About Martyn Lovell

About Martyn Lovell
I consider this the definitive reference work on me. :)

Martyn at Busch Gardens

Martyn at Comet Falls, WA after a very enjoyable couple of hours hiking up in May 2003.

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Overview

I'm a married British man living in downtown Seattle. My wide-ranging interests include the arts, music, reading, comedy, technology, movies, travel, puzzles, Lego and politics. I have an optimistic perspective and a creative mind. I love my work as a Software Engineer for Microsoft in Redmond. I own a condo in Belltown with a lovely waterfront view, where I live with my beautiful wife Elizabeth, and drive a Mercedes SLK 350.

Contact

Email: lnytram@xic.knilupmoc.oc.ku (Spam avoidance - reverse each word to get my correct email address)

Family

In January 2006 I asked Elizabeth Berman to marry me, and she accepted. We were married on July 28th 2007 in Seattle.

Elizabeth works for King 5 as an Assignment Editor and in her free time knows enough about movies to beat me at Scene it? 99 times out of a hundred. She has a severe lack of techno-envy, and so has not yet managed to become fashionable enough to get her own website. She does sing great in the King 5 band, make a marvellous Chicken Pie, organises a fridge with the best of them, and even occasionally makes a decision. :) I am very lucky and undeserving, and looking forward to our life together.

I am the only child of Jean and John Lovell from London, England. We have a large extended family because my mother was the youngest of 8 siblings. Many of the family have remained in the London area, but several have emigrated to Australia, and now also to America :)

My father worked till just after I was born at Smithfield, London's historical meat market, and then later for Walls', a part of Unilever. He died in December 2001, aged 71. He was a kind, self-effacing man with a ready wit and was great company in good times and welcome support in hard ones. He was also a lover of TV Sci Fi. If you sometimes see qualities in me, I have him to thank for them. My mother and I both miss him deeply.

My mother has moved back to London. She is passionate, driven, and constantly broadening her mind with new kinds of literature and history. She also loves travel, games and puzzles, and always encouraged me to try new experiences. These are among the qualities that I have her to thank for. She and my cousin Sue Plato come to see me most years, which is excellent.

You can find out more about my history at the end of this page.

Friends

I'm lucky to have a very diverse and stimulating group of friends. One of the surprising things about moving to Seattle was how easy it was to meet smart, fascinating people. I was lucky to come into a large company where there are lots of friendly like-minded people. Microsoft is the least geeky technology company I've worked at, which is great as I've been able to meet people who love Opera (the art form) as well as people who want to beat Opera (the web browser).

I like to organise social activities for my friends that include a night out at the theatre, comedy, ballet or other event, plus dinner. This is a great way to combine company with the arts. My friends and I also enjoy puzzle events, tennis, Halloween hauntings, travel, hiking, relaxing in front of the TV and karaoke.

To participate in the broader community, I contribute to United Way and Public Radio.

Home

I live on the 6th floor of a condo building overlooking the Seattle waterfront and Elliott Bay. The view is beautiful and panoramic (pictures coming soon). I'm within walking distance of the Space Needle, and Pike Place market. Remember the fish market in Sleepless in Seattle? -- that's Pike Place. And I have recently discovered that shots in that movie were taken from the corner of what was to become this building.

Furnishing my new place is now largely complete, aided greatly when Elizabeth's stuff arrived early in 2006. The next steps are to sort out a new desk for the living room, and to find more storage space for everything.

Language and Communication

I speak English (England). I can also understand English (America), with difficulty sometimes :) You will be able to understand me, mostly, except when I witter. I have at one point or another known a little or more French, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek and Dutch, but all of these skills are now too rusty to be practical for anything but embarrassing myself.

Transportation

I drive a 2007 Mercedes SLK 350, which is a 2 door Convertible Coupe with a hard top. It's manual [Stick shift], and dark red. Extremely nice car.

Living in America

Seattle is in Washington State, on the Pacific Northwest of the USA. It is about 10 hours to fly direct from the UK. The time difference is 8 hours, 99% of the time. Washington State is nowhere near Washington DC, as I discovered very shortly before I flew here for the first time :) In fact, they are about as far apart as you can get in the US.

Seattle is a great place to live. Not only have I met great people, and found fascinating things to do, but this is also a great geographical location, with mountains, beaches and trails in easy reach. Seattle is also a growing, vibrant city, which I've found to be positive when compared to some other American cities, and I'm able to live right downtown, which would be much more expensive in London.

If you're from Britain, you can forget every negative stereotype of life in America that you've heard. They're mostly wrong, in my opinion and experience. Don't feel bad. Most of the American stereotypes about Britain are wrong too. There are quite a few things I miss from Britain. But if I moved back to Britain now, there'd be quite a few things I'd miss from America. It's hard to feel that one country as a whole is better than the other. I love them both. Each has many more strengths than weaknesses. I imagine that during my life I'll live again in London, and hopefully also in Paris, New York, and some other of the world's great cities. But I expect to spend a lot of time in the US too, either here in Seattle, or perhaps in San Fran or Boston, because many of the best bits of the Software industry are here.

