Eric Belanger -- Jack-of-all-trades IT Guy

About

I'm a geek technology enthusiast, based in Victoriaville, QC.

I currently work full-time for a manufacturer giving first-hand IT support. I also code a few applications, websites and reports here and there, which ultimately makes me a well rounded, "Jack of all trades" kind of IT guy.

Mind you, I am not a programmer by profession (i've been learning that as a hobby), i was actually trained as a tech support guy in school. Being in both seats at the same time is a two edged swords (twice the work, same position), but it has been rewarding both for me and for the other employees.

That being said, I am progressing as far as coding is concerned- for instance, what's serving this webpage is a piece of software (known as a web server) that *I* wrote! :D See that Git repository for more details.

Besides work, when not I'm keeping myself up-to-date in whatever IT skills crossing my mind, i'm a music fan (I listened to EDM, mostly Trance, before it was cool), spend too much time gaming online (*cough* Rocket League), like long roadtrips along with trance music and i'm a guarana addict... who needs coffee anyway?

About this web site

This domain has been put to many usages in the past (mainly blogging), but now has a VCard-style website since I don't blog anymore. I also use that domain for image hotlinking and for personal purposes. If you are reading this because of (and coming from) an HTTP Error 404 link, chances are that content was only temporarily hosted.

Twitter feed

I use Twitter as a replacement for blogging; since I usually want to shout out short sentences that fits into (or less than) 140 characters, Twitter is a perfect match.

Recent Tweets (Profile URL: http://twitter.com/bilange):

Tweets by bilange

Résumé

Relevant general information

Spoken languages: French, English
Average English knowledge (Reading/writing: 95%, Listening: 85%, Speaking: 65%)
Fully involved, without reserve, into whatever i'm getting my hands on, professional or otherwise
At a glance: reliability, frankness and discretion

IT knowledge

Everything listed below is/was learned outside any courses or formations:

Operating systems : DOS 4 to 6 including FreeDOS, Windows 95 to Vista/7, Novell Netware 4, Linux (Distributions: Slackware, Debian and Debian-derived like Ubuntu)
Navigation tools : Internet Explorer, Netscape/Firefox, FTP/SSH software...
Web site creation: Photoshop/GIMP, (x)HTML, CSS, PHP 4/5, MySQL, Javascript/jQuery
Programmation: Basic knowledge of these languages: C et C#, Python, Shell scripts, …
Hardware: update and troubleshooting of PC software and hardware
Others:
- Advanced knowledge of OGC-Plus software, as well as it's database suite used (Informix SQL 4.0)
- Configuration under Linux of: Samba file sharing service, web hosting (Apache / Lighttpd with MySQL), virtual private network using OpenVPN.

Work Experience

Putting in place and diagnostic of any electronic-based tools used by employees
Keep up-to-date store inventory and sales data
In outages/faults, diagnostic and repair of any point-of-sale servers and terminals (IBM & OGC-Plus)
Creation of Intranet site used solely by employees (In-house formations, dynamic reports and graphs creation)
Creation of tools enhancing overall productivity (automation or procedures and reports)

Advice customers on PC and hardware sales
Install, restore and troubleshoot software/hardware related issues on customer's PC.

Diagnostic and applying patches overnight in the first wave of the Blaster (aka MSBlaster or LoveSan) worm attack/infection
Installation and update of various operating systems
Information gathering on BlackBerry phones and on cellular network's ranges

Education

2003: DEP, Computing Support
Centre de formation professionnelle Marie-Rollet, Ste-Foy, Quebec

DEP's are Quebec Education Minister's "Vocational Studies Diploma", technical studies on a specific field focused on a fast access to the job market. For an overview of the Canadian education system, click here (local mirror); for a more detailed, textual overview of Quebec's education system, click here (local mirror).

1998: DES, "High School Diploma"
Le Boisé High school, Victoriaville, Quebec

Contact

Here are many ways to get in touch:

You can import my contact information in your favorite program using this VCF file (as long as your program supports VCF files. Most common cases are: Thunderbird, Outlook, Google Mail)

If you have a mobile device capable of scanning QR Codes, you can as well scan this barcode, which will import all the information the VCF file above provided:

If you can't use the means above, here's some alternative ways to contact me:

E-mail:
Facebook, by looking for this e-mail address:
...or look at my social network page to see even more ways to get in touch.