My name is Faye Williams, and I create all the tutorials on this site. I’m based in Hampshire in the UK.
I write accessible, friendly, and easy to read guides that will never be boring or make you want to tear your hair out in frustration.
I also send out a technical post in my newsletter every Tuesday at 8am GMT.
How did you end up doing this?
I’ve worked on embedded systems running variants of Linux for over a decade. Eventually I started a blog to record little how-tos that I thought others might find useful.
That was almost four years ago, now it’s my full-time job.
Got any formal qualifications?
Yup. A masters degree in Software Engineering, awarded with distinction ;-). Oh, and a handy degree in Economics.
For those of you that want to know a little bit more about me, read on…
Early Days
I wrote my first program on my Dad’s BBC Microcomputer – remember those?
No?
Oh.
Now I feel old.
Growing up, computing wasn’t really the done thing at school, but we always had one at home, along with games consoles like the Megadrive, Saturn and PlayStation, so I guess my love of all things geek comes from those days. My Dad is an engineer too, so he was always busy building, fixing and sometimes even inventing.
Early Career
I did Economics at university, and after that I worked at, of all things, a publishing start-up in London.
However, I think my love affair with computers was just meant to be. I fell into helping out with the company website when our webmaster unexpectedly left. Then, when we finally got a replacement, and I had to hand the website back over, I realised that I liked working with the internet more than I liked being a print editor.
So, a friend recommended me for a job as an online editor at another company, and from there I progressed to being a content manager for another startup website.
For a while, I toyed with the idea of Microsoft courses and certification, dabbled in a bit of Java development, and did a short course in C++ programming.
Software Engineering
I loved the C++ course so much I dropped my hours to part-time and went back to university to complete a masters in Software Engineering. I discovered Linux, open source software and a world of freedom in programming. It was amazing.
After I graduated, I got my first ‘proper’ software engineering job at an enterprise storage company.
And the rest, so they say, is history.
I’ve been lucky enough to spend over a decade working on embedded systems, in both the UK and the US, even freelancing for some of that time as a C++/Linux consultant.
Some of the things I’ve loved:
- Working on the Sony Cell Processor (PS3 chip).
- Living just down the road from Apple HQ in Cupertino.
- Visiting the Microsoft campus in Seattle (my only Windows-based development experience!)
- Attending a plugfest for RAID drivers.
- Debugging a project with 2.3 million lines of code (yup).
- Managing amazing outsourced developers in Russia and Poland.
- The creation of a hardware emulator for a team of 17 while waiting for prototype delivery.
- The opportunity to work on so many Linux variants.
- Working with so many super-clever software engineers.
- Greenfield development on cutting edge RAID products.
- Code porting from ARM9 to Linux.
- Code porting from Windows to Linux.
- Code porting from GameOS to Linux.
- I’ve done a lot of code porting, and I still love it!
And some of the platforms and processors I’ve worked on:
- Linux: Yellow Dog, MontaVista, Fedora, Gentoo, Red Hat
- Solaris
- ThreadX
- ARM 7, ARM 9, PPC405
- Cell Broadband Engine Architecture
- Intel, Intel Dual Core
And debuggers I’ve used:
- GDB
- Greenhills
- Lauterback
- Visual Studio 6!
- And lots more GDB…
Oh, I could go on and on.
But you get the picture right?
I truly love programming and computers.
I started this site just to share little bits and pieces in a way that was accessible and easy to read.
Now I get to pick and choose what I write about and share it with you.
I am a very happy developer indeed, and I really hope that I can help you in your journey to create better software :-).