Jeff Blaize
San Francisco, CA

I've been working with systems connected to the Internet for 16 years now, usually Unix, although you'd never guess that by looking at me.

Built Indiana's first and largest (at the time) ISP in 1994 using Slackware Linux (0.96a kernel) servers, a Cisco AGS+ router w/ 16MB RAM, and a Xyplex Terminal Server connected to a hundred or so Supra 14.4k modems. Anyone remember when "spam" meant inappropriate netiquette in the cross-posting of NNTP? Yeah, that was this time.

Was an active participant of Linux kernel development specifically working in correctly implementing PAM, and later, PPTP services.

Worked at Cisco Systems doing QA for the PIX Firewall team back when the PIX was a 5U Intel box with a 3.5" floppy drive used for upgrading the OS. Continued to work there during a company restructure where I found myself on the Cisco Cache Engine team.

Used my hacking skills at Mediaplex, Inc. to invent new ways to get around spam email detection, stay just within the legal guidelines of email advertising, and subvert web banner advertisements. (Sorry about that. I've been cleansing my karma ever since.)

Managed a team of 40+ engineers at Mediaplex as the Director of Operations, before the .COM crash of 2001 that required me to eventually lay off every one of those people.

Helped MobiTV launch the first ever mobile television application on Sprint cell phones, before cell phones even came with video codecs. We did this by creating a proprietary blocked MJPEG protocol for our app. Was the Director of Operations while MobiTV won the first Emmy by a wireless company. Redesigned the entire encoding farm to handle MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.254/MPEG-4 AVC codecs from an IRD's SDI signal.

Spent 3 full months in Beijing, China working with CCTV, China Mobile, and China Unicom to launch MobiTV there. Spent several weeks in Tokyo, Japan working with content providers to launch MobiTV throughout Japan. Traveled to London and Luxembourg to setup backend server encoders and networking for mobile television on UK cell providers.

Streamed the first ever live concert over SprintTV, which I setup backstage of the Bon Jovi concert at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. Also worked with Madonna's concert event people to stream her UK concert live over SprintTV.

As an Independent Consultant, I've work for hundreds of companies, both large and small, in the Bay Area over the years.

Part of an exclusive group of engineers, from upper management to hackers, that keep in close communication about the latest topics in technology.

One of an ever dying group of unpretentious engineers who can admit when they don't know something. I am, admittedly, extremely resourceful and can usually find out pretty easily.