Jokl Technologies was formerly my registered company. At the time I registered I had individuals who came to me requiring various forms of computer assistance. Having since graduated from the University of Bradford and starting full time employment I have found that this kind of work is no longer coming to me besides which I am so busy with my main employment I couldn't cope with running another business on the side.

Although Jokl Technologies ceases now to exist as a registered trade name the spirit of Jokl Technologies lives on. I am continuously looking into new technologies and new frontiers.

Currently I am employed by Keynetix a member of the Key Systems group of companies. This has marked quite a shift for me as this is the first role I have had as a .Net developer. Those who know me well would find this quite ironic given that I am such a strong advocate for Java and Java technologies. This site is now Java enabled too. This site is unlikely though to be spectacular either for looks or content. The main aim is to have a server platform my LSL scripts can communicate with.

I have not given up on the Java world but feel also that having skills in both Java and .Net puts me in a strong position. In .Net I program in the C# language (and not Visual Basic thank goodness).

In the short term the biggest goals and frontiers which I am currently working on is that I want to become a Sun Certified Java Programmer. I have the revision guide. This is something which I have wanted to do for the past year. I feel I get judged to often by virtue of the number of years experience in industry I have. I like experience but find often the number of years experience I have on paper are not generally an accurate indicator of my programming skill. Not to be boastful but I have found that in many instances I can program better than individuals who are several years my senior in terms of years of experience. I am not complacent though and believe I will always have room for improvement and certainly there is much to learn. Becoming Sun Certified is my way of proving that I am a competent Java programmer and who knows, if I return to Java in the future I will be in good stead.

The other frontier I am working on is Second Life. For all the perhaps skeptical reception it receives as well as having a somewhat cult following I am very much intrigued by the technology which powers it. The Linden Scripting Language may be quite limited but which my developer ability I plan to put it through its paces and see what it can do. To that end this page is online again roughly six months after shutting my site down. The reason this site is back is because my private server has arisen from the ashes as a phoenix. The computer which used to be my web server has been serving me as my desktop computer ever since Ruby-A (The originally Ruby I accidentally left on a train to Middlesborough, thank heavens for insurance) who was my trusty laptop for the duration of my university studies and even beyond died the death. May she rest in peace (or pieces in my case as I scavenge her corpse for spares)

This new server is built on the Intel Atom processor. In this time of spiralling energy prices inflation and potential for am imminent recession the Atom processor has made running a server again practical for me. Not only is the Intel Atom extremely energy efficient but it is also very cheap too. I would roughly guess that a whole Linux system powered by an Atom processor could be built for as little as £100. I would not want to leave some energy hungry computer running 24x7 with high energy prices but this computer I am not so worried about. The motivation for rebuilding the server is Second Life. I had previously experimented with connectivity between Second Life scripts and my server. One of the main goals of this server is to again provide me with that back end to my scripts to increase their scope of complexity in a way which is not easy without your own server. I have a web server, email service and back end databases. This provides everything I really need. It had been my plan to wait until the Atom 330 processor became available but due to a delayed launch and being itching to get a server up and running again I settled for using one of the current Atom 230 processors. For all that it is cut down I have been pleasantly surprised by its performance. If the Intel Atom 330 is as cheap as this bundle was I can alway replace the processor / motherboard when the new processor is available and use this one for something else.

My previous server was built on Solaris 10 (after migrating from Centos 4). This server is built on Ubuntu Server which is now my preferred Linux Distro. I have hopes of going back to Solaris in the future and still have the hard drives from the old Solaris server sat waiting to be put into a new machine. I decided against using them in this machine because the previous server was dual core and want to put them back into a dual core machine (like the Atom 330 when available) just so the existing Solaris installation is running on at least a similar platform.

This site also acts as a convenient way of linking into my family's private forum site and also linked to a gallery to but the gallery site has since been taken down. Perhaps one day it will come back. The link remains but it doesn't work anymore.

Christmas is now approaching and here is the Chistmas Countdown. The Christmas Countdown requires Java which can be downloaded here