Loon Salarissoftware is the publisher of Loon, a payroll application for the Dutch market. Loon is used by almost 9,000 customers to produce approx. 300,000 pay-slips per month.In 1997, I wrote the front-end to Loon on a freelance basis and in 2006, I joined Loon Salarissoftware (then RoosRoos Uitgevers) as a software architect. These days I'm involved in designing and developing Loon itself, as well as several supporting web sites and services for Loon Salarissoftware employees, Loon users, and their customers (both companies and employees).

During my physics studies I started freelancing as a programmer. I got swamped in work pretty quickly, and started my own company. Graduation never ensued.

With Ries Vriend, I founded Development Expertise (later renamed to Amsterdam Software, http://www.amsterdamsoftware.nl) in 2000, which grew from two to six in two years. Still located on one of Amsterdam's primary canals, Amsterdam Software provides customized software and consultancy. Currently, their primary product (which was conceived after I left the company) is called FBO One.In 2006 I decided to go independent again, because my heart was not so much in managing other people as it was in developing really great software using my own two hands. Or, at least, having a stab at that.

A one-year consulting contract to promote Component Based Development within KLM Information Services. Involved identifying, documenting, packaging, and publishing re-usable components. Resulted in the IWS Standard Library of components.

As a freelancer, I taught several standard Microsoft courses for Visual Basic, but also custom made company courses for Syntegra clients, both on premises and on location. Client appreciation was consistently high, often explicitly mentioning the teachers enthusiasm (in a positive way).

Software development for photo systems for amusement parks; photo confrontation software for the Amsterdam police department.My employer once called me "not a real programmer" but then proceeded to explain he meant this in a good way, as in: not bogged down by details, focused on delivering a usable product. Needless to say I was still insulted.

As a freelance journalist I have written articles for various Dutch computer magazines, including MSX Computer Magazine, STart (for Atari ST), PC Active, and Personal Computer Magazine, for many years. At the time I was sort of an authority in the MSX and Atari ST environments, combining writing software and hardware reviews, tutorials, etc. with publishing applications and source code in Dutch magazines. An article of mine was accepted with very few editorial changes in a British computer magazine several years later.I was also an editor for Oric Magazine, but since only 800 units of my first computer model were ever sold in The Netherlands, this is hardly worth mentioning. Virtually all Oric owners read the magazine, though ;-)

ComMedia was one of the first stores in The Netherlands to sell the Atari ST line of computers. ST's were a low-cost alternative to the Macintosh, which was then still extremely expensive. But it grew into a hub for the ST in The Netherlands, offering office both virtual and physical space to desktop publishers, graphic designers, musicians, and software developers (of which I was one), and many others.I met many curious, committed, innovative people in my time at ComMedia, some of whom I worked with, some I worked for, and many I had beers and conversations about the ST with. In those days I:* wrote an application to send and receive faxes on the ST* wrote motor control software for a special effects contractor and ran those motors on the set of several commercials* wrote an application to print sawing plans for custom made cupboards for a building contractor* wrote the graphical part of an artists application to 'flatten' 3D structures (the actual algorithm was written by a mathematician)* wrote software to assist in a PhD thesis about gaming theory* wrote an application to print out music in Klavarscribo notation* generally investigated the Atari Transputer, one of the first computer systems to allow parallel programming. I even followed a three day course about this in the UK... all while trying to graduate. You can see why this (graduation that is) never happened.I learned a lot in my time at ComMedia, and had a tremendous amount of fun in the process.

Somewhere around this period I edited and refreshed a badly outdated written course about PC's and their history in monthly installments, and wrote a general course about the hardware and software of the (then modern) IBM PC.