Nick Hodge's Blog

November 1996	Revelation 96 (Pioneered Internet and Intranet technology presentations for Apple’s customers)
October 1996	Sales Conference, Kaui (this is the famous one where Jean-Louis Gassee attempted to sell Gil Amelio Be, Inc for multiple hundreds of $! I asked Ellen Hancock a question about Solaris support on PowerPC; not knowing she was a fan! My small place in Apple’s history)
August 1996	Apple Technology Symposium; keynote assistance, total technical manager, presentation of “How to Survive 300,000 hits a day” main hall
August to September 1996	Fairfax@Atlanta. Apple Computer Australia sponsored (through my time and donation of hardware- Power Macintosh 7600’s) the creation and management of this web site. It was designed by Brainwaave Interactive; I created the backend content management system using UserLand Frontier (before it was a web content management system) This system, which I termed Rosebud, automatically published static .html pages from a database engine; editors assigned images using a FileMaker front end. Rosebud managed the publishing of the dynamic information into the static site.
May 1996	Response to OptusVision Tender: before they went into the web realm. Wild and wooly presentation of the Apple AIX Network Server range!
May 1996	Attended PANPA Conference, Hobart
January 1996	San Francisco MacWorld
December 1995 January 1996	Consulting, Fairfax Publications, Golden Master

December 1995 to January 1996	Consulting, Fairfax Publications, Golden Master cleaning up the Macintoshes
November 1995	Sales Conference, New Orleans
August 1995	Attended Enterprise Selling Course, Barry Freeman and Associates.
1995	Present Strategic Presentations to key Apple customers throughout Australia.
1995 – 1998	Various technical escalation issues: DHCP Fed Ags, MacTCP Optus Vision, Equitilink, Billy Blue
August 1995	Apple Technology Symposium 1995: Networking (Novell, Macintoshes, Internet connection, Switched network), Delivering update on N&C/Development Tools for Macintosh; MacIS Response. Keynote assistance
July 1995	Attended Summer Camp, San Diego, US
May 1995	Technical contact for winning OptusVision deal for Apple.
April 1995	Assisted various resellers with complex Macintosh integration issues.
April 1995	Responsible for “MacIS Top 10” response at August Apple Technology Symposium.
April 1995	Joined Apple Computer Australia in Sydney as a National Systems Engineer, focusing on Networking and Communications integration.
January 1995	Project Manager and Technical Lead for installation of Netware at Colliers Jardine, Adelaide. Included PC and Macintosh to Unix integration.
January – February 1995	Implemented a ccMail to QuickMail gateway for CelsiusTech, Australia.

December 1994	Acheived Compaq Accredited Systems Engineer status.
December 1994	Passed External Quality Compliance Audit performed by Quality Assurance Services. 8 of 19 Corrective Actions closed, only 11 Minor Discrepancies raised.
December 1994	Attended Compaq Novell Advanced Performance Integration course, Sydney. Achieved highest marks in the class.
October 1994	Team Leader for Random Access Consulting – appointed three new staff members: Brian Forte’, Phil Dempster and Gary Smith. Assigned job roles, assisted in helping them transition to a consulting environment
October 1994	Achieved Certified Netware Engineer Status.
September 1994	Appointed Quality Manager, Random Access Adelaide.
September 1994	Implemented VICOM for Comcare in Canberra. Involved a small front-end development, and problem solving Unix and Tandem operating system issues.
August 1994	Attended Advanced Netware 4.0 Administration Course, Comtech, Adelaide. Passed Drake CNE certification exam September 1994.
July to September 1994	Assisted Digital Equipment Corporation in implementing Macintosh integration to new electronic messaging system and the Internet.
July to August 1994	Prepared a report for the board of Phillips Fox detailing a technical strategy for the implementation of: WAN, Unix server, new document management application, new word processor and electronic niail application.
June 1994	Achieved Distinction for Financial Management in Post-Graduate Diploma of Management/MBA with Deakin University.
May 1994	Completed First stage of a project for Young & Rubicam. Included Local Area Network cabling vendor Request for Tender documents, and Wide Area Network design. This project included communication with New York head office, selection of network infrastructure providors and exposure to Etherswitching and Frame Relay technologies.
March 1994	Completed a preliminary prototype of a query system into the Oracle-based QCIS application for ASC. Project included a written report being prepared for MIS Management on the impact of such systems. System written using the VICOM application’s scripting language.
March 1994	Completed a Performance Monitoring System for E&WS’s Tandem-based applications. System written using the VICOM application’s scripting language.
March 1994	Presented version 6.0 of the Macintosh Support Expert Course at Random Access, Perth.
February 1994	Attended Novell Netware 4.0 Administrator’s Course. Passed Exam and achieved “Certified Netware Administrator” status.
January 1994	Commenced Post-Graduate Diploma of Management/MBA with Deakin University.
January 1994	Assisted Colliers Jardine design a wide area network for Sydney, and the integration of their existing Ethernet/Token Ring Novell network with Macintoshes.

