About Us
The Team
Steve Hanlon
Like many my age, my first computer was a Sinclair ZX81, although by that time I had learned to type on a cut out advert of a ZX80 from a Sunday paper magazine! I wrote some programs and some simple games for the ZX81 and Spectrum and some time later went on to Leeds University to study Computer Science and beer. I emerged seven years later with a first class degree and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.
I went on to work at Essex University working on a handwriting recognition project with the Royal Mail – but soon moved on to working in London and I skipped around a few different companies learning how computers were used in big and small companies and departments – these included Europcar, Lloyds bank, Lombard finance, B&Q (head office, not the warehouse!) I was generally programming and working as an Oracle DBA.
I then went on to work at a small but successful domain name company – netnames – as their Director of Technology and got sucked into the internet boom (just before it burst in 2000). This led to a lot of interesting work with Pregenesis (2000) with serial internet entrepreneur Ivan Pope and Chris Moss who went on to be the CEO at 118 118.
After a stint of working in speech recognition and telephony, which was mostly programming while sat in a private phone exchange, I moved back up to Wigan with Jude and set about consulting from home until 2005 when I moved the office out of the house to Standish and started mytechie.
Along the way I became a Chartered IT Professional (CITP) and Chartered Engineer (CEng).
In my spare time, I try my hardest to be a good Dad and I’m also a local Councillor in Ormskirk where Jude and I live.
Chris Ashcroft
Chris has worked with us since the start of 2008. He works on both the PC and laptop repairs and servicing as well as home and business visits.
Chris has completed Cisco training and has become an expert in diagnosing and resolving PC problems, as well as being a dab-hand at laptop repairs.
I think I should get Chris to write something here! Steve.
Jude Hanlon
Bizarrely, my first computer was also a ZX81. Bought second-hand from a garage sale, it overheated after about half an hour, so you could only type in very short programs – especially as we hadn’t sussed out how to save them to cassette (cutting edge technology!). We went from that to a Toshiba, while my friends had the sexier Dragon and Spectrum computers (we also had a Betamax video – what can I say – my Dad knew good technology when he saw it), and through several word processors until the first Apple Mac was brought into the house.
I did a little programming at school and quite enjoyed it, enough to take on the challenge of computing as half of a joint honours degree at Leeds (the other half being Linguistics). Our course focussed on Artificial Intelligence & language recognition, and although I was interested by the prospect of research, I was keen to get into “the real world”. I was one of a handful of women in a large group of men. This situation has rarely changed while I’ve been employed by other people.
My first job was at Hampshire County Council, developing and supporting the systems used throughout the council, programming on green screens in Oracle v6/SQL*Forms 2.3. I remember with fondness the heady days when word came down from tech support that there had been “a head crash”* – that usually meant the system was going to be down for most of the day, and heralded a day of organising one’s paperclip collection. The internet was spreading wider at this point, and HCC had its own version – Hantsnet – with a small-ads predecessor of eBay. I also remember being warned to wear a long skirt on the day we had our computer security briefing as the chap who gave it was easily distracted…
I went from there to Perot Systems (Europe) Ltd, working at their Europcar account, supporting the front-desk part of the application. I got to go abroad, check my languages were still working, work hard and (a bit) play hard. The first memory that pops into my head is coming home from a 4am software release to find my flatmate’s (quite good-looking, actually) friend in my bed where he’d not long crashed after a night’s clubbing. While I was at Europcar I saw several progressions of technology from Forms 3.0 to 4.5 (with windows-like front-end, at last) and wider use of PCs. It was here that Steve and I met.
Something I’ve always wanted to do was try my hand at running my own company. In the late 90s cross stitch was a big industry and my main hobby, and I couldn’t find many designs that I liked. So, I piled in and set up “Stitched Up” through which several unusual and colourful designs saw the light of day. It was also a useful exercise in exploring early social media (e-newsletter – I was a pioneer!) and websites with content management & online sales.
After Lily and Joel came on the scene it became less practical to run a company that involved having bits of thread and needles scattered around, so I was drawn Godfather-like back into the world of computers.
At mytechie I’ve turned into a jack of all trades – I do a lot of the web programming, accounts, and firstline support. I’ve become adept at recognising a virus at 30 paces, and making reassuring noises when a new client thinks they may have lost all their data.
In my spare time? As Lily says “this is my mummy – she just likes to knit”.
* for the curious – one of the heads which reads information from the many hard disks which make up a mainframe computer had touched the surface of one of said disks, trashing the information thereon and requiring a skilled technical recovery job. Also, it was a water-cooled system. That still makes me shake my head a bit.
Moneypenny
We *heart* moneypenny. They answer most of our incoming calls. When Steve was first holed up at Vermont House in Standish he used them and since we’ve been getting busier we’re using them again. They make sure that the phones are answered if we’re out and that messages get to us.
Why mytechie?
The name came from some virtual ISP work that I was doing around 2001 with Ivan Pope – to be honest I was just testing registering domains and it was hung around after testing a few names. It kind of stuck… and got a life of its own. Some people don’t like it because it doesn’t give the “super corporate” name that we ought to have (!)
I like it. Steve
