Mark

Hi, I'm Mark.

I was born in Queensland, Australia, and lived there until I was 27 years old. I have two undergraduate degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics, and Bachelor of Arts in Japanese. Both are from The University of Queensland.

After graduation I worked for four years as an IT Consultant for a multi-national corporation. I had a great time for the first few years, even though I worked quite a few overtime hours. In fact, it wasn't until my working hours came to be 9-5 that I became really bored. I found my satisfaction level had more to do with the people around me, rather than the job I was doing. Having good people around can make any job fun. But, after 4 years, all my friends were working on out-of-town assignments, or had resigned, or had transferred to a different country.

So I too resigned, painted my house so I could sell it (the painting and the selling both taking longer than I expected), and ironically moved to a country where I had no friends.

My 18 months in Japan was fun. But living there without a job was very expensive. I spent most of my time writing my software.

Then I moved back to my parents' farm for a year. I also spent most of my time there finishing the software, before finally obtaining a job back in civilisation. I now live and work on the Gold Coast.

Originally the software was only for personal use, and it was just for backtesting. Then it snowballed into automated-trading software. I do, and will continue to use it myself.

But, although there is more involved in packaging up some software for sale (as opposed to just using it myself), I didn't see any harm in making it available to other people. "More life to all, and less to none" says my favourite book - "The Science of Getting Rich", by Wallace D. Wattles. I hope both my software and that book helps you as much as they help me.

This little hobby has grown into a small business, and I even have someone helping me to code sometimes. So I created a little company and called it Thinking Stuff Pty Ltd - registered in Queensland, Australia.

Sharky?

Shark Meat is rhyming slang for my name from the local drunk at the residential college I used to live at. Years later I was walking to lunch with my work colleagues and an old friend from college saw me and called me "Shark Meat". She said it so naturally, that it was if it was my name from birth. Then the nickname spread throughout my work colleagues and over time has been shortened to "Sharky".

Enjoy the site.
 

Rhett

I worked on a project with Mark on the Gold Coast, and somehow ended up helping him to write his software :-) At the end of the day it's for my benefit as well though. With a wife and two very young children, my hope is that this software will eventually more than supplement my current income. A man has to dream anyway... :-)

I travelled a lot after University. Worked mostly at ski resorts so I could snowboard as much as I could. But surfing took over, and it was about time I got a real job, so I returned to the Gold Coast to settle down (I had lived here for most of my childhood). Then married my high-school sweetheart, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I can program in just about any language, with C# being my preference. Stoopid Sharky is still stuck in his VB.Net ways, but I'll bring him 'round :-)

N.b. Rhett wants to make it clear that this was written by Mark pretending to be Rhett. I'm not sure why though - all those smiley faces make Rhett seem hip and cool :-)