Travel

I've always enjoyed travel, but I didn't really get started with international travel till quite late in life. I was especially lucky in my third job to get a chance to travel around a lot of Europe. It's great to meet people from other cultures, and see the world from a different perspective. I'm a particular fan of exploring the architecture of foreign cities. I also make a point to climb any tall structure that I can - I love to see a city from above.

Now I live in the USA and work for Microsoft, I've had the chance to see 30 of the US states (so far). Travel is so much easier than one might expect in the USA, despite the fact that the country is truly huge. It's my goal to circumnavigate the US in a car sometime soon, just to see all those backwaters and byways that Bill Bryson writes so wittily about.

You can find out more about my exploits on my travel page.

Books

I am a keen reader, though I get less time to read than I wish. I have founded a book club with my friends, and we read a diverse range of fiction and non-fiction meeting every six weeks or so for dinner and a good book.. My tastes focus on older classics (Austen, Dickens ), Science Fiction (Asimov, Clarke), plus some detective fiction. I like to read philosophy of the mind (Hofstader, Dennett, Penrose , etc), and, of course, computing related books. I have got into the habit of buying my books from Amazon.com, whose online catalogue makes book buying far too easy for my own good.

I have started posting short reviews of books as I read them on my facebook page.

My book club now has its own page.

Media

I have stopped reading paper news in favour of web news - MSNBC, BBC News, King 5, . I must be one of the very few people who subscribes to the paper edition of The Onion. When I lived in England I used to read The Independent, but now I tend to get UK news from the BBC news website, from Private Eye, from the BBC World Service news on Seattle's NPR affiliate KUOW, and from the DVDs of Have I Got News For You that my mother sends me. I read loads of magazines including The Economist and Wired and for fun US Maxim and US Cosmopolitan, plus various others. Somehow, I never quite have enough time to finish all of these, but, as you can see I'm a media junkie. This includes not just techno news, but news in general.

Movies

I adore movies, and watch far too many films and videos. I particularly recommend the latest Emma Movie (the Gwynneth Paltrow one) as the best adaptation I've seen of my favourite book by my favourite author. I have enjoyed browsing the IMDB (http://www.imdb.com) to help me put names to faces, and faces to other faces. Settles loads of arguments, too. I have also found it fun to use the IMDB's voting system to rate movies. I've rated over 800.

As I watch movies, I vote for them on the IMDB. My full list of movies and votes can now be seen by anyone. My two all-time favourite movies are Emma and The Blues Brothers and the best movies I've seen recently are In the Loop and Watchmen.

Radio

I am an audiophile, especially enjoying spoken word Radio. In the US this means NPR, which is the closest analogue to the UK's BBC Radio 4 that Seattle has to offer. Luckily my parents send me cassettes of The News Quiz, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Dead Ringers to keep me keep me supplied with the bare essentials. [If you have suggestions for other UK radio I might enjoy, I'd love to hear them.] NPR's output is improving all the time, and there's quite a few programs I'd like to recommend beyond the excellent morning and evening news coverage. This American Life is probably the best radio documentary series I have ever heard. Car Talk is a very witty show in the deceptive guise of a car call-in show. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is a very enjoyable news-based quiz. Says You is a fascinating, witty panel game based on words, phrases and sayings.

Television

I like light (Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, Medium), less light (House, CSI, Dollhouse), off-beat (The Office, Californication, Leverage), witty (Whose Line is it Anyway?, Have I Got News For You, Coupling, The Day Today , How I Met Your Mother), and serious television (The US only offers limited TV news choices, but Meet The Press is pretty reasonable - Sadly missed are Question Time and especially Newsnight ).

Popular Music

My musical tastes are broad: I enjoy classical music, classic pop (1960s-2000s), rubbish and especially modern dance tracks. Recently, I seem to have become a fairly serious Oasis fan, for reasons that are unlikely to become clear again right now. In the spring of 2000 , for the second year running, I followed the band for four dates of their US tour. I despair of ever learning to like house or rap, though if I'm really energised, I can dance to it . I like discos and nightclubs, but only for the dancing. In general, I find it hard to resist upbeat and danceable fare. I may be the only Oasis fan also happy to admit to having seen Britney live. I miss having enough time to work out what sort of modern music I enjoy. My latest plan to resolve this revolves around purchasing compilations to help me find new artists and bands. I have started buying CDs from Amazon, mainly because it was a more convenient user interface and I wanted to keep a single wishlist. I got a Zune a couple of years ago which I used for music and podcasts.

Arts, Comedy & Satire

I'm a keen arts lover. I like to keep my mind broad and my interests diverse, despite my technology-based day job. I subscribe to six season tickets - Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Symphony, ACT Theatre, Intiman Theatre. We also go regularly to 5th Avenue and The Paramount. I'm also making a serious effort to organise parties of my friends to see one-off shows. Recent examples include the Bolshoi Ballet and the Capitol Steps.

