User:Ray King

Contents

edit The Computer School (1982)

Using 4 Apple II computers and his bedroom, taught folks BASIC programming and popular applications such as Visicalc and dBase II.


edit The Computer Workshop (1983)

Continued to teach this summer, but instead using the new IBM PC's and teaching applications such as Lotus 123 and Multimate (early word processor). Rented a room in father's architectural office and advertised using a card table and a computer in Grand Central Station which was across the street.

Worked with partners David Bolocan, Lauren Singer and Seachin Kim. Co-authored "Mastering Multiplan". David, who did most of the work on this went, on to write quite a few more computer books.

edit MicroTrek Enterprises (1984)

After 1 year of college, Ray took time off to start MicroTrek Enterprises with 2 CPA's from Price Waterhouse.

edit Semaphore, Inc. (1986-2000)

Wrote financial management software for his father's architectural firm and eventually started a company to go with that. The product, Sema4, is used by approximately 2,500 firms in the U.S. that are between the sizes 10 and 1,000 employees. Semaphore, Inc. ultimately grew to 100+ employees split across 4 offices (New York, California, Minnesota and Oregon) and was sold to Deltek Systems, Inc. on August 9th of 2000.

edit SnapNames, Inc. (2000-2005)

In the fall of 2000, Ray moved to Portland, Oregon to co-found SnapNames. SnapNames is in the business of helping people acquire domain names as they expire and become available again to the general public. SnapNames was acquired by Oversee.net in 2007.

  • DropCatching is the term generally used to describe picking up names as quickly as possible after they are "dropped" from the registry.
  • WLS was the acronym used for the "Wait List Service" which was never launched
  • Transfer Fulfillment describes a process where "backordered" domain names transfer ownership during the registrar grace period.

edit ICANNWiki.org

Ray has always been a big fan of collaborative technologies, and in early 2005 got bitten by the wiki-bug. For this, he credits his friend John Stanton who is always making him look at new stuff.

My first wiki project was ICANNWiki. The domain name business introduced me to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and the ICANN community subsequently taught me much of what I know about the innner workings of the DNS. It's a fascinating group of people that meet three times per year in various locations around the world. ICANNWiki showcases those people, the companies they work for, issues discussed and terms used by the industry.

edit WikiIndex.org

The next wiki I worked on is the WikiIndex, which as you might guess, is a listing of all wikis in the world that we can find. The WikiIndex's roots was a site called SwitchWiki -- MarkDilley's original comprehensive list of wikis that he had compiled over the years. WikiIndex is a great way to see what's happening in the wiki world and as well find wikis that cover many different subject matters. There are over 3,500 wikis listed by topic, wiki engine, language, edit mode and activity. What's best is that it is itself a wiki, so anyone with a wiki can self elect into the index! Much credit to MarkDilley, TedErnst and John Stanton for barnraising this.

edit AboutUs, Inc. (2006 - Present)

These experiences have led me to my latest project, AboutUs. Like WikiIndex, the foundation is a page for every site, but because it encompasses the entire web there can be more synergy between pages and this metadata then becomes the starting point of a guide to the Internet that we all can use.

edit External Links / Affiliations

edit Stuff I'm working on

edit Older "Thoughts On ..." pages

edit Artistic Pursuits

edit Trips with pics

edit Most Recent Gadget Purchased

  • Nikon D90 SLR Camera - First Nikon SLR to support video! What Nikon says: "Fusing 12.3-megapixel image quality and a cinematic 24fps D-Movie Mode, the Nikon D90 exceeds the demands of passionate photographers." Got a cool 18-200 lens with it too.

edit Excited About

edit Books

edit Other Stuff

edit Contact

  • Skype: Rathbone
  • IRC: Join us at irc.freenode.net, #AboutUs
  • or use my talk page

edit Claims

edit My Influence Us Comments

edit Ray King's Comments on BrittStaff.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : test 21:48, 11 February 2008 (PST)

edit Ray King's Comments on ChaosCafeAndParlor.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : Love to relax and hear local musicians here 11:30, 14 February 2008 (PST)

edit Ray King's Comments on KensArtisan.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : The "Ken's Hero" is pretty close to a perfect sandwich in my book. Pastries here are amazing too. They might want to get their own wifi, but for now, the barber shop next door's will do. 13:54, 23 February 2008 (PST)

edit Ray King's Comments on BelindaSinclair.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : She's performed at a couple of parties for us back when I lived in Manhattan and wow, she's good. 14:01, 3 March 2008 (PST)

edit Ray King's Comments on SeaSaltCentral.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : The Cyprus Black Sea Salt look like little pyramids -- neat, I think it must grow that way naturally. We've been tossing it on salads and things here in the office and it tastes great -- light and with a natural flavor. 14:01, 16 August 2008 (PDT)

edit Ray King's Comments on TripRes.com

  • Ray King (frustrated) : I made a reservation with them; they sent me an e-mail which totally looks like confirmation. Subject is "Itinerary # __ has been RECEIVED!" and "Total cost of this itinerary is ___". They then called me back the next day to switch me to a different hotel, citing that the hotel rooms go very quickly and I needed to jump on a different and more expensive hotel room instead. I said ok (my mistake). When I got home, my wife didn't like the new choice, so I called them back and they basically said "too bad, you didn't read the fine print". My beef is that the initial "confirmation" e-mail was totally unclear and misleading and that they should fix that and stop robbing people with this "bait and switch" play. If they don't have a hotel room for someone, they should tell them that right away as Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Hotels.com or other reputable companies would do, rather than sending a confusing e-mail which looks like a confirmation and then calling to convince customers to switch later. As a last note, employees, especially supervisors should be willing to give their full name or ID when asked, this would add to, rather than subtract from their credibility. 09:50, 19 August 2008 (PDT)

edit Ray King's Comments on Apple.com

  • Ray King (frustrated) : Groan, just woke up to 26 see VoiceMails on my 3G iPhone from the past 11 days which showed up all at once! I love my iPhone, but service since I got the new one has not been up to the normal excellence I have come to expect from Apple products. 09:27, 19 October 2008 (PDT)


edit Ray King's Comments on KennyAndZukes.com

  • Ray King (delighted) : Like being in New York Fri Dec 19 20:14:33 UTC 2008


edit BiLinks

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