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About Chris Partsenidis

My name is Chris Partsenidis, founder and senior editor of Firewall.cx.

My hobbies include astronomy, listening to a lot of music including Yanni, Vangelis, Enya , Greek Pontian dancing and working with electronic circuits. My main hobby and passion is this website, where I try to get online more quality material for our visitors to read online.

When I first got into the networking world (1997) there were very few good sources for reading and learning about various networking topics, I found that frustrating! This is the main reason Firewall.cx exists today.

I wanted to spend as much time required to create a site that people will turn to in order to get information that they would easily understand, with colourful diagrams to help clarify difficult concepts.

From the feedback we have received, I know that this goal has been accomplished and the development of this site will continue!

In June 2000 I registered Firewall.cx and used it as a test domain for my servers and, a year later, after a lot of development, I had the site permanently online. Today, Firewall.cx has become one of the most respectable websites within the IT community and this is just the beginning! To view the changes that occurred to the site, visit the "Website History" page.

My networking experience includes 8 years of designing, installing, setting up, troubleshooting and stuffing up (!) networks, servers, firewalls and webservers for clients all over Australia and New Zealand, while at the same time undertaking contracts for network support and consultation.

Here in Greece, I've had the chance to work as a senior Network Engineer at Alumil-Milonas S.A - one of Europe's largest alumilium profile manualfactors, where I was responsible for a network over 450 workstations, 15 file servers, with multiple WAN connections all over the country and over 35 different Cisco network technologies, including Cisco Catalyst & content switches, routers, VPN Concentrators, Call Managers, Unity servers and more than 350 IP phones!

I've also spent hundreds of hours giving seminars for the ICND (Internetworking Cisco Network Devices) which is a preparation course for the CCNA at a local educational institute.

Currently I am running my own business named 'Datavision' (www.datavision.gr) in Thessaloniki-Greece. My company deals with a variety of IT services, with main focus in data telecommunications, network security and Internet services.

Lastly you'll find me fulfilling the position of a 'Site Expert' for SearchNetworking.com where I answer questions regarding networking concepts that people pose to me, and I'm a frequent book reviewer for Amazon.com, many of which titles are also included in our site.

Regarding my educational background, I completed my degree in Electrical Technology in 1999 while working in the IT area. Since my first degree, I have completed several courses in networking, such as Network Support, Network Management and have extended my knowledge by completing several certifications:

Certified Novell Administrator (CNA) for NetWare 3, 4 and 5.
Certified D-Link Engineer (DCE)
Cisco Certified Network Associate v2 (CCNA)
Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) for Win2k Professional and Server
Linux Certified Professional (LCP)
CompTIA Network+
CompTIA A+
HellasSat Certified Installer

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At this point I am pursuing the Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) certification. Even though certifications give a lot of credit, they cannot replace long term experience.

I believe knowledge is there to share and not to keep to yourself and, for this reason, I ask that you let others know about this site as well ! :)

I hope the site is beneficial for everyone and hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you !

Chris Partsenidis.