December 1993	Created client/server EIS/Query system called “Sherlock”. Written using VICOM. Macintosh front end displays data and executes Oracle SQL queries. Sherlock also integrates agent-based architecture into Random Access electronic mail system.
December 1993	Sold 200 licenses of VICOM into E&WS after extensive testing of TN3270 emulation at E&WS to Tandem Cyclone and ETSA IBM Mainframe.
November 1993	Installed a uucp-style connection to connect.com. Installed Mail, UseNet news and other services on a Random Access’ Sun server.
September 1993 – October 1993	Assisted DPA Computing in installation of new Sun/Oracle based School Management system for Walford CEGS.
August 1993 – September 1993	Part of team at Random Access Consulting that outsourced to the Cooperative Group in Macintosh, Windows, Netware and IBM Mainframe technical support.
September 1993	Started Newton development research for inhouse projects and evaluation for external consulting.
September 1993	Attended Apple Workgroup Server training, in Sydney.
September 1993	Project Managed and implemented cut over from old single user accounting system to new multiuser Sun/Oracle CFACS system. September was a $1.4 million revenue month for Random Access, very close to the company’s record at that time.
August 1993 – August 1994	Appointed as Technical Consultant and Technical presenter to Technology in Management project at the Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE. This course will presented over 5 days in March 1994. This project is a joint venture between Random Access Consulting and Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE.
August 1993	Consulted to Young & Rubicam for Desktop strategy in Melbourne. Also assisted in technical considerations in move to new building in early 1994.
June 1993	Presented Macintosh Futures Debriefing from the Apple World Wide Developers Conference to senior management of Random Access customers.
May 1993	Provided technical Consultation to IPEC Group in the integration of Macintoshes into their Delivery Note EDI system.
May 1993	Attended Apple World Wide Developer Conference, San Jose, USA. The WWDC is a once a year seminar where Apple present their technologies such as System 7, PowerPC and Newton to their developer community.
April 1993	Attended Windows NT Technical Seminar presented in Adelaide by Microsoft Australia.
April 1993	Provided Technical Consultation to CSIRO Division of Soils in Macintosh to Unix/TCP/IP integration.
April 1993	Assisted Mike Seyfang and Fujitsu Australia with the integration of Macintoshes into Novell Netware network and Unix-based PICK system at the City of Henley & Grange.
April 1993	Sold a volume license of VICOM for TV1950 emulation to the E&WS Department.
March 1993	Chose CFACS as product of choice for Random Access Pty Ltd’s new accounting system. Attended training at Cedardata.
March 1993	Attended Quality Auditor’s Course presented by Aptech Australia.
February 1993	Random Access Consulting appointed Australian and New Zealand distributor of VICOM. VICOM is a front ending tool for the Macintosh, written in the UK.
February 1993	Consulted to the Australian Submarine Corporation in Macintosh integration using DECWindows XWindows protocol.
January 1993	Attended the MacWorld Exposition, San Francisco, USA. MacWorld is a one of two major events in the Macintosh community for the display of products and services.

