Information Technology Experience

Early experience

Ever since I got my first computer I've been doing tech support for friends and family. Luckily my family aren't the worst, especially my dad who works in IT. When i went to school I often was the one the teachers turned to when their equipment failed. By now I've become used to helping people so much so that it is second nature.

That said, I do know that I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I often turn to Google for help, and I firmly believe that learning to use Google can fix 90% of people's troubles. And when all else fails, we've got the XKCD Tech Support Cheat Sheet.

School

In Norway, we've got IT as a career school education. This was an obvious choice for me when I was done with my basic electric education and concluded I was more interested in computers than mounting light fixtures.

This was a great time for me. We had many great projects going, and the really big one was datanytt.no. By the time we finished school we had created one of Norway's most read tech news sites. Sadly, the earnings kept waiting, and we abandoned the project. You can read more about the project in the web section.

Apprenticeship

When I finished school I'd already gotten an apprenticeship at the county authorities. This was a growing IT department with 15 employees when I started and over 20 when I was done two years later.

During this time I learned everything I needed to learn about running an IT department. The servers, the support and the purchasing process.

IT manager

code Inventory system I'm currently the IT manager for the courts of Bergen; Bergen district court, Nordhordland district court and Gulating court of appeal. Combined this means about 160 employees and 30 courtrooms, distributed in two court houses. I've got the responsibility for all tech in the courts, from computers and thin clients to video conferencing equipment and general AV equipment. This includes support, purchasing new equipment and upgrading existing equipment.

When I started in this job we were two IT employees. During this time I redid the old MS Access inventory system in PHP+MySQL and transferred the database. Now when I'm alone I can't spend any time doing such projects, and must try to keep up with my other duties as best I can.

iPhone development

I've developed and published several apps to the Apple App Store. Read the iOS section for more details.