I love Satire. Not only do I subscribe to Private Eye and The Onion, but I also watch all the satire I can get on US TV and have my mother send me tapes of UK satire shows such as Have I Got News For You?, The News Quiz and I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue.

People I'd like to meet

If I could really pick anyone, I'd choose Douglas Hofstader, a philosopher and thinker and author of a great book, 'Godel, Escher, Bach'.

A more practical (and perhaps more comprehensible) choice would be Aaron Sorkin, a TV writer/producer on some of my favourite shows and films (American President, Sports Night, The West Wing, among others).

On the more whimsical front, I would love to have lunch with Janeane Garafalo- she's very funny, ironic, sarcastic and fun. Like a grown up 'Daria'. :) If only one could do lunch with a cartoon character.

Lego

I'm a huge fan of Lego. I was a Lego kid from early on (back then my favourite thing was to design traffic layouts using bricks and signs), and my girlfriend got me back into the habit when I was 18. Now I have a large collection, mostly consisting of Technic, Model Team, Star Wars and Mindstorms, as well as my childhood collection. My favourite kinds of Lego models are the very complex ones which 'do something' when completed. Great examples of this are the JCB digger, the Space Shuttle, and the Tow Truck. I have not yet gotten around to designing many of my own Lego creations, but I do keep a lot of built Lego on display in my home and office. My next big projects are to rebuild all the models that were damaged by the 2001 Seattle earthquake, and to build this cool Rubik's Cube solver .

Pinball

I have been a pinball fan since before I can remember. When I was a child we lived on the English seaside in Eastbourne, and there were a good selection of places with pinball machines. Some of my favourites at the time were Jungle Lord, Black Knight , and especially Xenon . I got back into Pinball when I went away to University at University College London, and lived in International Hall, which was a catered hall of residence. Sunday lunch was a particular low point, and I used to enjoy absconding to the Tottenham Court Road for fast food and pinball at a seedy place next to Goodge Street Tube. I got into Back to the Future initially, but soon re-found my love of Williams/Bally designs. I first played my all-time favourite pinball, Twilight Zone, on a business trip to Berlin. I'm a big fan of Pat Lawlor's other games, especially The Addams Family and Funhouse . Other favourite games include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Theatre of Magic , Indiana Jones - The Pinball Adventure and Circus Voltaire

Puzzles

I'm a keen participant in and organiser of puzzle events. I always liked this kind of stuff as a kind, but my interested was reawakened as an adult soon after I moved to Seattle. Mike and Anne Grier organise their letterboxing event every summer, and I enjoyed playing that. Letterboxing is a 19th Century English tradition, but we play it with friends and temporary clues on the Microsoft Corporate Campus. Each player contributes one or two clues that take 5 to 15 minutes to solve and lead to a location on the campus. The players group into around 10 teams of two and work to solve the puzzles set by all the other teams. We have three hours to play, and whoever gets the most stamps wins. I seem to end up playing with someone different every year, and I've been lucky to play with some smart people and be quite successful. My favourite part is creating the puzzles, and the metapuzzles. Soon after this the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt started, and I've played in every one so far. Puzzlehunt is gruelling two day event with ultra-hard puzzles. It normally comes down to two terrible days sitting in a conference room. Our team, Grier Family Picnic (named because Mike and Anne didn't actually play the first time, for some reason I no longer remember), has been improving over time, but we're still only coming around 10th in the rankings. I think it'll be a while before we win. Recently, we've started organising Puzzle Safari for the whole of Microsoft. The Safari is like letterboxing, but has many more puzzles and the whole company is invited. We get around 300 players and the event runs for 6 hours. This has allowed me to really work to create lots of puzzles. You can find some of my Safari puzzles here.

Dining and Cooking

I particularly enjoy good French, Asian and American food, though I like almost all cuisines. I am a spice wimp, which makes me very picky in Indian restaurants. I like cooking for pleasure, especially Asian dishes and English breakfasts. My family-recipe stuffing is a hit every Thanksgiving and Christmas when I make it for my friends.

My favourite restaurants in the Seattle area include Figaro Bistro, Daniel's, Anthony's, McCormick and Schmick, Snappy Dragon, Chutney's and Campagne among many others.

Future

Time for some taboos.

Belief

I have had an instinct since I was very young that there is no 'higher power' or non-physical universe. I keep an open mind, which makes me somewhat agnostic, but I really tend towards an atheist perspective.

Despite this, I believe ethics and morality are an important part of life. Just because I don't have an external entity setting a moral code for me doesn't mean I don't try to live by a set of moral values. Among other things, I think it's a critical imperative for a person to try to make a positive impact on their family, friends, and on society as a whole. I try act within an ethical framework at all times.

Some of my friends (including my wife) have religious beliefs to varying degrees, especially in America, where belief of some kind is much more common, and I am completely respectful of their choices, and happy to attend their family events.

