Who Am I?

My name is Scott Robertson, an Eagle Scout from Fallon, NV. I have over 28 years experience as a freelance PHP Developer and Project Manager. I know a number of programming languages and other technologies. I am an easy going, wacky, laid back, loyal kind of guy.

When I was in the fourth grade my parents bought a Apple II E computer. I spent a lot of time on it and even started programming by copying scripts out of magazines to see what they did.

In the fifth or sixth grade I begged my teacher to let me set up the new computer, an Apple II C. Eventually she let me. Not only did I do it correctly on the first try, without opening a manual, I also knew the printer cable was missing. From that day on, she would "loan" me to other teachers who needed technical help.

Boy Scouting was a big part of my life growing up. I started of as a Tiger Cub in 1982 and worked my way up over the years, eventually earning Eagle in 1991. As an adult I completed Woodbadge, which is a week long leadership course, as well as, server in various positions including on the District training team. I also server on summer camp staff four different times, twice as the area director of scout skills.

Around 1997 or 1998 I spent a year in Americorps*NCCC, we were taught to describe it as a domestic Peace Corps. We mostly did various projects around San Diego, CA such as helping out in a school, VA Hospital with quadriplegic veterans, a school farm program, and archaeological project at the Presidio. Additionally, we worked on some trails in Northern CA, and on a different trip went up to Oregon and Washington states to evaluate projects for future teams to work on, did some trail work, as well as painting a fireboat in Tacoma.

We were also required to create journal's of sorts about each project which meant spending a lot of time in their computer lab. I taught myself Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, as well as Microsoft Office. Which also lead me to planning out a complex special event to help the Presidio raise funds. Unfortunately, the event never happened, but I learned a ton figuring it out.

When I started college, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but after taking my first computer class everything fell into place. A friend showed me an HTML book he checked out of the college library. Three months later, I had mastered HTML and started creating the first version of InsaneScouter.org.

I also started tutoring computer science, working in the computer lab, and found my first few clients that I created websites for. This lead me into a wide range of projects and experiences including co-owning a investor-funded tech startup. Eventually I earned a degree in Programming and another in Unix.

       
While in college I partnered up with a friend from Scouts to form InsaneScouter into a business. We sold cd's and other resources, but we also got into building and selling custom computers too. My partner mostly sold the computers to co-workers at his day job.

In 2005, a client/friend and I started a business called Book Treasure House to help authors gain more exposure for their books. We raised over $250,000 in investor funding, over a period of 2.5 years. My partner handled the sales side of things, and I pretty much handled operations and everything technical.

Along the way I have failed many times. At least three times I nearly became homeless. It was only with the graciousness of friends and family, plus a bit of luck that prevented that from happening. However, these failures taught me a lot. I learned to think of them as "challenges" that can be overcome... just bumps in the road.

My current dog Jack Jack, was attacked Feb 13, 2021 by a dog that escaped its yard. The dog nearly amputated his leg. Luckily the house where it happened accepted blame, and even rushed Jack and I the over hour drive each way to the nearest emergency vet. He lost the leg, but survived that attack and is doing quit well. Jack and I like to go camping and hiking.

Wacky Eagle Techologies, has been around for many years under a variety of names that I have freelanced under including InsaneWebTeam, InsaneScouter, ISWebTeam, and SRsquare.

I currently have two home servers, one running HomeAssistant, and the other ispconfig to host some of the open source apps I use, act as a beta server, and even maybe host a few of my sites. I have a pfsense firewall to protect my network, and use a reverse proxy to route the traffic to the right machines.

My smart home is made up of 4 cameras, a number of bulbs, 5 plugs, 5 contact sensors, a temperature sensor, and an Amazon Echo Show 5. I use contact sensors on my mail box to let me know when the mail comes, and on the gate so I know if someone opens it. Slowly but steadily I am building it out & making my home smarter.

My desk is setup with my System76 gaming laptop, hooked up to two monitors, a gaming keyboard, and a wireless mouse. It runs Ubuntu which I keep up to date. Next to my computer I have another screen hooked up to a Amazon Fire stick. I have a second work station hooked up under my desk that I connect to via remote desktop sharing. I also have a Windows 10 netbook I use for testing, along with two Amazon Fire tablets. Additionally, I have a Samsung laser printer & flatbed scanner combo which is connected to all my computers over the network. For internet I have a 300 mbps cable modem connection, and for phone I use both Google Voice and my Verizon smart phone.