December 1993	Created client/server EIS/Query system called “Sherlock”. Written using VICOM. Macintosh front end displays data and executes Oracle SQL queries. Sherlock also integrates agent-based architecture into Random Access electronic mail system.
December 1993	Sold 200 licenses of VICOM into E&WS after extensive testing of TN3270 emulation at E&WS to Tandem Cyclone and ETSA IBM Mainframe.
November 1993	Installed a uucp-style connection to connect.com. Installed Mail, UseNet news and other services on a Random Access’ Sun server.
September 1993 – October 1993	Assisted DPA Computing in installation of new Sun/Oracle based School Management system for Walford CEGS.
August 1993 – September 1993	Part of team at Random Access Consulting that outsourced to the Cooperative Group in Macintosh, Windows, Netware and IBM Mainframe technical support.
September 1993	Started Newton development research for inhouse projects and evaluation for external consulting.
September 1993	Attended Apple Workgroup Server training, in Sydney.
September 1993	Project Managed and implemented cut over from old single user accounting system to new multiuser Sun/Oracle CFACS system. September was a $1.4 million revenue month for Random Access, very close to the company’s record at that time.
August 1993 – August 1994	Appointed as Technical Consultant and Technical presenter to Technology in Management project at the Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE. This course will presented over 5 days in March 1994. This project is a joint venture between Random Access Consulting and Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE.
August 1993	Consulted to Young & Rubicam for Desktop strategy in Melbourne. Also assisted in technical considerations in move to new building in early 1994.
June 1993	Presented Macintosh Futures Debriefing from the Apple World Wide Developers Conference to senior management of Random Access customers.
May 1993	Provided technical Consultation to IPEC Group in the integration of Macintoshes into their Delivery Note EDI system.
May 1993	Attended Apple World Wide Developer Conference, San Jose, USA. The WWDC is a once a year seminar where Apple present their technologies such as System 7, PowerPC and Newton to their developer community.
April 1993	Attended Windows NT Technical Seminar presented in Adelaide by Microsoft Australia.
April 1993	Provided Technical Consultation to CSIRO Division of Soils in Macintosh to Unix/TCP/IP integration.
April 1993	Assisted Mike Seyfang and Fujitsu Australia with the integration of Macintoshes into Novell Netware network and Unix-based PICK system at the City of Henley & Grange.
April 1993	Sold a volume license of VICOM for TV1950 emulation to the E&WS Department.
March 1993	Chose CFACS as product of choice for Random Access Pty Ltd’s new accounting system. Attended training at Cedardata.
March 1993	Attended Quality Auditor’s Course presented by Aptech Australia.
February 1993	Random Access Consulting appointed Australian and New Zealand distributor of VICOM. VICOM is a front ending tool for the Macintosh, written in the UK.
February 1993	Consulted to the Australian Submarine Corporation in Macintosh integration using DECWindows XWindows protocol.
January 1993	Attended the MacWorld Exposition, San Francisco, USA. MacWorld is a one of two major events in the Macintosh community for the display of products and services.

June 1990	As Systems Engineer with AppleCentre Adelaide, provided prime Technical contact for the Co-operative Group bid. AppleCentre Adelaide won this bid over IBM Australia as “it was the safer choice”. This bid involved the integration of a network of Macintoshes into an IBM 4381 host.
April 1990	Attended “A/UX Systems Administration” course at Apple Computer, Sydney.
February 1990	Appointed AppleCentre “Building the Difference” Trainer/Motivator for AppleCentre Adelaide. Attended training course in Sydney in April.

September 89	As part of honeymoon, visited Apple Computer headquarters in Cupertino, California. Visited Apple Pacific and liaised with AppleCentre task force team and shopped at the “company store”.
April-September 1991	Moved from Technical Support Manager to Corporate Systems Engineer, responsible for Beneficial Finance, BHP Whyalla, Kinhill Engineers, Australian Submarine Corporation, F. H. Faulding & Co, and CRA Exploration. This role involved the all technical aspects of Macintosh usage in these corporates. Regular newsletters and fact sheets were also compiled and sent out, along with Corporate User Group Meetings and one-on-one technical sessions with their Technical Staff. Early experimentation with Ethernet, QuickMail, Apple’s A/UX and other technically challenging products pioneered at AppleCentre Adelaide were introduced to these Corporates and in many cases adopted as Corporate platforms. This role, whilst extending to September 1991, involved levels of Account Management and liaison with developers and distributors in Australia and the US. Close ties were created with Tri Data Communications, Keyway (now Conexus), Apple Sydney and Melbourne.
December 88	Completed writing chapter for the book “Tricks of the HyperTalk Masters” about using HyperCard as a front end tool to communications services. This book was published in 89 by the Waite Group, Mann County, USA. (ISBN 0-672-48431-5)
November 88	Employed and Trained new Technical Support team members. August 88 Appointed Manager of Technical Support at Random Access.
January 88	Appointed prime Technical Support contact for the Australian Submarine Corporation. This included daily liaison with Kay Lindley, PC & OA Supervisor and Brian Musker, MIS Manager.
September 87	Attended Apple Service Training in Sydney, achieving Level 1 Accreditation for Macintosh II hardware.
January 87	Moved from Sales to join the one man Technical Support team as a trainee Technical Support Analyst. In 1987 the world of Macintosh was just about to explode into ethernet networks, open systems with the Macintosh II and AppleShare. Supported Apple platforms ranged from the Macintosh, to the Apple II, to the rare Apple III.
August 86	Achieved highest sales in the month.
January 86	Commenced work at Random Access as a Junior Trainee Salesman. Job roles included store management and initial customer contact.