Politics

Moving to a different country makes it especially hard to describe one's political opinions in terminology that makes sense to the reader. I have always had an extremely passionate interest in politics. My family often debated the issues of the day over the dinner table, which was very stimulating, and I gained further encouragement at school and University. A particular turning point for me was starting to read the Economist during University at the suggestion of Raymond Rweyemamu. Though I don't agree with everything they say, their clarity of thought and expression sets a standard I strive to achieve.

The simplest way to put it is that I'm economically right wing (free trade, small government, privatisation), but socially left wing (tolerant treatment of all citizens, strong social safety nets, affordable healthcare for those who cannot purchase their own). I'm very keen on politics, and willing to consider both conservative (small c) and radical solutions to solve today's most serious issues. I try not to be hidebound by tradition, or seduced by innovation. Both America and England have many serious and complex problems without easy solutions, and a five line philosophy can't encapsulate these. It's hard to summarise politics in a space this small. I love talking about this subject and debating the issues of the day and strategies for improving society, and would be happy to put some meat on the bones of the outline above.

Work at Microsoft

I work for Microsoft in Seattle. I'm a development lead on the Windows Experience team. My team builds the User Interface Platform in Windows, which in Windows 7 included work on the Ribbon, Animation, and improving the Windows API overall. Windows 7 has turned out to be a great release both to work on and to use. Working for Microsoft is incredibly stimulating, exciting, and enjoyable. I'm enjoying the job hugely. I'd love to tell you what we're doing, but if I did, I have to kill you :)

In substitute, I can explain what I've done in previous versions. In version 5 of Visual Studio I worked on shell architecture for Developer Studio, and Command Bars, Menus, UI Customisation and general shell things in Developer Studio.

For the Version 6 product, I was the development lead for Visual Studio Analyzer, an exciting new tool that allows complex distributed software to have its performance analysed, and also allows the software architecture to be visualised. You can find my talks on this subject on the TechEd CD, along with talks on debugging and source control.

I was also development lead last year for source control integration in VI6, VJ6 and VC6. Source control and the problems of team development are my current focus of interest, and I'm leading a team of 8 people working on these and related issues. Our most recent efforts have just shipped in Visual Studio .NET.

For version 7 of Visual Studio, I again worked on the user interface for source control integration, this time bringing together all our products in a single shell, and accommodating several new technologies. During this release we rewrote most of the integration code from the inside out, while keeping it working for the whole product cycle and creating a whole new kind of web project. During version 7 I also worked more on the Visual Studio 7 shell, helping our partners integrate their products, plan and build project systems, and, of course, plan their source control integration.

During this cycle I worked on a team that did some radical and highly successful process innovations. We delivered higher quality code in shorter periods, and trained and managed developers more effectively than any team I have worked on.

There was a third technology that I worked on about 50% of my time during the Version 7 cycle, but it ultimately didn't make it into any of our products, so I can't talk about it despite being proud of our team's work. Suffice to say that there were good business reasons to stop our work, but it's still hard to leave something incomplete. Nonetheless this is something that is much more satisfying about working in software products (instead of services) -- our company takes all the risks up front, but is constantly able to adjust its strategy based on market demands.

For Visual Studio 7.1 I was in transition. I did some more work on source control integration, including some longer term planning and thinking. I then transitioned to the Visual C++ team, where I immediately got involved in shipping our more conformant libraries, as well as with a bunch of longer lead stuff you'll see in our next major version.

For Visual C++ 2005, I worked on the Secure Libraries initiative (parts of which are now a Tech Report to the C standard), and on the integration of managed and native code. I also drove parts of the integration of Visual C++ with managed code (the CLI features), and work on deployment of the libraries using manifests. For Visual C++ 2008, I worked on MFC improvements to support Windows Vista features, STL changes and improvements to enable better standards support

The environment at work is very developer friendly. Mostly, that means great top spec machines replaced often, flexible hours, private offices, mentoring from smart people, and an informal culture that's focussed on deliver. Of course, it also means free soft drinks and video games on free play just down the hall and a pool table just outside my door. But these are merely the outside signs. The key to my happiness is an organisation where I can make a difference, solve hard problems, work with smart people, use the tools that I build, and ship things that improve the working lives of lots of developers. And an organisation that understands the diversity and idiosyncrasy of developers. Finally I can arrive at work at a civilised time (currently 10am), and leave at a civilised time (7pm).

Further, the company hasn't been blunted by bureaucracy; when asked for, things actually happen quickly. This is an organisation with a clear sense of small-company-style urgency. That may sound surprising, but it really is true. One that isn't afraid to take hard decisions that serve customer needs, or to change direction when necessary. One where covering your ass isn't as important as doing the right thing. Though Microsoft is changing as it grows and matures, it's not yet lost touch with the things that make it both a fun place to work and a great place to build stuff that's really useful, and really ready.

