sulking dog productions
apple services
By day, I'm an Apple Systems Administrator, responsible for over 3000 Apple branded devices across a city wide network. I integrate Macs into a Windows environment, remotely manage desktop and mobile clients and leverage multiple platforms to maintain a working network of iMacs, Mac Pros, Macbooks, Macbook Pros, Mac Minis, iPod Touches and iPads.
Off the clock, I'm a musician, a sometime photographer and an always tech enthusiast. My home network covers is an elegant mess of FreeNAS servers, OS X Servers, Windows 7 boxes, a DAW, several gaming consoles. Apple TV's, various laptops and two Apple II era devices (An Apple IIe and a IIgs). All talking to each other, printing, retrieving data and streaming media.
Regardless of the situation, there's a solution and if I haven't run across it before, I know how to find it. Solving problems specific to Apple's platforms is what I do and I am good at my job.
I hand pick my clients based on need. I don't take clients that would be better served by someone else (we have a truly fantastic hardware specific server provider in the area that I highly recommend for warranty hardware work) and I specialize in small businesses, backup/disaster recovery scenarios and device integration.
If you're looking for a consultant that is too busy to take you for a ride, but willing to dedicate themselves to a fair service arrangement; you've come to the right place.
Sulking Dog Productions (like any long term, personal project) is an evolution of a philosophy. Initially, SDP was simply a name for a collection of for-profit services; web development, network design, FOSS implementation services and a potpourri of other offerings. In the end, the name has outlived its designation
That’s a good thing.
I no longer provide any of those services. At some point, I bit the bullet and traded in my consultant’s guns for a permanent gig. The name, however, lives on as a seed of a more robust world view; an amalgamation of energetic naivety and tempered wisdom that I carry in search of fertile ground.
Okay, that sounds a bit grandiose and that isn’t my intention. The concept is grandiose, though: putting what I’ve learned about technology to use for the explicit purpose of supporting human need.
For the past three years, I have worked within the primary/secondary (k-12) education system. Initially, I contracted to build a framework for network deployment and management for Macs across a city wide school district covering thirty locations; the scope of that contract turned into iOS (iPod Touch and iPad) deployment and management and ultimately into a my transition from contract to driving the proverbial bus full time – and full time it has been.
My first hand exposure to classroom (student and teacher) need, however, has reignited my view of what SDP could mean: community technical literacy programs, skill building for those in need, technology redistribution and technology support for creative individuals.
Baby steps, though.
The first step is to wake the dreamer; sulkingdog.com has sat as a placeholder for too long and I’ve been completely absent on my own site; so I am merging the two here. I’ll also be promoting a side project (ipadsinschool.net) pretty heavily as that site develops.
The hope is simple: to feed the soul as my job affords me to feed the body. To slow the passing years with a work that is greater in purpose than the acquisition of toys.
Lofty, eh?
thom