Vocations in which I have engaged: Sound-board operator, typesetter, graphic designer, curriculum developer, course manager, catalog manager, programmer, editor, conference planner, speaker, book-information expert, columnist, reporter, radio guest.
I was trained as a typesetter, one of the last such apprenticed in that profession, and have a degree in graphic design. I learned how to typeset and print on a letterpress in college, and recently took a class to refresh and extend my knowledge.
Until relatively recently, I wrote nearly daily at my own wireless data site, Wi-Fi Networking News. Between 1998 and the late 20-oughties, I wrote at various times extensively for The New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, and Business 2.0. I have written something like 20 books, many of them in the Take Control ebook series produced by TidBITS Publishing, and all the rest by Peachpit Press. If you hear me on the radio, that's because I regularly appear on APM's Marketplace Tech Report. I'm occasionally on an NPR program, like All Things Considered, or on my local public-radio station, KUOW. I worked for Amazon for six months in 1996–1997 and never regret having left when I did. I know more than most human beings on the planet about the vagaries of book data, such as page count and authoritative titles. My first computer was a 1979 OSI C1P. I love the smell of letterpress ink, ladybird beetles, and goat-cheese fritters. At one time, I thought HD Radio would be the next big thing in technology. There are probably other things I could tell you that would bore the pants off you. My old site is still reachable with outdated content at links like this and this, but I'm only maintaining it to avoid breaking a few useful static pages.