Gilbert Healton
"My Favorite Things"
MEETING DATE: March 20, 2015

Gilbert's exposure to many different people as a computer programmer since 1976 has allowed him to gather many tips and tricks for using computers.  Running the Internet Workshop since 2009, Gilbert's March presentation, "My Favorite Things," allows him to go public before the General Meeting.  But rather being about "raindrops on roses" it will include word processors and routers.  The presentation will cover a number of subjects.  Gilbert will share useful programs and tips on using them for improving your experience in using computers.  The talk will include small tips and tricks you can use right away as well as overviews of bigger ones - and for those who are interested - where to go for more.

Over the span of his career, Gilbert has survived a lot of changes in the computer industry.  He started with paper tape, Hollerith cards and a few touches of remote hard copy terminals, such as the ASR-33 TTY.  He now uses PCs with more processing power than the mainframes he used in his early days.

Being an unusual programmer, Gilbert actually likes to write documentation and instruction manuals.  While his first love may have been an IBM 1130 in college, his deepest love is for his wife of thirty years, Jane.

Gilbert's work has spanned industries involving typesetting, image processing, Help Desk products, and large scale electronic E-mail providers.  Telecommunications companies he worked for include AT&T, Vonage, and Verizon Wireless.  He has also spanned networking companies for network security, ISP connectivity, and undersea fiber optic cables.

Gilbert has worked technologies from internals of kernels to back end servers, front end servers, and web pages.  Most of Gilbert's programs have been doing heavy lifting out of sight of customers - keeping everyone happy if his software works and everyone and their friends unhappy when it doesn't.