About Kristof Michiels

First the concise version for those with little time and/or short attention spans… :-)

I am a researcher annex application developer working for IBBT at SMIT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication), situated at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Previously, I have studied Art History & Archaeology (1994-1998) at that same university. Before joining SMIT late 2004, I worked as a technical consultant at Atos Origin, (1998-2001) and as a researcher in the Rubenianum in Antwerp (2002-2004). So yes, you get it right, I may be a bit schizophrenic, directing my attention to three areas: (Web) technology, art (history) and science. But I believe that at IBBT-SMIT I have found a place where I can combine it all.

In general my research interests go out to topics on the crossroads between ICT and culture. I have been active in several SMIT and IBBT-projects. Nowadays, I'm involved in the Open Innovation Centre Brussels. Furthermore I have a soft spot for social software, most things Web 2.0 and all things related to the possibilities and effects of a more structured and more meaningful web (to both humans and computers). As a developer I have a .NET background. This blog is handcrafted using asp.net. More recently, I've made the switch towards Ruby on Rails and open source. It's not an anti-Microsoft thing, the technology is just fine. It's the license costs I want to avoid with my future killer web app ;-)

If there’s any time left, I live in Schoten, Belgium, with Olga, who has also caught the blog-virus, and our fantastic son Kai. Online, you can find me listening to music at last.fm, posting pictures at flickr.com, collecting links at del.icio.us and combining these resources with a few twists of salt and pepper on this website.

Still interested? Here’s the long version…

From ever since I can remember, I have had a keen interest in computers. It all started with a Tandy TRS-80 I got on loan when I must have been about ten years old. I used it mostly for playing games, I must admit. My real computer era started two years later with a Commodore 64. Those were the days :-) Do you also recall the loading times of nearly ten minutes with the cassette recorder. But the games were more than worth it (at least I thought at the time :-)): International Karate, Commando, Bomb Jack, to name just three. A few years later came the Commodore Amiga 500 (pronounce this jewel like Homer S. talks about donuts). Here I actually did some programming (besides gaming of course). I have really spend a LOT of time in front of those machines, I must say.

The PC entered my life in the late 1980s, first as an x286 attached to a Hercules screen (for those that can remember), on to the Pentium-family. It was then that I really learned to program (Turbo Pascal ). I used my spare time to write nifty little math and language programs for my mother’s school. I also got into music around that time, playing guitar (long hair and punk attitude included!) in a band, and finally decided to go and study art history. During my university years I still messed with computers, now building small LANs with roommates, and witnessing the advent of the World Wide Web.

But I also saw a lot of paintings, and graduated summa cum laude in 1998 with a monography on Gillis Mostaert, a 16th century Antwerp landscape painter (contemporary of the more famous Pieter Bruegel the Elder). I loved art history very much (I still do), but could not resist to the call of the ICT-siren in the dotcom bubble years. So I started working at Atos Origin (back then still called Origin, a subsidiary of Philips). I began with pc- and helpdesk support (summer job) and quickly worked my way up via helpdesk coordinator, to system and network engineer (servers, ethernet and ATM networks) and finally technical consultant. I had by then developed a keen interest in databases (sql server) and web development as well. Not having any specific ICT diploma, I rushed out to get the additional certifications (MCSE and MCDBA). At the end of 2001, I was active as a consultant on large-scale windows 2000 active directory and network infrastructure projects.

Then my former professor informed me about a job opening for a large Peter Paul Rubens -project that I could join. With regret I quit my job at Atos Origin and joined the team of Rubens scholars at the Rubenianum in Antwerp at the beginning of 2002. It was a real honor to work there and I learned a lot about 17th century painting and all things Rubens. But after two years I realised that devoting my life to Rubens was not for me. It felt that too much interesting IT-stuff was happening elsewhere. So I left and joined the SMIT team in 2004 and that’s where I still work today (for details, see the consise section above).