tip 1 in here

Photoshop Tip 1 here

Who are the Munge Brothers, & What is this Munge Thing?

pre-Munge Brother Mythology.

Prior to joining Apple Computer Australia, I worked for a reseller in Adelaide, Random Access (Random Access, Adelaide).

In early 1991 I was near a burn-out situation. It reached a point where I told the Manager of the reseller to “get me some help or else!”

Subsequently, RA advertised for another Systems Engineer. There was only one candidate who stood out: Mike Seyfang.

Prior to joining RA, Mike worked at Elders IXL (a pastrol, real-estate and brokerage company) as “End User Computing Manager.” Whatever the hell that meant … see, I was a Apple/Macintosh-centric Systems Engineer with no formal Information Technology/Management Information Systems training. Mike, on the other hand, was had a degree in Chemistry! Now, that was more relevant.

Coming from a Mainframe/PC background, and HyperCard programmer in his spare time, he was the perfect fit.

Mike remembers his first day on the job. It was straight after the Easter long weekend. I had spent it installing Ingres, A/UX and Apple’s Data Access Language on a Macintosh IIci. Without documentation. The aim was to show Mike that “we Apple people knew about serious IT stuff, too.” This weekend of hacking did not impress my wife: she was 6 months pregnant at the time! On his first Tuesday, I sat Mike down and demonstrated Apple’s Data Access Language (DAL – Again, Apple demonstrated it was sooo far ahead and then dropped the ball. RIP) as middleware to link Excel, a query tool and HyperCard to a Unix-based Relational database. Needless to say, Mike was impressed!

The very next day Mike and I flew to Sydney to meet “relevant” people at Apple Australia and other distributors. One of the most important people we visited was the legendary Apple Systems Engineer, Garry Turner. (Garry now works for Cisco). RA’s manager thought it was important to build the relationships early.

Another Gary, Gary Vial – RA’s Travel Agent – booked Mike and I in a hotel in Oxford Street, Sydney. In a twin-room suite. Now, for those of you who do not know Sydney, Oxford Street is in the middle of the gay section of the city. Mike and I had nothing against gay people, but we were both married men with kids (or on the way) — and Mike didn’t really know me at all. When the male receptionist suggested we go to the 10th floor for a relaxing spa — well, poor Mike didn’t know what to think! It didn’t help that there was a dry cleaner outside our window called the “Come Clean Laundry” Hmmm.

There are two distinct memories that I have of this jaunt to Sydney. One was Garry Turner explaining the lay of the Apple landscape. It did not bode well for resellers of Random Access’ ilk *unless* they entered the value-added side of the industry. The other was explaining AppleTalk, AppleTalk routing and networking to Mike on the flight home. Needless to say, a “defining moment” of my career.

Emerge: The Munge Brothers

So, RA had to enter the Consulting business. Thankfully, Unlce Mike (by this time we were calling ourselves Uncle Mike and Uncle Nick) had some experience — and understood all this IT/MIS stuff that Apple people tend to either ignore or hate.

Mike was an excellent mentor. In my career, he was the second to really influence my thinking and challenged me to extend myself. The first is Brian Musker, ex-MIS Manager of the Australian Submarine Corporation, now an IT consultant in the US.

RA’s strategy was to “split” into two: A Consulting business called Random Access Consulting (RAC) and a retail storefront called Simply Mac. At the time, it was a pretty good strategy.

Mike and I were the consultants in RAC. We started out by showing the world the Client/Server – DAL extraveganza above. In the end, we found that while it appealed to the IS/MIS people of the day, it was before its time. Nowadays, everyone uses the ODBC standard to do these sorts of things; Visual Basic to create front ends to relational databases. In mid to late 1991, it was just too much out there.

