about Mark...

Perhaps more than you really wanted to know about... Mark Shapiro

He grew up in the Bay Area - yet has many Libertarian philosophies.
Working as an assembler and then an electronics technician mostly on the night-shift.
Fooled with mighty 300-baud modems and 8-inch floppy drives on the (really!) mighty Z-80 processor.
Worked as a technician at Semiconductor-related companies.
Fooled with mighty 2400-baud modems and 5-inch hard drives on the IBM PC, and started the MacNet BBS in 1984, which lasted a few years.
Started a newsletter, Real World Computing, which ran a total of 7 issues with a peak circulation of 52 engineering associates and hobbyists.
Worked 8 more years in the semiconductor industry as an Industrial Engineer, Equipment Engineer, System Test Engineer, and as an Applications Engineer. Then, changed gears and...
Became happily married and eventually became a Daddy.
Worked 8 more years in the software industry, mostly writing code (mostly 'C' in DOS and Unix) for equipment companies in the semiconductor, industrial, optical, and metrology industries.
Fooled with mighty 14,400 bps modems, and started the PC-based Berryessa Central BBS in San Jose. Also became a database guru.
With no experience in the publishing business or in marketing, started BABBA, the Bay Area Bulletin Board Advisor, a monthly magazine about Bay-Area BBSs and the Internet - the first Bay Area-based publication devoted to the online. Renamed the Berryessa Central BBS to the BABBA BBS.
Realized that BABBA was not an ideal name for a magazine, and experimented by putting California Online on the cover of the Magazine. This lead to meeting the proprietor of the California Online BBS / Internet Service! :) (This eventually became a partnership.)
Since California Online was "taken", I put West Coast Online on the cover of the magazine, and changed the name of the BABBA business to West Coast Online.
6 months later, merged my West Coast Online with California Online, to combine skills and assets to create a very successful Internet business, and eventually, had time to start this humble web site. (I worked with many fine people. Mr. Paul Theodoropoulos has a good reminder of who was involved at WCO and what WCO (the ISP) was about.
Sold my (minority) shares of West Coast Online to (yech) Verio on September 30, 1997, and remained on as an employee of Verio as their Operations Consultant in California.
As of April 1, 1998, I am no longer an employee of Verio (smile), and took some (much deserved) time off to travel and play with Sparc stations - before returning to the work force. Now struggling in the hard times in Silicon Valley.
Found a job selling Internet equipment, then selling photlithogry and camera equipment, then became the network manager of Metro newspapers
Started GoGuys, Inc in 2002, to fix anyone's computers.
Started JudgmentBuy.com in 2003 to go after people who rip others off.

Stay tuned...

mark@goguys.com

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