In the 1980s, I worked at two software companies
that did sexy things like accounting for construction and
automation for insurance agencies. I then was on staff at two
magazines: Ziff-Davis' PC jr, a horrid publication about an
equally dismal machine, the crippled-for-the-home version of the
IBM PC; and Data Communications, a McGraw-Hill technical
trade. DCM had its hidden value, in that I started work there at
almost exactly the same time as the breakup of the Bell System, so
got to observe far more than anyone could have wanted to the
mechanics of telecommunications deregulation and all that has
wrought. I was also early on (say 1986-87) fascinated with the
Internet, a topic considered of marginal importance at the mag,
but they let me write about it from time to time...
In the 1990s, I went freelance, so wrote both for
every computer rag most folks have ever heard of (all the Worlds:
Computer, Network, Info; Byte; LAN
Times; DBMS; Knowledge Management; etc etc) and
many no one has heard of. I also started doing corporate work
(whitepapers, contented cow/happy user/application stories,
ghostwritten articles, etc etc) for companies such as 3Com, Cisco,
Oracle, SGI, and NCR.
In the screaming aughts/naughts, I did some
interesting projects for Sony Computer Entertainment America (the
Playstation folks); computer-security companies PGP and
Counterpane; and Pricewaterhousecoopers. I also picked up some
other odd gigs, such as working for a now-acquired startup
Terraplane, and for a marcomms firm that had me doing some work
for that company which shall remain nameless which is located
outside Seattle. I also poked around a bit in the
grantwriting and grant-researching world. Here's a sample of some recent
work I did for a 3D navigation-device company.