Finally, Microsoft is a company driven by ideas, debate, creativity, excitement, vision and constant critical self evaluation. This is a tremendous process to contribute too, a great place to have good ideas, and a flexible place to dream about the future of software. I'm always interested to hear what people have to say about Windows or other Microsoft products. Positive or negative. Please do write to me if you want to. Of course, you should also send your suggestions/feedback to the usual channels, since I have no guaranteed influence and cannot track requests.

Technology

At work I have a dual processor Dell with dual 21" monitor, 4Gb Ram and lots of disk. My second machine (mail/stuff) is an older dual proc with 2 24" HD flatpanels rotated, 2Gb and lots of disk. I'm running Windows 7 on every machine at this point and have been since over a year ago. We have some very cool stuff coming in the future. I *love* Office 2007, use Outlook 2007 for mail and IE8 for browsing. Of course, there's loads of other stuff that I can't even mention.

All my machines are set up for Remote desktop, which is now part of the normal Windows install. Remote desktop has changed the way I work, and the way I travel. Now, instead of doing anything 'from home', or 'from my laptop', I simply do everything via Remote Desktop on my fast machines in my office. Remote Desktop works very well over a modem link (surprisingly well, and certainly well enough to be almost invisible), and even better over my home DSL line.

My current home computer is a Dell Dual PIV with 2GB Ram, 500Gb, CD/RW, DVD/RW, SB Audigy, Dual 21" Monitors, HP Deskjet 842C. I'm using a Cisco 676 DSL Router connected to Seanet at 512kbps. I'm using Windows 7 and Office 2007 on this machine too, and have had Windows 7 on here since the Christmas with no problems. Dual 21" monitors are glorious - it's like moving into a larger apartment.

In my living room I have a Sony XBR57 HDTV projection TV, a Samsung SV5000 multi-standard VCR, a Philips DVP642 DVD player, a Series 3 HD Tivo with 750GB of storage and 2 cable cards, a Series 2 Sony Tivo with 300GB of storage, Sony 30 Hour SVR 2000 TiVo recorder and an XBOX 360. My new HD TiVo is my most beloved gadget. I could not imagine living without it. Until I had this, I hardly watched any TV. The HD one is, however, very pricey right now.

At times, I have used Archimedes, Macintoshes, SUNs, Pyramids, GEC 4190s, BBC Micros, Spectrums and ZX81s and other weird and wonderful stuff. Some of these experiences are best forgotten, some hard to forget.

Software Engineering

I've been programming for longer than I care to remember, starting on a ZX81 at the beginning of the so-called 'Micro revolution'. Computers used to repeatedly draw me away from other activities that should have taken priority (such as school, examinations, reading, etc). However, I now work as a developer, so this is no longer a problem. Retrospectively, I'm not really sure it was ever a problem. Either way, my technological and aesthetic sides are now much better balanced - I have time for both Opera and Object Orientation, now :) In my time, I've had significant programming experience with DOS, Windows 3.x, 95 and NT, Archimedes RISCOS 1.2, 2 and 3, Macintosh, and Unix.

My development interests range widely. I have always been fascinated by the graphical user interface and usability. I've been lucky enough to work on the user interfaces for several products, some successful, some less so. UI is a very subjective, organic and divisive thing, but a lot of fun.

I'm an advocate of improving software process within Microsoft. I was among the first within my organisation to champion code reviews, and with others I have worked with over the years have been at the forefront of developing recommendations for easier, more reliable development processes.

I'm a passionate and dogged debugger. I love the thrill of the chase of a hard bug, and enjoy the subtlety and complexity that bugs can display. I also find bugs stimulate the rest of me to try to understand how to avoid them in future, feeding back into my activities in the previous paragraph.

For development right now I exclusively use VC++, which is what Windows is written in. Naturally, I'm using the latest dogfood builds of these products, rather than the shipping bits.

The Internet

I got my start online in the CIX online community. CIX was a big part of my online life for 14 years, but I have now scaled back my involvement, aside from email. While there are still plenty of smart and fun people on CIX, there are many less than there were, and there is much more fascinating online stuff happening elsewhere. I've learnt a lot from CIXen, and put a lot back, but these days I get more value in other online forums.

I use the Internet daily, for my sins. You can see my favourite sites in my links page. Sites I visit particularly often include MSNBC, BBC News, slashdot, digg, facebook, slate, the IMDB and for searching, Bing.

Personal History

This is my life story in rather more detail than I intended. I was surprised how much I had to say and how much I had no space for when I started to write about my formative years.

I was born in London, England in 1970. I have few contemporary memories of London because at around age three and a half we moved to Eastbourne, on England's south coast. Eastbourne was a great place to spend my early years. It combines excellent beaches with other good facilities for a young kid - parks, pools, amusement arcades and so on.

