About

Big thanks to my friend Sam for writing this... I hate talking about myself.

Kevin Walter is, first and foremast, a computer geek. But don't take that the wrong way--he's a cool geek. Yes, he is the nerdy kid you ask to fix your laptop when it won't connect to the Internet, but he also can throw a wild party. Er, I mean LAN party. Presently, he is a student at Downers Grove South high school in Downers Grove, IL, a suburb of Chicago. Sure, he hates school, but he actually does something about it. He blogs frequently about issues regarding education and technology (there's the geek thing again), and attends (and plans to present one day) conferences on educational technology.

Then there's the whole Internet thing. He is deeply immersed in Internet culture--and not the latest stupid YouTube video, we're talking Web 2.0 stuff, even though he calls "Web 2.0" a meaningless buzzword. He is proficient at lots of software and web development languages, many of which come in three-letter acronyms and none of which I understand. But he doesn't want to be a developer in a full-time career. Ideally, he wants to work in system administration, managing servers and stuff for big companies. I think he's good at Linux, which as far as I know has a cute penguin logo.

He is politically a self-professed Libertarian, but tries not to shove his views down other people's throats (too often), because he HATES it when other people do that. He has worked as a soccer referee for five years now, officiating youth soccer games in his area. He claims he does it for more than just an ego boost getting to yell at coaches, but I know better. He tries to be a gamer, but rarely plays video games any more.

The complex mind that is inside Kevin Walter is hard to summarize. Many likes, many dislikes, strong opinions, indifferent opinions, and a weird obsession with Jack Bauer that he claims is normal for IT people. Whatever.

10/2007

Elsewhere on the Internet

I'm a big supporter of maintaining an online identity, and I consider it the single most valuable resource I have when it comes to name recognition and networking with other connected professionals. You can see what else I'm up to on the Internet at the various web sites and services of which I am a member. If the feature exists for that particular site, feel free to add/follow/connect/friend-request me, but I won't beg you, and I might not even reciprocate. The sites that I use most frequently/are the most important to me are near the top of the list.

  • Twitter: Part of a concept called micro-blogging, I use Twitter to send short, text-based updates on what I'm doing.
  • del.icio.us and Furl: Two social bookmarking sites, I use del.icio.us to save web sites that are of interest to me. Alternatively, I use Furl to save articles and blog posts that I may wish to reference later. Del.icio.us stores only a link to a web page (as well as tags), but Furl stores a local cache of the page, which comes in handy if the original gets moved or deleted.
  • Flickr: A photo-sharing web site to which I upload all the digital photos that I take.
  • Digg: The site allows users to vote for stories and web sites they think are news-worthy.
  • WhatPulse: I keep track of my keystrokes and mouse clicks using this service.

Software

Here's an overview of my software repertoire. Mainly so I don't forget, of course.