Welcome! I figure a short introduction is in order in case you have no idea who I am or what I do, and also so I can briefly explain why I've started a blog again and what kinds of things you can expect to find here.

Who I am

Hi, I'm James. I'm a 29 year old software developer and human being from Australia. I've been dabbling in code since I was around 10 years old and been working full-time as a software developer for the past 9 years.

What I've done

My first foray into the world of programming was back in about 1996 when I discovered scripting for the hugely popular IRC client, mIRC. From the moment I saw the power of scripting, I was hooked. By 1998 I had a copy of Borland's Delphi 3 and was working on my own (really shitty) IRC client. Prior to this I had learned about game hacking by modifying their running process memory in real time, and it wasn't long before I put the two together. I went on to create many trainers, hacks and other nefarious utilities targeting numerous games and software, utilising and learning along the way:

  • Win32 memory and kernel hacking techniques
  • Cryptographic analysis & how to bypass application security.
  • Object-oriented Pascal (Delphi)
  • C & C++
  • Assembly
  • PHP
  • MySQL

I know it sounds like I was up to no good, but being quite young at the time I thought it was cool and rebellious. I learned a ton along the way, and have those countless misspent after-school hours to thank for the career I have today.

What I do now

Fast forward many years to 2016 and I've now been working in a commercial software house for 9 years and have worked on projects using:

  • C# / .NET framework - desktop apps, web applications, web APIs & services
  • Pascal / Delphi
  • SQL – covering Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL & SQLite
  • JavaScript & jQuery
  • Java & Android
  • Python (minimal use)

What I'll be posting here

I intend to use this blog as a place to document anything I find interesting as I'm building, breaking, or researching things. My primary focus at the moment is working on Android applications so it's likely that Android will be the subject of many of the posts I write here.

From time to time there may also be excessively-nostalgic posts sharing memories of programming experiences from my past which I found funny or interesting. I make no apologies for this. You have been warned.

James