A Bit about Me

PictureThis blog is written by me, Charlie Savage. Its about one of my favorite things - creating software. I’ve been doing it now on and off for twenty years, the last ten years professionally. At this point I’ve worked with more languages and technologies then I can remember. They range from dBase to Fortran to Assembly to Delphi to Windows to Linux to C++ to Magik (yes, that’s spelled correctly) to JavaScript to XHTML to XSL to Ruby…well, you get the point.

I’ve also worked in most aspects of development - from being an entry-level programmer to a lead developer to reporting to a CTO to leading the development team on a brand new product to being a Chief Architect. I’ve worked at small companies, medium sized companies and gigantic companies (that bought the medium size companies). Now I’m trying my hand, for the second time, at the startup game.

Another thing I love is maps - I’ve been drawing them since I’ve been a kid. At Stanford I got an engineering degree (well, two of them) but couldn’t resist the pull of Geology. My favorite class was summer field camp - 6 weeks of tromping through eastern Nevada and southern Utah living in tents and looking at rocks. Sounds exciting - doesn’t it! That was followed by 4 intensive weeks back on campus writing up all our findings and making geologic maps of the areas. After I graduated, I heard that a couple of the maps I made (with lots of help from a friend) were on display in the hall in the geology department. Talk about being proud! Sadly, I’m sure they’ve been tossed long ago since - I’d love to have them back.

So its no surprise I ended up in the spatial/gis (geographic information systems) business. It about writing software for creating, viewing and manipulating maps. After ten years, I still haven’t worked it out of my system. I’ve now started a new web company called MapBuzz that - you guessed it - will make it easy for you to create and share maps with your friends and family. Its certainly a very exciting time for the industry, with large, new fierce competitors in Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon, struggling to build an universal mapping platform.

That’s about it for now - if you’d like to get in touch my email is: cfis@savagexi.com.

For those who are interested, my blog is based on Kaushal Sheth’s BlueHorizon theme for WordPress (ported to Typo). Thanks Kaushal for the great looking theme!

Last, for those who are wondering, cfis stands for Charles F. I. Savage, my full name.