It is quite impressive to read about our members and I too think this thread was a wonderful idea.
So, I guess its my turn to contribute aswell and let you know who I am and where I came from
Born in Sydney Australia, I moved to Greece along with my family back in 1986. After completing high school, I decided to head back to Australia in order to get the type of education I wasn't able to get here in Greece - not because the education system is bad, but because I failed to get into the sector I wanted (electronics at the time).
My trip to Australia lasted 7 years, and I managed to complete my degree in Electrical Technology along with two diplomas in Network Support and Administration. While studying , I was able to work in the electrical engineering field, which gave me the opportunity to work with computers and slowly come to love them.
While in Australia I worked for the largest manufacturer of IVR (Interactive Voice Response systems) and Internet Banking servers and that's where my career started to slowly plot its way:)
My job back then allowed me to also travel all over Australia and New Zealand, discovering new cities and towns which I wouldn't be able to ever do so at my expense and for that I am really grateful as I've seen most of the two countries have to offer.
During that time, I started working with Novell Netware and really came to love the operating system for it's stability. My first certification also happened to be Novell's Netware 3.12 CNA, and then 4.11 and finally 5, after which I started looking at other O/S's in order to get a good taste of what the sector had to offer.
In fact, when I was considering registering a domain for my party, I was contemplating between Firewall.cx and Netware.cx, but decided that the first would allow me to analyse a broad range of firewalls, something the 2nd domain name was not able to offer, so on the 20th of June 2000, I registered Firewall.cx.
After 6 months, and having completed my CCNA, which at the time was a great achievement for me, I wanted to help other people who were in the same battle, and started working on this site.
As time passed, I finished my degree and 8 (if I remember correctly) certifications, so I decided it was time to come back to Greece and complete my army duties
Enrolled into the Greek army on the 29th of January 2002 and completed my service after 6 months - Having been born in Australia and spending most of my life there, allowed me to qualify for a reduced service, so instead of 12 months, I only did 6 :wink:
Having the army behind my back, I started looking for a job and scored a good one for a company that worked on a contractible basis for Silicon Graphics, aka SGI. The technologies we used were amazing as we worked on SGI's latest projects to produce the well known super computers which contain graphics cards with 2-4 gigs of ram and upto 14 dedicated processors! At the same time, I also started working part time (in the afternoons) for an institute as a CCNA instructor.
Because the company was a bit too small for me and I wanted to explore even more the networking sector, I decided to grab a golden opportunity and work for one of Europe's largest aluminum extrusion companies - Alumil, which is also were I am at the moment [but not for long... keep reading].
My latest job was a real eye opener. I got to practice all my theoretical knowledge here, having to support over 350 users, 5 wan connections, 12 Windows 2000 servers, and a wide range of Cisco products which include VPN concentrators, Routers, Voice Gateways, Call Managers, IP Phones, Concentrators [11500 series] and switches ranging from 1900 to 3550's.
While I love my current job, I have decided to leave it and start my own business along with a good friend. The new business will be dealing with IT and Internet services but I won't get into any further details.
My hobbies include electronics, and especially LED's (I love them!), traditional Greek music (for those who are Greek - pontian music) and dancing. I am also a member of a local pontian dancing group.
I love going out to the movies and eating at our well known for their food, greek taverns.
While I listen to all sorts of music, I dislike heavy metal music because I can't ever understand what they say, plus I need a few panadol's after to ease the headache
My favorite artist is Yanni [
www.yanni.com], I simply love his music and am a big fan of his. I also like Enya, Vangelis, Mike oldfield and a few more artists.
Oh, I also am a Star Trek fan - I use to attend the Star Trek conventions that were held in Sydney every year!
Closing, while I love to play games, I try to avoid it as I prefer spending my time in a much more creative manner e.g working on this site:>, but I do have a game or two on my laptop, which also happen to be my favorite time killers - Unreal Tournament 2004 and Empire Earth!
Cheers,