Name: Alexander Pavlov Birth date: January, 1965 Height: 5'8" Weight: 187 lbs Marital status: Happily married Kids: Two and counting Pets: Black Kurilian Bobtail Cat Hobby: Photography, travel, inline skating, dancing Yes, that's me. I am the same guy who happened to write that piece of software you have probably installed on your web server. And you are not alone, as there are about 5 thousand web sites around the globe using my code. Every day our server registers 45 first time downloads of Trouble Ticket Express package. Every 90 seconds somewhere in the world an operator logs into a help desk system being powered by this program. Several thousand independent entrepreneurs and companies use my software to answer their customers' inquiries, track customer accounts, process credit card transactions, and analyze performance of advertising campaigns, which makes me feel very grateful for that enormous amount of your trust in me. Thank you very much. * * * I am in software development since 1985 when I was paid for programming for the first time. After graduating from university in 1987 (IT System Analyst) and spending 2 years for Master's Degree (Formal Verification of Communication Protocols), I embraced all the perils of freelance programmer's career. Education games for kids, vehicle tracking systems for police, animation toolkits, wholesale inventory management software - did I miss anything? In 1993 I got an offer to head customer service department with a regional distributor of Sequent Computer Systems. It was the company that brought the very first symmetrical multiprocessor supercomputer to the market. And that is where I was acquainted myself with UNIX. I touched all the bases while working for the company: customer service department, customer education (courses in UNIX administration), marketing, consulting, sales to corporate accounts. I left Sequent in 1999, several months before the company was acquired by IBM. At that time I decided that I had earned my next degree: I knew how to develop software; I knew how to advertise; I knew how to sell; I knew how to support; I knew how to run a business - what else I might need? And last but not least - it was a time of The Great Internet Fever. Or The Great Internet Bubble. Pick your choice :o) Well, I survived that Bubble. I started with accounting and e-commerce software. The help desk package arrived next. After several years of selling and refining original version of customer service solution I had to rewrite the system from scratch. Now the system is known as HelpDesk Connect. One month later, after spending four digits figure on online advertising, I came up with a brilliant (albeit not new in this world) idea: I will setup a site to distribute free help desk solution and promote the Real Thing through this channel. It took 5 minutes to register troubleticketexpress.com domain and about one week to write the original Trouble Ticket Express. Frankly, I did not think I would be developing the Express brand - it was conceived as a freebie, in order to bring targeted traffic to the flagship - HelpDesk Connect. The customers proved I was wrong... Three months later I was forced to implement major changes and clean the source code in order to allow further expansion. In mid April 2004 first add-on module was published and cince then the Trouble Ticket Express has been one of the most successful projects of Eastwright Corp. I happened to install the software to numerous sites ranging from personal pages to heavy load corporate sites, where TTX operates in dual node failover cluster environment. Today's system is not an entry level toy, as it scales well above 26,000 messages per day (tested with 30 simultaneous operators, 600,000 tickets database, real time backup via MySQL replication) using rather ordinary $59/mo dedicated Linux server. Well, help desk software and web site failover solutions are 2 major items I am up to right now. And if you are looking for a freelance web application developer, please feel free to contact me.