Hi, I'm Michael William Malloy but most people call me
Mick and I was born on 15th May 1961 in
Griffith, NSW, Australia. Griffith was a large town in
the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, south-west of Sydney
and has since become a city.
My mother, Evereldha June, and father,
Michael Jude separated when I was young leaving mum to
raise myself and two elder sisters,
Cheryl
and
Helen. Check out Cheryl's site for her adventures in
Vanuatu, the United Arab Emirates, China, and now back
to UAE. Meanwhile Helen has some interesting stuff both
of Australian interest and our family genealogy.
This page used to have what was
basically a precis of my resume but I feel like doing it
differently this time so...
A defining characteristic of who I am
is that I have been awarded the Most Valuable
Professional award by Microsoft all years 2004 till
present. Officially, that's Windows Server Systems -
Small Business Server but in searches I'll show up as "SuperGumby
[SBS MVP]". At the time of writing there were ~45 SBS
MVP's worldwide and only 5 of those in AU, out of a
total of ~4500 MVP's including all disciplines. The
short story of how I became an MVP appears as part of my
MVP profile,
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Mick.Malloy.
I have, for some years, focussed on
SMB space and the use of SBS as the basis for networks.
This has resulted in me supplying support services to a
number of companies ranging from few(3) to the high
20's. SBS can cater for 75 users (or devices) but I
heard from a reliable source some time ago that really
MS expectation is 50. I'd like to see SBS user/device
limits increased and have raised this with MS,
particularly around the cessation of EBS development,
but we have no indicators of this happening yet.
January 1998 a friend of mine, Craig,
asked me if I was busy over the next several days and as
I am pretty well always looking for more work to do, I
put m' hand up. We worked with
Visual Event
Management to set up for the Sydney premiere of
Spice World: The Movie at the State Theatre and brought
The Spice Girls in on a double-decker bus with me
standing at the front hanging onto a couple of speakers
that, though they were securely tied, we didn't want
falling on spice. The Girls were 'coolly friendly' and
liked the crowd we had gathered, 16 thousand screaming
tweenies were packed into Market and Pitt streets near
the theatre and I think everyone had a great time. I
worked with VEM, mainly for movie premieres but also for
some corporate functions, through till 2008 when we
partially closed off George St for the opening of
Australia (the movie). Other premieres I was involved in
include the Mission Impossible and Fast Furious series,
several of Nicole Kidman's (Others, Interpreter, Moulin
Rouge), Robin Williams Centennial Man, Iron Man, and
well, the list goes on...
Craig has moved on (but still works
with VEM, and other companies) to become
Carpet Hire and I have also participated in some of
these projects. I also worked with Craig and various
companies on Stadium Australia, installing additional
sound systems, and Holland Heineken House (audio and
some computer stuff) for the Sydney Olympics. We
provided 'in game entertainment' for Sydney Swans
football matches for a while, and more corporate
functions.
And if I move back into ancient
history I must also account for being an Electronics
Technician and training with Telstra (Telecom at the
time) for communications before I get to Australian
Associated Press where I changed to Computer Operations.
I was working for AAP when something
'new' hit the market, the IBM PC (and it's various
clones, eventually). I had already entered into PC space
as an 'enthusiast' after a friend Richard had shown me
the computer he built, which could have been an Altair
kit, several years earlier. Another Craig had also built
a computer (which we called the disco machine, because
of all the flashing lights) based on the 4040 (or was it
8008?) and about the same time some kid called Bill
Gates was developing DOS we were developing something
that resembled an OS. I guess you know who was the more
successful player in that game.
A colleague at AAP brought into the
country what he swore (and could have been) was the 1st
container load of 'XT clones'. I blew a couple of
month's salary getting one which I'm pretty sure had
both the 8086 and 8087 (math coprocessor) and ran at a
STAGGERING 7MHz (with a mechanical switch to put it back
to 4.77 MHz, for compatibility purposes). The 10MB HDD
was WAY MORE SPACE THAN I NEEDED as I played with things
like Lotus 123 and BASIC. This was an important
'way-station' on my journey through life as I started
then to become 'the PC guy' and my knowledge of PCs was
started to be valued by others.
AAP were also associated to MS in some
way, some form of 'partner relationship', so when MS
came out with something called 'Windows' I got to look
at it during development.
About the same time I spent another
few month's salary on a device that basically changed my
life, Netcomm 1234SA modem. Capable of a bit tearing
2400Bd this device allowed me to connect to Bulletin
Board Services and this allowed me access to FIDO.net
(email). I started to correspond with like minded
individuals all over the planet. BBS's and FIDO
developed for a while and then got replaced by something
called 'the internet', and the rest is now history. I
consider the internet to be the main influence on
society in my time.
My knowledge of communications and PCs
allowed me to be considered for, and gain, a role in
Computer Operations for AAP. We were designated 'System
Controllers' for their Editorial System which was based
on Tandem TNS II hardware (so nice, so nice, we do it
twice) and I quickly became one of the 'Senior
Controllers'. My time at AAP eventually finished but I
have them to thank for putting me on the path I now
tread.
Other positions as Customer Service
Representative (Banksia Technology and OzEmail) where I
handled a large number of customer enquiries, various
efforts to run my own business (Computer Consultancy),
and many years answering questions in 'public discussion
areas' have allowed me to develop some ability to 'make
contact' with people and sort out this question of 'what
you are asking for' and 'what you want/need'. This is
what I most enjoy doing, whether it be in the world of
computers, the entertainment industry, or just plain
getting by today.