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Name: Michael Geary
Location: Utahan living/working in Cologne, Germany
User Group: DOUG all they way, baby
E-Mail: mgeary@antwerpes.de
Homepage: (none right now. Too busy!)
Birthday: 12/28/70
Education: BA in German Literature from Brigham Young University
Nickname that I hate: Micklemouse (don't even thinkaboutit)
Job Title that best describes what I do: Merciless mutilator of defenseless data
Years in Multimedia: 5
The last good book I read: Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
Favorite music to crunch code by: Midnight Oil, Tears for Fears, U2
If I wasn't doing this, I'd be: Teaching German Literature at a University
I've always wanted to meet: Kai Krause
When they make my life story into a movie, they'll cast: that king of fashion Shaggy and his partner in crime-busting, Scoobie Doo. Zoinks!
Currently working on: A ton of stuff. I'm doing some really exciting work with on-the-fly PDF file generation. I hope to have a DOUG article about it soon. I'm also doing a lot of work with databases lately. Now that the distinction between on- and offline is blurring, all sorts of fun things are becoming possible. I think there's a lot of database development in web pages that we multimedia developers can adapt to our own twisted ends...
Three words that best describe me: Do I haftaGoToBedAlready?
Browser preference: Browsers? Browsers?! We don't need no stinkin' browsers! I'm makin' my own dang browsers. Man I love Director.
If I had a time machine, I'd go (pick a year ): All the waaaay back.
DOUG: What is Antwerpes & Partners, and what do you do there?
MG: Antwerpes & Partner is a traditional and new-technology advertising agency. They were recently ranked number 10 in all of Germany. I am their chief (okay, only) multimedia dude. We do a lot of print work, a lot of really cool web work, and, ahem, not enough multimedia work ;). I spend about 70% of my time doing database-driven web sites, and the remainder working on multimedia projects and building cool tools.
DOUG: What kinds of projects do you find yourself working on these days? Web sites? CD-ROMs? Other?
MG: Bread and butter at A&P is web sites. We specialize in high-end, database-driven web sites, which the customers can manage themselves via easy-to-use database interfaces. A lot of my work in Director ends up being internal tools. I have written a ton of small apps which parse and process text, and crawl through or connect with the internet.
As my recent DOUG article (plug) indicated, I've also been doing some work lately with CD-ROMs which modify their structure based on a database. As the saying goes, "everything tastes better when it's sitting on a database." It is now very feasible to have this database hosted on a server somewhere. The following logical step is to drive both a website and a CD-ROM from the same database. I see web browsers becoming less and less important as developers are able to construct their own interfaces to internet protocols and deliver information in any form they like.
DOUG: What is Active Design & how are you associated with them? Are you a Trans-Atlantic (tele)commuter ?
MG: What's that? I can't quite hear you, my Concorde's still running. Hang on... There, that's better.
Active-Design is the name of a domain and a business which I own. The business is on hold for the time being. In this turbulent world of high-technology Active-Design lets me give people an email address which won't change. I'm not a telecommuter. I'm in Germany right now, but I'll eventually settle back down in the States. Whether things with ActiveDesign will formally pick up again or not is still uncertain.
DOUG: What is your background and how did you get attracted to this kind of work?
MG: I studied German Literature at college, but computers have always been a passion. I actually started it all with QuarkXPress. From there I went through Photoshop, Illustrator, Applescript, more Applescript, 3D-Modeling, Video editing and finally settled into Director. What really kept me interested in Director is that I can apply all the other skills I've acquired. Layout, graphic editing, automation, video, and sound editing are all required for many Director creations. It gives me an excuse to remain a multimedia generalist.
DOUG: What are the other interests in your life and how do they influence your work?
MG: My biggest interest is in my wife, Katie. She influences my work by making sure I get a solid 8 hours of sleep most nights. Unusual for our field, eh? Maybe that's why I'm so good-humored. I really love to read, and I try to alternate between classical literature, fantasy, and software manuals. Like most of my colleagues, however, I'm a bit two-dimensional: I come home from a 10-hour workday, turn on my computer, and start futzing around with Director some more.
DOUG: Have you made the jump to D7 yet? What are your impressions of it?
MG: Just barely made the jump. Still trying to regain my balance a bit. All in all, I consider it a must-have. I really love the dynamic anti-aliased text. I will still rely on XtraNet for my internet activities. I'm a bit disappointed Macromedia didn't do more there. I'm excited about Xtra downloading, but it's still just talk for me. Nevertheless, I will probably not start any new projects in D6.5.
DOUG: Are you planning to attend UCON 99? What do you hope to see there?
MG: Man, wish I could. I love working in Cologne, but it does make some things infeasible. If I could go I'd mainly want to see a bunch of the Direct-L crazies. Truth be told, there's so many technologies that I'm still plowing through, like XML, internet protocols , and Xtra development, not to mention becoming acquainted with D7, that I don't even know what I want for the future! I'm like a kid who got too many presents for Christmas, and hardly knows what to look at first.
DOUG: Does Y2K have any impact on your life? If so, how?
MG: Only to the extent that I hear PC users yammering about it ;). Did you hear that Chinese airline executives have been ordered by their government to spend the change from 1999 to 2000 in their own airplanes in the sky? That's one way to ensure a fix. Watch out for very low flying airplanes on December 31.
DOUG: What do you expect to be working on or doing a year from now?
MG: I consider myself a tool-guy. I love making small apps that solve little problems I encounter day-to-day. I'd like to see myself polishing up a few of these and releasing them as shareware. I've also been lurking on the Open Xtras Project List, and I'd love to have made some inroads into Xtra development, assuming I can plow my way into C++. This is, of course, assuming I don't die in a Chinese airplane on January 1, 2000.
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