stoneage, and System Of A Down. Classic favourites
include Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Rush, Pink Floyd, etc. Of local bands I like COG, Karnivool, Electric Mary, The Butterfly Effect
(they're latest album is absolute killer), Ash Grunwald, Birds Of Tokyo,
Eskimo Joe, and evergreen blues guitarist Kevin Borich; he's a great live player, go and see him...
Here's some music-related links:
Got into digital photography for awhile, then got out of it again – mainly
bcos I fried my camera in water (yeah, NOW they make them
waterproof..). Anyway, I shot film (Nikon F90X) for a few years, but now I'm back in the
digital domain with a Nikon D40. The D40 is cheap
and really easy to use, but really I'm just biding my time until the full-frame Nikon's
fall into my price range.
For film I like Fuji - Superia 100, 200, & 400 if I have to, and
the classic Velvia. Never shoot much B&W but when I do I
love it; should do it more often I suppose. I've been
pretty slack generally with my photography, but I did finally get around to
putting some of my stuff on Flickr (see below).
Cherry Lake, Altona
Some photography related links -
I currently ride a 2007 YZF R1 and a 2006 Suzuki SV1000. I started on a 1996
Kawasaki GPX250 and until recently owned a Yamaha 1997 TRX 850 and a 2001 YZF R6.
Some bike links -
