Liam Proven

Current

Freelance writer & IT consultant (Sole Proprietorship)

Past

Networks Editor at Heise Media UK Ltd
Out-of-hours support at CSC
Systems consultant at Blue Fountain Systems

Labs Manager & Technical Writer, PC Pro at Dennis Publishing
IT Manager at Alfred Berg
Technical support person at Newton Investment Management
Software support person at Micro Anvika
Technical support person at DigiCom Systems
Technical support person at CSL Delta

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6 more...

Education

Royal Holloway, U. of London

Recommended

2 people have recommended Liam

Connections

234 connections

Industry

Computer Networking

Websites

Liam Proven’s Summary

• 20 years working in the computer industry, including technical support, training, sales and journalism.
• Independent consultant on all aspects of personal and business computing, covering networking, hardware, software and communications.
• Experienced in all phases of business computing: specification, selection, purchase, installation, integration, user training & support, repairs and upgrades.
• Familiar with independent and team working, for resellers and end-users, including corporate environments, workshop, sales floor and in the field on customer sites.
• Specialities include configuration/optimisation/troubleshooting of operating systems, networks and communications, from planning through installation to support of live mission-critical systems.
• Expertise includes familiarity with virtually all significant operating systems and applications, enabling the support of almost any computer, as well as training of users (from novices to experts) in all aspects of computer use, including system customisation.
• Writer, presenter and trainer on all the above areas and non-computer-related subjects.
• Many articles published in most major UK IT journals; presentations to live audiences and via TV, radio and Internet.

Experience

H/W: IBM & compatible servers, PCs & notebooks; Apple Mac; DEC, IBM & Sun workstations, minis & mainframes; PDAs.

OSs: Windows, DOS & OS/2; MacOS & OS X; Linux; Netware; SCO Xenix & Unix; OpenVMS; SunOS & Solaris; Cisco; many others.

LAN/WAN: MS networking from DOS to Windows Server 2003, LAN Manager & Samba; TCP/IP, NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, AppleTalk & DECnet; Novell Netware; AppleShare; others.

Comms: POP3/SMTP/IMAP; HTTP/HTML, IIS & Apache; firewalls, routers, proxy servers, gateways etc.; PSTN, ISDN, ADSL, X.25, leased lines etc.; remote LAN access & remote control.

Coding: BASIC, Fortran, Pascal, DOS batch files, DCL, C Shell.

Apps: all major office suites, web browsers, email clients; DTP etc.

Liam Proven’s Specialties:

Communication, writing, presenting, very broad systems experience, helpdesk, telephone support, first/second/third line support, field support, workshop engineer, retail sales, troubleshooting, customer relations, client liaison

Liam Proven’s Experience

Freelance writer & IT consultant
Sole Proprietorship

(Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 1996 — Present (13 years 3 months)

Self-employed independent consultant, providing support and related services to individuals and small businesses, predominantly across the South-East of England. In recent years, increasingly specialising in open source and Free software solutions where applicable.
Networks Editor

Heise Media UK Ltd

(Publishing industry)

2008 — December 2008 (less than a year)

Editing the networks channel of this new UK tech news site, owned by Germany's largest computer-magazine publishers. I ran the Networks channel from its opening in September until it was closed in December following the appointment of a new Editor-in-Chief.
Out-of-hours support

CSC

(Computer Networking industry)

2008 — 2008 (less than a year)

Field desktop PC support for the Transport for London MAN/WAN, supporting 38,000+ users on 20,000+ XP machines and thin clients.
Systems consultant

Blue Fountain Systems

(Public Company; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

2002 — 2002 (less than a year)

Managing and supporting NT4/W2K/WinXP servers & clients, MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, Linux & AS/400 systems for clients in Britain and Belgium.
Labs Manager & Technical Writer, PC Pro

Dennis Publishing

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Publishing industry)

1995 — 1996 (1 year )

Initially, running in-house testing labs, testing, reviewing and tracking movements of all products featured in the magazine. Also sysadmin & support of editorial team & in-house LANs (Netware 4, Windows 3/95/NT 3.51 & 4, MacOS). Later, full-time staff technical writer/editor: obtaining, testing & reviewing hardware & software, writing technical articles and editing and proofing work. Support duties expanded to include reader assistance & work on the magazine’s monthly cover CD-ROM.
IT Manager

Alfred Berg

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Financial Services industry)

1992 — 1995 (3 years )

Running part of Scandinavia-wide WAN. London segment included VAX/VMS, DEC PathWorks, Novell NetWare & Windows. Managed migration from DOS with Netware & Pathworks servers via DECnet on Thin Ethernet to Windows 3 and NT 3.5 servers via TCP/IP on Cat5; designed and built new LAN and X.11-based information distribution system; installed new NT/SQL Server based back-office system.
Technical support person

Newton Investment Management

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Financial Services industry)

1992 — 1992 (less than a year)

Supporting 300-user system running NetWare 3.11, Lotus 1-2-3 r3 & WordPerfect 5.1 plus VAX & mainframe system integration.
Software support person

Micro Anvika

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Retail industry)

1991 — 1992 (1 year )

Another VAR; similar position to CSL and DigiCom.
Technical support person

DigiCom Systems

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

1990 — 1991 (1 year )

Another VAR; duties very similar to at CSL.
Technical support person

CSL Delta

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

1988 — 1990 (2 years )

All levels of H/W & S/W installation, training & support, on PCs, Macs, Novell Netware 2, 3 & 4, SCO Xenix & Unix, IBM RS/6000 & AIX, DEC PDP/11, IBM AS/400 & System/36 and other systems. Helpdesk and onsite support, retail sales, workshop repairs, technical pre & post-sales advice, troubleshooting, data recovery, systems optimisation. Delivering formal courses on Lotus 1-2-3, MS Word, MS Works, Aldus PageMaker, and MS-DOS, both in-house and on-site.

Liam Proven’s Education

Royal Holloway, U. of London

BSc , Biology , 1985 — 1988

Honours degree in Biology, along with grade 1 pass in Computer Programming in FORTRAN. Won Mary Isabella Webb Prize for best student in first year.

Activities and Societies:

Yoga society, science fiction society, film society

Additional Information

Liam Proven’s Websites:

Liam Proven’s Interests:

natural history & ecology, science & technology, travel, bicycling, motorcycling, running, snowboarding, reading, languages (some degree of competence in French; German; Spanish; Norwegian & others)

Liam Proven’s Groups:

Committee member of Skeptics in the Pub (London),
Reviewer for /Vector/ - the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association,
Former fund-raising coordinator for Greenpeace Isle of Man,
Former newsletter editor for Friends of the Earth Isle of Man,
Former president of ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha,
Former sysop of AOL Skeptics channel, CIX, UK SF fandom