January 15, 1998 02:01 PM

Sean has worked in most areas of the IT industry. He started his career writing for computer magazines in the early eighties, and by the age of twenty was an editor at BT's on-line service Micronet 800. Having cut his teeth in publishing, he accepted a place at Cambridge in 1988 to read computer science.

As well as supplementing his undergraduate studies with freelance technical writing, Sean spent his vacations working as a software engineer for Acorn Computer Ltd and Paul Fray Control Systems (developing software ultimately used by Landrover to slam their doors until they fell off).

After graduating in 1991, Sean joined Computer Concepts Ltd in their stately home HQ in Hertfordshire to create a range of video and audio capture cards for the 32bit Acorn RISC Machines. When the company shifted development to the PC, he not only wrote code for the award-winning CorelXARA illustration package, but also produced and directed the tutorial videos, and was consequently invited by Microsoft to join the UK Windows 95 pre-launch roadshow to demonstrate the advantage of 32bit applications.

The 1996 release of DirectX created a demand for 32-bit video application programmers in the games industry, prompting Sean to join Virtual Studios to work on Iron Maiden's "Melt" game. At the start of 1997 he joined Douglas Adams' company The Digital Village to work as a programmer on the graphic adventure Starship Titanic, emerging 18 months later to demonstrate the finished CD-ROM for BBC News 24 and live on Sky News.

Sean then spent 1999-2001 as senior software engineer on h2g2.com. His proudest achievement was leading the re-architecture of the rapidly-prototyped Perl into a fully object-oriented C++ engine, with a codebase well-suited to team development. Aquired by the BBC, and renamed 'DNA', the engine now drives a considerable number of BBC sites. The stack of toys and pile of small green pieces of paper provided in return funded the formation of his own R&D / consultancy firm, Sollé Ltd.

As well as writing custom code and creating cool gadgets, the company provides emergency recovery services and network security advice. Clients include the BBC and card making supplies shop.

Sean's family moved to Holland in 1973. He went to school in Canterbury, and then on to Churchill College, Cambridge where he developed a passion for photography, danced like an idiot, and occasionally ran five-minute miles. When not babbling excitedly about technology, he'll be renovating his house, archiving interesting articles, thinking up reasons to not play the piano, or tearing across the countryside on bicycle or horseback.

As a result of the large number of google requests, back by popular demand, we proudly present: Night Storage Heaters.