General

I studied Electrical Engineering (Telecommunications) at a school of Higher Professional Education (HTS) in the south of the Netherlands. I work for a large IT company as a network and system administrator since 1997. My department administrates a large number of Windows Servers and Cisco network equipment. I mainly administrate Cisco devices, like routers, switches, PIX firewalls and a VPN concentrator. My main hobbies are computers and photography.

Computers

I started on a Texas Instruments TI99/4A back in 1983. This computer was soon to be replaced by the legendary classic Commodore 64. In 1988 I made the switch to the Commodore Amiga 500 (later to be replaced by the Amiga 500+). I've been working on the Intel PC platform since 1991 and started on a Commodore 286SX16 (80286 processor, 1MB memory, 16Mhz, 40MB HD). I've build and worked with several 386, 486 and Pentium systems since then. My favorite programming languages are Turbo Pascal and PHP. I've also used Visual Basic, Windows Scripting, Javascript and ASP. In the ninetees, I was the system operator (SysOp) of a bulletin board system (BBS) called Fatal Future BBS (Screenshot), running with Frontdoor (mailer) and Remote Access under the OS/2 Warp operating system.

Photography

I've started this hobby with a manual focus Minolta X-300s SLR camera in the eighties. I began to explore the world of digital photography in the summer of 1999. After having worked with three consumer cameras (JVC, Nikon Coolpix 990 and Canon G2), I now mainly use my Canon digital SLR camera. I've been using Canon D-SLR cameras since march 2002.

Music

I listen to a lot of different music, from Marlene Dietrich to Slayer. Some of my favorite styles are Gothic Metal (link) (After Forever, Within Temptation, Epica, The Gathering, Nightwish, Cradle of Filth), Metal (early Metallica), (some) Hip-Hop (Eminem, Sabrina Setlur), (some) Punk (De Heideroosjes, Die Toten Hosen, Nina Hagen), (some female) Country (Dixie Chicks), Disco and Trance. I should not forget to mention Pink Floyd, Madonna, Rammstein, Pink, Lenny Kravitz, Marianne Rosenberg and The Smashing Pumpkins. My favorite compact disc series is called Nachtschwärmer (link) and only contains songs in the German language from various (mostly German) Gothic bands (both metal- and cybergothic).

Movies

Some of my favorite movies are Manon des Sources (France 1986), Cartouche (France/Italy 1961, with Claudia Cardinale), Belle de Joure (France 1967, with Catherine Deneuve), Once Upon a Time in the West (Italy 1969), Angélique, Marquise des Anges (1964, with Michèle Mercier) and C'era una Volta (Italy 1967, with Sophia Loren).

Literature

My favorite Dutch writer is A. F. Th. van der Heijden. I consider his novel cycle 'De Tandeloze Tijd' about a philosophy student who gets addicted to heroine, to be the ultimate masterwork of Dutch literature in the 20th century. Other favorites include Mulish, Wolkers and Brusselmans. Impressive and disturbing was (the original German version of) 'Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo' by Christiane F., published in 1979. I consider literature to be an artform and therefore I don't read translated novels. You can't translate art.

Television

My favorite Sci-Fi television serie is The Outher Limits. Favorite (british) comedies include Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous, Bottom and The Young Ones. Dutch series that deserve to be mentioned are PISA, Van Kooten en De Bie, Kreatief met Kurk en Op zoek naar Jolanda. My favorite (adult) cartoon is Duckman.

Internet

My favorite Internet links are SKIP INTRO, HTML version and NO SOUND (a normal website should NOT make noise; I can play my own music, thank you). Good weblogs are GS, VK and RC. The best site for digital photography is Phil Askey's DPREVIEW.COM. The (Canon) forums there are a huge resource of information, but beware of the Canon lens forum... it might be very expensive spending too much time there.