About the Company
Kypoth Systems is just me, my name is Alex. I first started playing with computers when I was 11 after my dad bought an IBM XT with a 20Mb (yes, megabyte) hard disk. How did we fit anything on a 20Mb hard disk? These days, you get memory sticks by the gigabyte! Those were also the days before the world wide web, I remember using dial up modems connecting to a service called Prestel before the web took off. A lot has happened to IT in all those years :).
I decided to pursue a career in The City after leaving school, and it took me a few years to realise computers were going to be my thing. I spent the next 15 or so years working in Market Data, which is the provision of all the stock price and news feed data to the trading room. I enjoyed this because you were involved with the whole service, from comms room to desktop, so got to tinker with a lot of different equipment. The banks had lots of money too, so it was always the best kit - I remember once having to sign a disclaimer for the US Government that we wouldn't use our encryption machines for naughty purposes :). I worked for 4 of the main City banks, ending up at ABN AMRO managing a small department. It was here I became disillusioned with The City, and I left just before RBS bought them. A lucky escape, it wasn't a surprise to me when the scandals unfolded.
I did a few years of sub-contracting to firms in and around The City after leaving ABN in 2001, and started offering my services to local computer users. I built up slowly and went fully on my own around 2006, and have been continuing ever since. I am a lot poorer now but I don't miss commuting, politics... (I could go on).
Being self-employed can be a lonely business, so there's the dogs as well (2 Vizslas). They are at least half the reason I'm self-employed so they might as well come on the payroll, just don't tell the taxman. As anyone who works with their dogs around will know, they do help towards a stress-free environment but I'm not sure if I can claim back healthcare allowances on them. Have a search through my blog and you'll find some pics of when they were puppies.