At around this time, someone named us “The Munge Brothers.” We had a habit of saying ‘munge’ to explain a complex process of changing data into information. Who can forget the magic hat demonstrations? Uncle Mike and I changed hats depending on who we were in the demonstration: an IT bod, an end-user computing type and a manager.

That said, we did convince one customer to create a warehouse of mainframe data on an A/UX box running Oracle RDBMS. The customer created custom front ends in HyperCard to extract data. The data orginated from a MVS-mainframe, and was downloaded via IND$FILE and bulk imported into the database. With data-warehousing all the rage (along with Intranet) — it is sad to realise Mike and I were 5 years too soon. This was to be a common experience…

It Ain’t F**cking Rocket Science!

No, this is not a Munge Brother created quotation. A certain Systems Engineer in Apple Computer Australia’s employ was rumour to have said these immortal 5 words to a non-so-technically literate fellow staff member. The story goes that he was in the midst of a DAL/Client-Server demonstration and became rather frustrated when attempting to explain what was going on.

Needless to say, the Munge Brothers took on the term “Rocket Science” to describe their anticts with technology. It colminated in the now-collectable “Munge Brother/Rocket Science” custom T-Shirts. Of which only three were made – and only worn once – the 1993 Apple Australia Christmas Party hosted by Roy Ramage.

Diversification; or the blue period

In late 1991 I was offered a consultantcy. The project was report on the implications of changing a large AppleTalk Phase 1 network to AppleTalk Phase 2. In the end, I was given a contract to implement the changeover. Now that was a Christmas/New Year break that I won’t forget.

As always with contracts, I was extended for a total of 10 months. This strained relations with the ‘mothership’, RA and RAC. For me personally, I learn much about large organisation politics and management structures. And more importantly, what didn’t work.

In 1992 we gained another Munge Brother, Paul Baily. At the time, Paul was a gifted support engineer at the Australian Submarine Corporation. He compleded the Munge Brother threesome. We added Paul to the team to do some more low level coding work. Mike and I couldn’t cut 68K assembler!

During this period, we also had other people on the RAC team: Dr Charles Hart and Peter Harris.

1992-1993 – Projects Galore

After my sojourn on contact, I re-entered the RAC team with mixed feelings. Being away from your mother-ship on a customer’s site can seriously skew your perspective – and this is a lesson that I have remembered since. For instance, you find it hard to re-establish yourself in the mother organisation and can feel an outsider.

At this time, Unlce Mike started a product called “Councillor.” It was a PowerBook-based agenda management system for Local Governments. Uncle Mike based the solution on FrameMaker and the SGML standard. Looking back, I wish that WWW/HTTP/HTML was around in mid 1992 — it would have been such an easy thing to do with Intranet based technologies.

In 1992 I started the “Macintosh Support Expert Course” — a 3 day intensive course for people supporting Macintoshes. Christmas 1992 was a hoot. The Munge Brothers hosted a Christmas party in our office — and released our now famous “Nightmare on Bent Street” Quicktime movie. Who can forget the “DOS BOX” screaming up the levels at the car park with Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar wailing in the backgound? Stunt driver: Mike, Stunt camera: Nick. Stunt Music: Jimmy Hendrix.

In 1993 we started to diversify our projects. However, there was one project where all three of us collaborated. Due to commercial-in-confidence issues, I cannot name the client — but suffice to say, RAC was in a little over its head. The experience certainly helped us all understand the bounds of our skills, and our ability to expand into alternative platforms.

1994: The End

In 1994, the Munge Brothers, aka RAC split up. First to go was Uncle Mike: he went to Ferntree. Next to go was Uncle Paul. He followed Michelle to Sydney. In early 1995, Nick moved his family to Sydney to join Apple Computer Australia.

In December 1995, Random Access closed its doors. 14 years of history went too. Its sad to realise that the amalgam of people and technologies will never be repeated. In many ways, we were ahead of our time — and if we had stayed together to the present day I am sure we could have kicked butt in the Adelaide IT industry.

Where are they Now?

Nick Hodge: (this page’s author) Technical Resources Manager, Adobe Systems. Mike Seyfang: Consultant, Microsoft Consulting Adelaide Paul Baily: Contractor at large, Brisbane

Honorary Munge Brothers:

Peter Svans, Garry Turner, Dr Charles Hart, Peter Harris.

People we would like to thank:

David Sherrah, Mark Keough, Brian Musker, Kay Lindley, Roy Ramage