I had an extremely happy childhood -- my parents worked very hard to provide for the family and to give me a great start in life. I have no brothers or sisters, but managed to find plenty of good friends to play with in the Langney area of Eastbourne where we lived. Particular passions from this period of my life included Lego, Swimming, playing in the local field, board games, Scalextric, Bicycling, building rivers on Eastbourne's unique beaches and science fiction (which at that time meant Dr Who, Blake's 7 and Star Trek). I was lucky at this young age to have great friends in Darren Clews and later Simon Cosham, both of whom I spent a lot of time with during this period.

In 1979, something happened that changed my life. The headmaster of my primary school recommended to my family that I apply for Eton's junior scholarship, which would pay for eight years of private education, most of it at one of England's most exclusive private boarding schools. I was lucky enough to have just completed a year being taught by a great teacher - David Martin, and was ready for new challenges. There were only six scholarships available, so the competition was sure to be fierce. But my parents had always dreamed of giving me the opportunities they had not had, and this was an ideal chance. In Easter 1980 I took the exam and got the scholarship.

Winning this scholarship was the best thing that had yet happened to me. Though it would mean eight years of all-male boarding school, spending seven months of the year away from my parents, it would also mean a wealth of unimaginable opportunities, much greater independence and freedom, and a really happy educational experience. The sad truth about boarding school is that the parents suffer much more than the children do. It only took me about a term or two to get used to living away from home for extended periods; it took my parents much longer.

The first part of my scholarship meant three years at a private 'preparatory' school, St Aubyn's in Rottingdean. My time there was mixed. This was a new school, and I was away from home, and among a different kind of person. I was also beginning puberty, and starting to assert my independence and discover my own personality. These were a lot of changes to happen all at once, and it meant I was somewhat of an outsider for some of my time at the school.

Despite this pressure, there were quite a few positive things that happened during my time at St Aubyn's. I was pushed much more academically - encouraged to exceed my potential. I first played Squash there (one of my favourite sports), and I first became interested in computers and software there. At the time, I think this was an extension of my interest in SciFi, where everyone had computers. The ZX81 came out in my second year, and I was writing programs on paper long before I could persuade my parents to get one. I wrote my first sizeable piece of software on the ZX81 - a hangman game.

In March of 1983 I had to take separate scholarship exam as part of the same junior scholarship programme. This King's Scholarship is the one established in 1440. Despite my parents' faith, my teachers were pessimistic about my chances in this exam, because my academic performance at St Aubyn's had been patchy, reflecting my youthful tendency to focus strongly on the subjects that interested me most. To their surprise I did pass the exam, meaning I would spend my five years at Eton living in College, the oldest of the school's boarding houses.

My time at Eton was superb, and thoroughly positive. The maturing I had done in the preceding three years meant that I was able to make the most of my time at Eton and really enjoy myself. I met lots of great people, discovered and moulded my own opinions, passions and personality, and was able to explore many interests. A particular strength of Eton is that it values diversity. The school encouraged me in many of my interests, from Computing to Squash, and Theatre to Publishing. I can't imagine a better place to have spent five years.

Academically, Eton was a very demanding environment, which was just what I needed. I was around a diverse group of very smart people who I could learn from and debate with. My academic performance was again patchy, now reflecting both my tendency to not focus on subjects I wasn't passionate about and my desire to explore as many non-academic activities as I could. At age 14 Eton started to offer choices of subject, and that was where I started to come into my own. I pursued an unusual dual-track programme mixing science subjects and arts right up until I left the school. My final package of subjects was Maths, Physics and English Literature. This kind of flexibility was both welcome and stimulating.

The teachers ("beaks") were both supportive and demanding. Several of them had extremely positive and lasting impacts on me. My tutors, David Smith and especially Chris Jones, provided support and guidance at times when they were sorely needed, but without ever trying to fit me into a mould. And my housemasters, initially Martin Hammond and later Andrew Boggis provided support for me when I wanted to make atypical choices or pursue unusual academic programmes. At the time our year didn't get on very well with Boggis, but looking back he was very supportive of me at times when it would have been easy not to have been. Others who were especially helpful include Colin Harris, John Clark, Michael Meredith, Nick Welsh, Chris Hurst, John Davis, John Roberts, Gerald Bettridge and Eric Anderson. Belated thanks to all of them, and to any others I may have accidentally omitted.

Eton provided a wide range of sporting opportunities, which again allowed me to explore new avenues. As well as the compulsory football, 'field game' and cricket, I was able at various times to participate in tennis, squash, rowing, 'wall game', swimming and 'Eton fives'. My favourite sport was probably squash, though I also enjoyed captaining the College 'B' football team (an optional team formed from those of us who wished to play but lacked any talent :) ).

The school also provided great opportunity for expanding my artistic horizons. I was able to production manage a play, work extensively on the school magazine The Chronicle and on alternative magazines and to see the many plays put on during the term. It was also during this period that I attended my first Rock Concert (Tom Waits, with thanks to Chris Jones), and my first Opera (Hansel and Gretel, with thanks to Charles Heatly).

