About
They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake, they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seen such discipline.”
- Capt. Nathan Algren – ‘The Last Samurai’
A little about myself
My name is Tristan Findley. I have been employed at Royal Holloway University since 2006, working as the Systems Administrator of the Information Security Group.
I am a hard working and enthusiastic individual, who is eager to take on new tasks and learn new skills.
I always try to bring a sense of order and (self) discipline to my work, and always try to accomplish each task fully and to the best of my ability.
Outside of work
My life outside of work is taken up with various hobbies and activities. Mostly, these consist of studying for my PPL (Private Pilots License), Photography, and working with computers outside of my job.
Flying (PPL)
One of my earliest dreams was of flying. Many years on I finally got to make the dream a reality. A friend (whose computers I have supported since 2001), knew of my love of aircraft, and paid for a trial lesson for me. That was all it took. After having the trial, I was hooked. I signed up with Redair Aviation at Blackbushe Airfiield, and started the course. Soon I was vising the airfield on a weekly basis, building up my flight hours and experience. Currently, I have logged over 18hours of flight time, have covered all the basics up to Circuits, and have recently been cleared for solo flight (pending two exams and a medical).
The aircraft that I am learning to fly is a PA-28 181 Archer II. A single-engine four-seater aircraft. I chose this over the smaller Cessna 152’s as they are larger, heavier aircraft, and have four seats instead of two. The idea being that I could always share my love of flying with others.
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”Leonardo da Vinci
Photography
My love of photography dates back to my childhood. My father has always been into photography, and now I share in that love. I started out with 35mm point-and-shoot cameras when I was younger. While at University I bought myself a Fuji Finepix S7000, with a full manual feature set. This allowed me my first taste at proper photography. I quickly took to the new camera, and was soon snapping everything in sight. After 2 years, I had finally developed a reasonable understanding of the manual settings of the camera, as well as an eye for beauty and ‘good photographs’. Once I started work at Royal Holloway, I took the next step and purchased a Canon EOS 400D DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) digital camera, with a Canon 18-55mm (stock) lens, and a Tamron 70-300mm Telephoto / macro lens. This camera was my gateway into a new and exciting life of photography. The difference between the DSLR and my old all-in-one digital camera was staggering. Photos that I were taking were no longer just of the quality that would be good enough to preserve memories of times gone by for myself, but now good enough to show to others, and to let them share in parts of my life. This camera has stuck with me through my recent holidays and excursions around the UK, and has always provided me with the very best photos. It also pushed my photography skills and has forced me to read and study the art of photography, composition, presentation, and modification, which I hope will make me a better photographer in the future.
In early 2009 I parted with my Canon EOS 400D and associated lens, and in mid-2009 purchased a Canon 50D Body, Canon 17-85mm & 70-300mm lenses, and Canon 430EX II Flash. I had decided upon moving to the xxD range back at the beginning of the year, when I got the opportunity to try out the Canon 40D with 17-85mm lens at the Insight Client Event in London. I found the improved shooting time, along with the responsiveness of the autofocus a major benefit, as well as improved controls, with all manual controls readily accessible.
I hope that the new equipment, coupled with various sources of study (including other semi-pro photographers) will push me into creating even greater works, and improving my own skill-set and portfolio.
My previous works can be viewed at my online gallery.
Computing outside of work
Information coming soon
A little about this site
Resume Site - 2006-2009
The main purpose of this site was to give me a method of professionally advertising myself to potential employers. The site also gives a bit of background about me, as well as some information about my interests and hobbies.
I have included a small selection of my previous work, which should provide a glimpse of the level of work I am capable of.
My resumé / CV has existed in website form since 2006. It was born from the idea that a professional CV can only be two pages. “But there is so much more that I want to convey about myself” I said, and thus, I created this site. The original incarnation was incredibly plain, and while informative, had a series of problems. The largest of these was the visibility (on the web, with search engines like Google), and the inclusion of personal information such as my home address, email address, and other pieces of information. In the current technological climate, one can’t help but be aware of ‘identity theft’. To this end, I decided that my original approach needed scrapping, and all personal information about myself needed removing.
My primary focus when designing this new site, was visibility, ease of management, security, and scalability. I decided that instead of coding the site myself (which would have given me total control of my content, but at the expense of time), that I would opt for a CMS (Content Management System). Using a CMS would give me a operating-system independent way of managing the content, as well as give me a professional looking and easy to set-up website. The CMS I chose was Wordpress. The selection process I went through was fairly straight-forward. Having used Drupal at work (and severely disliking the interface), and having experienced Mambo at home, I opted for Wordpress. I had previously experimented with the CMS, and I had planned on using it for part of my contract work with VOME. I covered the problem of visibility thanks to a few plugins for Wordpress, as well as creating the website with certain keywords, and with certain content on the homepage. The biggest problem that I faced was that of contactability, but with the possibility of keeping my email address secret and free from spiders, bots, and spam attacks. The answer to this was provided in the way of a contact form. The form (viewable under the ‘Contact’ heading), allows a potential employer / contractor / interested party to submit their details straight to me via my personal server, which packages the contact form contents into an email, and sends it to me. With the addition of Kapture (the text verification tool), I can stop almost all bots spamming my email address with useless content. To this date, I have never once received a spam email which originated from this website.
Legal, Privacy, and Data Collection
As this site can accept reader comments, I have created a short legal page. This just ensures that both my readers and I are squeaky clean, and covered from a legal standpoint.
Please review the ‘Legal‘ section