Ollivier « Keltia » Robert

Who am I?

Computer user for more than 25 years now, fell into UNIX in 1987 and going only deeper into it… I fell in love with FreeBSD (after 386BSD) in 1994 and eventually becoming a committer in 1995. I’m now a converted MacOS X user since my SO gifted me with a nice and oh-so-shiny 17” PowerBook G4.

My main interests in life, after my family and friends are, in no particular order:

• reading lots of books, mainly Sci-Fi and Fantasy ones. As you may have noticed, I’m a big fan or J.R.R. Tolkien but George R.R. Martin, C.S. Friedman and Patricia Keneally-Morrison are among my favorites (you will understood why my domain is named Keltia …). Recently, I’ve read novels from Anne Bishop which are gorgious in their darkness and the Vlad Thaltos novels from Steven Brust for fun. Recently, I’ve read novels from Lynn Flewelling incl. The Bone Doll’s Twin and its following.

• Cryptography has been of interest to me even before I owned my first computer (a ZX-81 if you want to know) back in 1980… My list of previously owned computers include an Oric Atmos, a Sinclair QL and various PCes.

One of my favorite books on that subject is « The Codebreakers » from David Kahn. The French translation from Interéditions a friend gave me as a birthday gift back in 1980 became an all-time-favorite until I discovered how butchered it had been (more than two-third of the technical descriptions and all pictures were removed) and I rediscovered the book in English this time with the second edition (see Wikipedia for more details).

• Typography is also something I’m interested in, mostly French but also English as well. That includes fonts and how to write correctly.

• Cats, I just love them. We have one since 2001: Sláinte.

Work: I’m have been working in various positions at EUROCONTROL for more than 12 years, my longest stay so far. I’m currently Head of SEU, a unit specialised in Systems Engineering (dealing with software development mainly) and maintainance of various tools like ARS Remedy. Before that, I spend two years as a UNIX and security consultant at HSC.

Here is my CV(Curriculum Vitae) / Resume: PDF

You can find my current (DSS) PGP Key there and the old one (RSA) here