Of course, Eton also allowed me to further build my passion for technology. The computer room, the encouragement of Chris Jones and Nic Munro, and the power and flexibility of the BBC Micro encouraged me to spread my programming wings. It was in 1984 that Nick Johnson and I started Crystalsoft to sell our BBC Micro software. Our 'Egg - The Upgrade' was an improvement to Chuckie Egg, and made a decent profit for us. We had greater projects planned, but could never focus on any of them for long enough to make them real. It was also during this period that I was introduced to the Macintosh, spurring what has become a lifelong interest in the graphical user interface and usability. It was also during this time that I started to dream of going to America, perhaps to do a PhD or work in software. This was some combination of the influence of Chris Jones, the Macintosh, Amir Lari (who went on to do undergraduate study in the USA), and Conrad Wolfram (whose brother founded Wolfram Research while Conrad and I were at Eton).

It's hard to summarise five great years in a few paragraphs. I grew from a boy into a man. I diversified from a geek into an aspiring polymath. I gained confidence, and lost preconception. And along the way, I had a many more great moments than I've mentioned above or can fit in here -- Repton with Piers Allison; The Happy Chemist with Conrad Wolfram and JWT; A panel of Martyns at that summer school; Wendy's WI summer camp; disassembling with Conrad McDonnell; the Life of Galileo; cheerleading the Wall Game; Jane Austen; MUD with Amir Lari; Pete Chew monkeying around; the list goes on and on.

During this period my father's work relocated, so my parents moved from Eastbourne (which we had all grown out of, I think), to Gloucester (where we never entirely settled down). Moving is way less painful if you are at boarding school (since half your life is not moving), but it was nonetheless a wrench to say goodbye to my childhood home. I've been back to Eastbourne a couple of times since, and it evokes strong feelings in me.

After Eton, I went on to University College London to read Electronic Engineering with Computer Science. The first time I arrived in London to look around UCL in late 1987, I could feel London calling to me. I immediately felt at home. I had visited London a few times over the years with my mother or with friends. But nothing compared to the elated feeling I had leaving that interview. I knew London was the place for me. I had to do four other interviews as 'backup', but my mind was made up.

A lucky accident in 1988 led me to choose to live in International Hall, one of London University's shared halls of residence. I did a complex scoring chart to decide what features of a Hall were important to me, and IH won -- I think because it had both a computer and a squash court. This hall turned out to be a special place, run by an idiosyncratic warden, Donald Mann, whose policies allowed me to live in Hall for three years, meet some great people from across the world, including my first serious girlfriend, Louise, and help create, produce and write the local magazine 'The International Hall Times'.

UCL was very different to Eton (critically, there were women!), but I had just as good a time there as had at boarding school. I met some great people, and was able to round out the social side of my personality by going to lots of dances, and spending lots of nights wandering around London debating philosophy and eating Dionysus superb doner kebabs. I got up late, went to bed late, programmed a lot, watched a lot of movies, and spent a very long time chatting to people. I made lots more long-term friends in London, including Miles Dennis, Hannah Carter [Dennis], Rhiannon Thomas [Agosti], Fiona Reavley, Ahmed Kubba, Chris Jones, John Mestitz, John Rudkin, Jane Hill, Esther Treger, Simon Thompson, Kay Capaldi, Carol Leighton, Geoff Chappell, Gihan Ismail, Brendan Barnes, Hai-Ying Lee, Charles Dodd, Raymond Rweyemamu, and Elisa Asti among many others. I've lost touch with many of these by now, so if you're reading this, get in touch! :)

Social experiences were the most important part of my University education. However, I still had to get a degree! Academically, UCL was much easier than Eton, mostly because I was interested in pretty much all my subjects, and because lecture format suits my good memory. Because I'd done a joint course I had a choice of EE and CS subjects, and I learnt a lot of critical stuff during this period, including my first exposure to analysis of algorithms, my first functional language (Standard ML), my first C++ coding and my first large-scale GUI coding (RISC OS). I was particularly lucky to have Adrian Chapman as a supervisor on my final project. He was both a great guy and a great help.

A critical event in late 1988 was my joining the CIX system. CIX is the UK's answer to BIX - an online computer conferencing system long before the Internet was born. CIX's management has been erratic, but they made an early success by giving free accounts to a bunch of computer journalists. As a result, being on CIX exposed me to some the UK's most informed technology people, as well as other programmers and businesspeople. I got all my technology jobs (aside from Microsoft) through connections on CIX, including the summer jobs I took in 1989 and 1990 working at The Soft Option.

Another critical event in early 1989 was my purchase of an Acorn Archimedes. This odd-ball RISC-based computer had more power than the PC Compatibles of its day. But it had a poorly executed operating system and a clunky GUI. It was a throwback to the days of PC diversity just as its ilk (the ST, Amiga) were dying out. But it had a solid C compiler, a highly orthogonal and satisfying machine code (ARM), and a vibrant user community. This was the last PC I would buy until 1996, and it also provided my ticket to two jobs. I wrote a lot of code and learnt a lot about operating systems on this machine.

