Carine Bruyndoncx
With a masters degree combining business, finance, and IT, it seems only natural that I have been working in IT, for almost a decade, purely for international financial companies and institutions. During these years, I have touched upon a lot of different systems, databases, and programming languages, and held a range of positions from analyst-programmer, DBA, quality assurance, and support as well as team-leading and project management.
This international working environment management allowed me to build a solid IT foundation. While living abroad and traveling extensively, I learned to appreciate the cultural differences, habits, and the nice weather (though mostly in other parts of the world).
In recent years, my focus has shifted away from finance towards CTI, CRM, and e-business systems. Having experience with Vantive, Siebel, and a SAP CRM eSales certification under my belt, it was time to start a new chapter in 2004. Following my mantra, "Think global, act local" I joined Keukenlust.be (my parents business) where among other responsibilites, I also handle the webshop (evidently based on osCommerce).
Since I can't stay away from computers, you might find me posting about osCommerce or other Open Source packages in my blog on the osCommerce forums, perhaps doing a little custom programming for clients, or troubleshooting complex problems, as time allows. I'm a perfectionist at heart; I like a good challenge; and guess what ... fruit salad is my favorite dessert !
Jim Ekleberry
Jim Ekleberry aka Jim Daemon from Tennessee, USA belongs to the top 20 list of osCommerce members and has been on the forums since January 2003. He likes meeting new people and making friends so working on this book as a technical reviewer was a great opportunity for him to show off his coding talents.
In his real life job, Jim works in his company Akoza which is a leading provider of Information Technology (IT) services and is an IT outsource partner for small and medium-sized businesses. He encourages all non-techie business people to spend their time on their business instead of their technology and have his company do the big business services for not-so-big companies.
His favorite quote is a clever remark by Albert Einstein, "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." — a perfect mantra for a tech reviewer!
Karly Phillips
Working wonders in the kitchen is like work in life itself... the preparations for something exceptional and fulfilling keep us at it; keep us coming back again and again to try it in different ways to improve ourselves and our causes.
I am not a master chef; my dining room table has no Michelin stars, but the 1/7th of my life I spend passionately mucking about in my kitchen, I hope, will result in much more than well-prepared meals—to create fond memories, not unlike those I have of my own mother, for my children.
I am equally passionate about my work with To Love Children Educational Foundation International Inc., an NGO with special consultative status to the ECOSOC of the United Nations. TLC is making a difference in the poorest of the developing countries of our world.
Monika kindly allowed me to share in the work of her kitchen, even giving me permission to lick the spoon from time to time.Chapter 3, Spice Up Your Infoboxes, was so intriguing to me, as a non-osCommerce user, that I read front to back Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition by David Mercer, registered a domain, and downloaded a copy to play with… just to better understand it. It is a wonderful tribute to her passion!
With my best wishes,
Karly Phillips