The What

This site has existing in one manifestation or another since 1997, before most people knew what the Internet even was. It has served me many purposes over the years in both personal and professional contexts. Hopefully it will serve you in some small yet meaningful way as well.

The Who*

My name is Jon O’Brien. I was born at a young age in the mean streets of Chicago, the city that I continue to live in to this day. Technology and design are my livelihood and passion, along with good food, interesting places, a fast car, and good conversation. Hopefully you’ll see this reflected in the pages of this site.

The Why

It might seem a bit outdated or perhaps even backwards for someone to run a personal web site in this day and age where social media rules everything. After all, you can communicate in just about any way you want with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc, and let them worry about the chores of system administration and security, right? Let’s just say I like to maintain a tighter rein on my data and how it’s presented. I like that my viewing public is able to visit here without a server at Google or Facebook slurping up their every move (or mine). I’m not making any money at this, so neither should they.

* No, not that The Who, though I am a Pinball Wizard in my own mind.