My work at the Soft Option was incredibly influential on my future direction, coming as it did interspersed with my education. TSO was a very small struggling multimedia company that combined technology people with usability people and art people. The multimedia business was just beginning to take shape as the UK was plunging into recession. This caused a lot of stress especially for the firm's founders. A lot of contracts that were underbid just to get the work, with the result that everyone was overworked. This didn't matter too much as the work was fascinating. Management was not the company's strong suit. A combination of informality with financial stress led to frequent problems. For that matter, I was just learning too. Though I was already discovering that I was an excellent debugger, my other software engineering skills were just maturing (especially estimation). I was able to learn a lot from my mistakes (including losing several weeks of work with no backup when my home hard disk died). Neil Sandford was very supportive during this period, despite the pressure he was under. And I met and had long conversations with Mark Allerton, Keith Vanning, Kevin Turner, all of whom had a very positive impact on both my software engineering and my life.

At the end of University, I finally had to think seriously about a career. I had a few things in mind - journalism, software, or perhaps a PhD in the USA. Though a PhD had appealed to me for many years, I was now impatient to start using my skills for something more 'real'. I had a strong love of journalism, especially The Economist, but it seemed like the initial steps for that (local papers) were pretty unattractive to say the least. Conversely, the opportunities in technology at the low end seemed more appealing. I wanted to try something other than the Soft Option, so I had to look around for other places. While I was doing that I wanted short-term work, and CIX came to my rescue again. I found a year of work at Arnor, producers of a word processor called Protext.

Arnor was my first experience working at a true software house (with products) as opposed to The Soft Option's services based business. The contrast could not have been more striking to me. The products environment was so much more positive and rewarding than services. Arnor were in a difficult position. They had been word processing leaders in the text-based WP world. But by 1991 it was increasingly clear that GUIs were going to win the day, and that Protext would need massive engineering effort to equal Microsoft Word, and even then would struggle to have a viable mass-market Unique Selling Point.

It was fascinating to be with the company as this transition was happening. My role was on the cusp of this problem - I was supposed to port Protext to the solidly GUI-based Archimedes running RISC OS 2. This was my first encounter with a very large C codebase, and my own software skills were improving. But I struggled to square this particular circle. Protext's code was in good shape, but was highly procedural, and did not follow the event-based system favoured by a GUI-based OS. Making these two fit together and remain performant was a feat I could not complete, despite a long year of work. And as the year went on, I became less and less sure what market there would be for Archimedes software, or for Protext, in 3 years time. Windows 3.1 ships in July of this year, and it seemed to me for the first time that the clear future is the Intel based PC running Windows. Despite this adverse Outlook, I learnt a lot from my time at Arnor and from Mark Tilley and Gavin Every who were my chief mentors there. Instead of continuing at Arnor at the end of my year, I decide to move to Brameur, an IT Consultancy that is working with Neil Sandford (ex Soft Option) on EC funded research that sounds fascinating and cool.

At around this time (mid 1992), I'd been dating Louise since mid 1989. We moved in together and stayed living together till I moved to America in 1996, though we stopped dating early in 1993. This was a tremendous support to me during what were sometimes difficult times, and we have remained good friends across all these years. The house we shared in Fleet reminded me how much I hated suburbs, but we were both on a tight budget and could not be picky. Without someone to share the space with, I think we both would have gone nuts :)

At the end of 1993 I had an experience that focussed the next few years of my life. I was lucky to see an ad for a Microsoft Win32 conference in California in Dr Dobbs' Journal. I immediately knew that I had to make the trip, and determined to find some way to go. Luckily I was able to persuade Brameur to send me. Participating in this conference, and meeting all the smart, fun, diverse, energetic Microsoft people helped me finally crystalise how I wanted to move to the USA - I wanted to work for Microsoft, or if not for them, then for someone else working in software products in the US. If I could get in, of course.

I decided to finish my project at Brameur. My primary project was called Intuitive. It was a multimedia, multidatabase system that allows integration of multiple data sources under a single interface. That is, the user can create one query which is automatically split into multiple SQL, OQL, or other QL queries. When the results return, they are rejoined into a single result. Though the project was technically unsatisfying, poorly managed, and mostly pointless for our company from a research perspective, I learnt a lot about people management, project management and taught myself a lot more about technology. Thanks especially to Jim Hemsley, Eric Trodd, Mike Kelley and Phil Preedy for making this opportunity possible. I also got to travel all over Europe for this job, which was great fun, as we had not travelled much when I was young.

In early 1995 I applied to Microsoft, and later in that year to other US software companies, but in October 1995 I interviewed for work in Visual C++ (my first choice product to work on) and was accepted. I had a short time to pack up and get ready while the US government was shut down over the 1996 Christmas. It all suddenly happened in a whirlwind. It was hard to leave my friends and family behind, but in February 1996, I moved to Redmond, WA.

I'm going to stop the life story here for now. My recent history, interests, and events are already reflected in the other interests sections above.