Who is that mysterious man in the hat, and why does he talk about himself in the third-person like that?

Hello, the fact that you are here implies that you have some questions about who I am. That is very interesting to me, and for that reason I have decided to log your IP so that I can do some research about YOU! Mwa ha ha. Just kidding. Probably.

My name is Andrew, and I am addicted to computers.

There are worse things to be addicted to, right? I don't know why I get so excited at their potential.. perhaps it is because I have never worked on the front line at a tech support call-center. Heh.

Broadly, computers are pretty darn fascinating. However, there are a couple of areas that have been piquing my interest lately. Data, and the methods of transforming data into knowledge, is what I have been spending my spare time on. The term "web services" describes inter-networked fields of data, the technologies that describe and serve that data to client apps, and the applications built to manage and use that data. By using keywords to semantically define data fields via XML, providing and sharing the semantic definitions of the data through XML schema and namespaces, and bringing this definition structure into standardized domain ontologies, we may be able to emerge from the veritable deluge of data that we have been flooding ourselves with since the end of the last world war. This idea of automated knowledge generation intrigues me, and I feel that soon we will see that one of the primary factors that will determine an organization's success is their ability to properly manage and access their available knowledge stores when it is most relevant.

On the other hand, Lane Community College does not offer courses on XML. Or web services, Ajax, SOAP, JSON, YAML, etc. This means that I get to teach myself what I can while I am not busy with my other courses. Or projects. Or hobbies. For better or for worse, I guess I will have to content myself with the resources afforded me by my internet connection. Gee-wiz, whatever will I do? Now if I could only find an open-source time dilation device... I might actually have the time necessary to learn enough to make it useful before everyone has moved on to the NEXT BIG THING! Apparently that would be games for the iPhone.

My hope is to someday do work in the field of educational technology, and am attempting to direct my coursework along that path. I am currently a student at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR, majoring in Network Administration, with extensive coursework in software development, network security, database administration, and web design and marketing. I have also taken courses related to sociology, anthropology, and psychology. I hope to begin studying education (and implications for using technology in education), geographical information systems, and to improve my software development skill-sets with a focus on project management. If you are starting to get the feeling that I am a jack of all trades, that would be relatively accurate. But wait, there is more!

I do my best with my limited time to develop my various other hobbies (with varying levels of success!)

• music (I play the saxophone)
• photography
• theater (I haven't performed in any shows since I lived in Michigan, unfortunately)
• the great outdoors
• SCIENCE!

Of course, there is much more to me than just that, but if you wish to know more then you will simply have to get to know me through more direct methods. Try my Twitter feed, or shoot me an email.