Personal

Personal History

I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. My first computer was a Commodore 64 which I used primarily for playing games loaded via floppy disks or cassette tape – waiting 30 minutes for a game to load made you really appreciate actually playing it. In the early 90’s I convinced my mum to buy our first decent computer, I think it had a 133 MHZ Pentium processor, which at the time blew all of my friends’ 486 machines away.

This was also about the time my cousin introduced me to the wonders of the BBS (Bulletin Board System) – which was basically the internet before there was an internet, but on a very local scale. BBS’s had it all – live chat, file transfers and online multiplayer games (does anyone remember Legend of the Red Dragon or M.U.D?).

I hate to think how much I cost my mum in those days – dial-up 28.k modems were the fashion of the time, and each time you dialed-up to a BBS it was the cost of a local call. The catch was BBS’s had time limits and would log you off after 20mins (unless you paid for membership credits).

Nothing could top BBS’s. Until in the mid 90’s when I became familiar with a world wide network taking the world by storm, a little something called the internet. The internet killed the BBS practically overnight. The Internet had everything the BBS’s had and more. Ironically the internet is becoming more ‘local’ all the time.

In the late 90’s I dabbled in creating websites on free webhosts like Geocities and Tripod. Years later I built an e-commerce website for my then-girlfriend’s business. Seeking a way to drive more traffic to the site I got into Search Engine Optimisation…

Fast forward to the present.
In my free time I work on marketing and developing my partners sites. I also dabble in web development and affiliate marketing.

Away from the internet I enjoy mixed martial arts, video games, poker, board games, heavy music, comedy and horror movies, learning to play guitar (again) and technology – of course.

Favorite Books:
Marketing
Influence – Robert B Cialdini
Call to Action – Eisenberg brothers
Web Analytics an Hour a Day – Avinash Kaushik
Don’t Make Me Think – Steve Krug
Landing Page Optimization – Tim Ash

Fiction
The Call of Cthulhu – HP Lovecraft
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk

Favorite Movies:
The Big Lebowski – Coen Bros.
The Devil’s Rejects – Rob Zombie
Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Death Proof – Quentin Tarantino
Anything directed by George A Romero

Favorite Music:
Satyricon
Rammstein
Motorhead
Rob Zombie
Queens of the Stoneage
The White Stripes