Hello, I’m Gareth. I’m 23, and started web design and development when I was 14. I have a number of qualifications, including a Diploma in Web Development, Server Administration certificate for Microsoft Server 2008 and a Cisco Networking qualification. In the way of web design, development and GNU/Linux administration I’m self taught.

Where I Began

My passion with programming and such all began when I was playing Counter-Strike, back in early 2000. My friend and I soon started making maps for Counter-Strike, playing with bots (we didn’t even have the Internet back then), and programming bot AI. Once I got the Internet, I wanted to publish our maps and see what other gamers thought of them. So, this led me to learning web design, namely HTML and CSS. However, it just wasn’t enough, I wanted to learn how to make things more dynamic, and to get feedback for our maps. So, I started learning Perl. This was a very exciting time for me, but I still wanted to learn more.

After a while, I began recreating my website over and over, to improve it, plus implement new features, ideas and integrate what I was learning.

Eventually I wanted to learn some desktop programming, so I bought C++ Black Book (ISBN…) from the local Warehouse. C++ was great, I have learned a lot of what I know today from the language.

Discovering GNU/Linux

I also discovered GNU/Linux at a young age, I must of been around 14 – 15. I went to a Convention called “Armageddon” in Auckland, where someone was handing out Linux Magazines, containing 4 CD’s of Red Hat 9. This was my first taste of GNU/Linux. I didn’t have a clue what GNU/Linux was back then, but I soon learned about Partitions, installing Operating Systems and the like. My first adventure of Red Hat 9 was short lived however. Despite loving it to bits, I overwrote the copy of Windows 98SE we had on the PC at the time, resulting in not being allowed to install Red Hat 9 again. I also managed to disable my root account login on Red Hat 9 within a couple of days of using it, I was a adventurous young lad.

Well, a couple years later I tried Red Hat 9 again, and loved it, I also tried a number of other GNU/Linux distributions including CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian and currently Archlinux.

[To be revised, and updated.]