Hobbies
I really enjoy digital photography, with my Canon 40D. I mostly focus on photographing nature, architecture, landscapes, random things around town, and so on. I run Pixelmator for most of my photo editing needs, since it’s less expensive and more lightweight than Photoshop or Lightroom. Typically, I don’t do a lot of people or action shots. I recently got a new macro lens, and I hope to start doing more with it. Macro photography is really tricky.
To stay active and in decent shape, I workout a few times a week, and go hiking whenever I get the chance. I only wish I lived somewhere with more mountains… it’s really flat around here. My wife and I have recently started backpacking with our dog, too. In the summer I also play lots of tennis, and sometimes even softball, although I’m not that great at it. I guess science class was more my thing, rather than gym class.
I like to read as often as possible, whether it’s a blog, magazine like Wired (which I typically read cover to cover), good literature, or a techie book. Some of my favorite authors are Dostoevsky, Ayn Rand, Vonnegut, Neal Stephenson, and Michael Crichton.
Technology
Yea, you could say I’m a geek. I do a combination of software development and computer security for a living, which is actually kinda fun. As for programming, I mostly use Python, Perl, and PHP, almost always on a Linux platform with Apache and MySQL. Some of the security technologies I enjoy working with are intrusion detection systems, packet analysis tools, operating system hardening, and vulnerability scanners. I’ve also done a tiny bit of reverse engineering, but haven’t had a chance to get serious about it yet.
At home I’m typically on my MacBook Pro. OS X does whatever I need, and for everything else, there’s VMware. Who needs a desktop computer anymore? Pretty soon we’ll all be on our iPads (or some other product with a better name).
Check out my shared items on Google Reader for a sampling of (mostly) security-related sites that I try to keep up with on a daily basis.
