The years 1993 to 1996 were exciting ones in my professional life. By day, I was working for NSW TAFE in a Systems Administration/Analyst role, and by night I was undertaking a Bachelor of Science (Computing) at the University of Technology, Sydney. My job was particularly interesting. I was working on a Geographical Information System that enabled facilities and educational planning at almost every level. It used a tool called InfoCAD that combined maps, databases and CAD. Using the same application, the user could drill down from a map of NSW with accurately placed TAFE buildings to a screw in a piece of equipment in that building. Furthermore, catchment areas and other geographical data could be interrogated and displayed. And this was in the mid-1990s! To begin with, it used UNIX – we implemented it on SCO UNIX – but when Windows NT arrived, we switched. I had a great time running the system, undertaking data capture and migration, and installing in some of the institutes.
The thing was, prior to the BSc(Comp), I had completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History and English. I had aspirations of being a writer and historian. And these things competed in my head with my fascination for technology.
In 1996, I contacted LAN Magazine. My team had migrated the system from UNIX to NT, and I had not seen any magazine write any articles about doing something like this. Perhaps this was my way into professional writing in a field I loved? Surprisingly, LAN Magazine was receptive. I had not expected that and was as nervous as could be. I spent the next week smashing out what I felt was an insightful and honest account of the migration, emailed it off, and held my breath. The wait seemed eternal, but finally they got back to me with a contract agreeing to the article and a cheque paying for it. My only regret, afterwards, was that they changed the order of words in one of my sentences. Admittedly, the sentence had sounded clumsy, but the change did make the article incorrect in regards to a minor technical issue. Such is life.
So that was an exciting moment for me. This was followed almost immediately by the first time my article was the lead one on the front cover. It was also LAN Magazine. This time the subject was the newly coined term “intranets”. These days the idea does not seem so astonishing, but back then people were using Lotus and other products like that. Once again, I used my technical experience to write something that I feel had quite an impact in Australia.
All in all, it was an exciting time in my career. I went on to write other articles, a couple of textbooks, and now, here I am trying to write some novels. The thing I’ve learned is that writing is important, whether it be simple systems documentation, user manuals, or articles – even blog articles like this. Each thing enriches our knowledge. That’s important.
Anyway, I’m still astonished that it was thirty years ago!
