About Me

My background in VB led me to start playing with VBScript it was a brilliant and stable scripting language, written from the ground up. Unfortunately, Netscape changed their mind at the last minute and refused to include VBScript, instead renaming their incredibly buggy LiveScript language to JavaScript which then became the only scripting language available in Netscape Navigator which at the time (rightly) had a massive market share compared to IE3.

I carried on with VBScript and shortly afterwards submitted an outline to O'Reilly publishers to write a book which was eventually titled Learning VBScript.

The early years of the internet were a bit of a whirlwind for me. I started two web hosting companies one NT based and the other based on Linux. I also developed a domain registrar business which became the UK's first fully automated domain name registrar - Freeparking, being the first one to allow customers to manage their own domain names, dns settings, even domain moves, at a time when the other domain name vendors were actually charging customers a fee to make changes to their DNS zone files and to move away. Freeparking was a huge success and taught me a lot about customer facing online business, security, and customer support.

At the same time, I wrote my most successful book VB & VBA In a Nutshell The Languages. It took a huge amount of time and effort for myself and my fantastic editor at O'Reilly, Ron Petrusha. We would endlessly knock chapters back and forth, adding pages and pages. It was worth it in the end. The launch of the book coincided with the launch of VB6 which was a game changer for VB development. The book was in the top 3 titles in the USA for about 6 months, and surprisingly even today is still on some university reading lists.

In 2002 I sold both hosting businesses and moved my family to southern Spain. I kept Freeparking (which I eventually sold in 2020) because it was fully automated and therefore didn t need a lot of looking after. It was simply a case of keeping up with latest trends, regulations and technologies. We became ICANN accredited (can't remember when), and I was lucky enough to travel around the world attending ICANN meetings and helping to shape the domain name space.

In 2018, along with a cyber security expert friend of mine we created Bluedog Security Monitoring. Mainly concentrated on UK customers, although we now have customers across the globe. Our initial service was MDR, we then added Microsoft 365 Monitoring and an automated monthly VAPT service.

Bluedog has continued to evolve, and we now have a division providing outsourced customer support, security teams and dedicated/managed SOCs for other companies. We also have a consultancy side for Compliance, Governance and Data Privacy helping with industry certifications like ISO27001.

I now reside in the business district of Makati City in Manila, Philippines. Bluedog's technical and support offices have been here since day one, as I had been running Freeparking s support from here since the late 2000 s.

I get a real buzz from using my many years of experience helping and advising new startups and even established businesses to grow and navigate the increasing complex landscape of software development, regulation and governance. I'm available for Non-Executive Directorships, Consultancy, and also advising on porting legacy software to newer platforms. I also still love developing and writing new systems, now in C#.

I look forward to hearing from you if you have a requirement for an experienced, seasoned pair of hands to help you in your business.