About the Inventor of the RingMachine:
David E. Whiteis
Hi, I'm David E. Whiteis, and I'm the inventor of the RingMachine, and the creator of this web site. This section of this web site will tell you a little bit more about me.
My day job is as a computer network administrator, and occasional programmer and web developer. I've been doing this sort of work for almost 20 years. Recently I've been working on getting my CCNA computer networking certification (I already have my MCSE), and I just started at a local computer consulting firm in Rockville, Maryland called Dataprise, Inc.
In my free time I like to get involved in a variety of projects.
Certainly the best thing to come out of the whole Similarities Engine adventure for me, was that I met my wife Kasia because of it. I joined up with a company that was based partly in Krakow, Poland, and Kasia was working there. We met when I spent 4 months in Krakow, and eventually I talked her into moving back to the U.S. with me here. That was in 1997. Our first child was born in 2001. He's doing just fine and he makes us both incredibly happy.
I'm one of 6 children, and we're all pretty close. We're all online to one degree or another, and we use a small email distribution list I set up to keep in touch, in addition to the phone and visits. My Dad is a news broadcaster with Voice of America. Mom was a nurse at the NIH for several years, but lately she's been spending time with her 10 grand-kids, and travelling, among other things.
I like to learn new technologies. I've got various Palm computers and a Compaq iPaq, and have done some development work on them. I very much enjoyed getting to know something about digital video production, as I put together the RingMachine videos that you can see here on this web site, and another longer DVD video that I'll be using to help me find investors in the product line. Some of the other computer things I've been working with for some time, or studying lately, include ColdFusion, and web development. I started writing this system years ago--I call it DW-GovWeb and I just recently brought it out of mothballs to demonstrate some of my Visual Basic for Access skills. In my career, I've written programs that were used in K-12 education, oil refinery modeling, genetic micro-arrayer database management, computer BIOS development, listserve maintenance, collaborative filtering and others. A while ago I got my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certificate (Windows 2000). Lately I'm studying MS VS C++ 7.0 and MS VS VB 7.0. I'm programming in Visual Basic and taking a class in Visual C++ at the same time, so that's been interesting. I grabbed the URL Songlyrics.com a few years ago, and that was a nice success for my wife and I--she developed a great web site there, but we have since sold it and the new owners have made it into a bit of a popup-ridden mess, unfortunately. (If you go there, don't install any software that it asks you to install, from GAIN or anywhere else.)
Some of my other interests include the following: X-Games style rollerblading, windsurfing, writing, travel, photography, mountain bike riding and running (I did my first marathon recently). I quit smoking in November 2000, and I like to stay involved in helping others to get free from the habit too. I read a lot for pleasure. My favorite book by far would have to be Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
You can learn more about me and Kasia at this older web site of mine, whiteis.com There are also links there to many of the subjects that I've mentioned here in this page if you are interested.
