My expertise comes from experience

• My extensive training in computers, programming, and internet technology began when I reached the ripe old age of 7 and has continued to build and expand ever since.


• I feel that my ability to truly excel at what I do is all due to being passionate about every facet of computing from the hardware to understanding what makes the Web spin. I enjoy working with people and helping them solve the issues that appear as well as creating new programming to make things work better and faster for my clients.


• To see the finer points of how I became a computer solutions expert, you can view my historical timeline here.

What makes Thomas Forrestera better IT solutions provider

I listen to the client. This allows me to provide the best solution for your situation given all my fields of experience. I am well versed in:

• Computer programming
• Computer hardware
• Computer networks
• Computer operating systems

I provide each of my clients with One-on-One personal service. For local service this means that I come to your home or office to solve your computer issues. For global customers I provide the same personal service via remote access and instant chat connectivity.

No matter what level of knowledge a client has regarding computers, I can easily communicate with them. I accomplish this by explaining computer issues in both technical and layman’s term and even in between. This allows me to understand my client’s needs and translate their descriptions and concerns into technical terms as well as communicating possible solutions back to the client.

I find that using terms or analogies aimed at each client’s experience helps them understand and relate to their computer issues easily. For example, if my client is a musician by explaining that the source code of his website is like the sheet music he plays a song from or that the software program is like the CD he uses to record his music on. These kinds of comparisons help us both get to the bottom of the problem and correct them quickly and satisfactorily.

Not every computer expert has this natural ability to be able to communicate on a level that a customer understands completely, translate the facts into technical terms and then back again efficiently into language any non-technical person can grasp.

TIMELINE

Surprisingly, it was my grandmother that got me interested in computers. It started with Bulletin Board Systems during the early networking stages, before the Internet. I quickly learned how to diagnose simple computer problems including modem connectivity and booting issues.

I learned how to fix most problems you can encounter with a PC. At this stage, I taught myself BASIC programming language. This led me to become interested in programming and the Internet.

This was a biggie. My grandparents gave me my very own computer on my birthday. Though it has rarely been turned off since the moment I got it out of the box, my milestone PC is still running perfectly today.

Here I began programming in Visual Basic 6.0 as well as putting my learning of website programming into practice. On top of my newfound knowledge of HTML and JavaScript coding, I also learned how to maintain Windows and repair all its issues.

Another big milestone. I wrote my first large-scale computer program for my high school, named "Voting Booth 1.0". This allowed the student council advisor to create a complete ballot with an unlimited number of sections. Plus the capability of unlimited persons per section and could be used year after year. The client side of the program let students enter their school ID number as verification that they were a student and that they had not already voted. Once students went through the voting process, their votes are added to the database. When all votes were in the advisor can then run an analysis program that shows who won the election and how many votes each candidate had for each section. The program also warns of any attempts to fraud the system. Well over 10,000 people have now used Voting Booth 1.0 .

Employed by a small local software firm who originally hired me for website maintenance. I ended up being the Web Site Developer for the company website as well as those of the clients. I was also their Network Administrator, the Assistant Developer on several of their large projects. Additionally at this time I was a lead developer for a Duke Graduate Project funded by DARPA. For about 16 months, the entire company was comprised of myself and the owner.

I have been self-employed as an IT consultant, web designer, project manager, and programmer ever since.