My tech journey

• Learned sound fundamentals of programming including C, Assembly x86, BIOS, MS-DOS internals at Datamatics, Mumbai and Vijaymukhi’s Computer Institute (VMCI), Mumbai:
  • Here is where I got introduced to documented and Undocumented DOS
  • Here is where I also learned the art of writing and debugging low-level interrupt handlers, race conditions, re-entrant code and efficient coding
• Learned a lot reading Dr. Dobb’s Journal (aka DDJ) articles
• Some of the projects I developed:
  • Reading and writing records from/to raw DBase III plus (.dbf) compatible file (Language/Tools: C)
  • Mouse functions library written in Assembly with Basic language interfacing (Language/Tools: Assembly x86)
  • Generic user interface menu library (Language/Tools: Assembly)
  • A TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program to monitor and manage other 3rd-party TSRs and allow freeing up the memory at user’s will (Language/Tools: C, Assembly x86)
  • A print spooler TSR to buffer up data so that front-end can get free for user interaction while slow-printing a character at a time in the background . This TSR provided complete status, progress-bar and user interactivity (Language/Tools: C, Assembly x86)
  • Developed an operating system like layer to migrate a 32-bit ATM network stack originally written for Novell Netware to 16-bit DOS environment (Language/Tools: C, Assembly x86)
• Other hobby projects that I developed:
  • Remote hard disk:
    DOS block device driver on the host and a TSR on the remote system interacted over Novell IPX network to pass the disk sector read/write requests back and forth
  • Remote screen and keyboard sharing:
    The host passed the entire video memory contents to the remote client over Novell IPX network evyer few seconds and in-return received key-strokes pressed at the client system and stuffed it’s own keyboard BIOS buffer
  • Tinkered with and tweaked disk’s Master Boot Record (MBR), Boot sector, FAT file system

• Learned Windows user-land internals by following the “Under the Hood” column by Matt Pietrek in Microsoft Systems Journal (MSJ)
• Delve a little bit into Windows network and mouse device driver work
• Developed Thinkvantage Access Connections Windows software that came pre-installed on IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads:
  • My role was to mainly integrate varying wi-fi (802.11) API from Cisco, Intel, Atheros and various versions of them into an unified abstraction to be used by the front-end GUI
  • This involved debugging and troubleshooting any conflicting requirements between different API stacks

• Core computer science subjects, including
  • Discrete mathematics
  • Computing Theory
  • Algorithms and analysis
• Web development subjects: PHP, Javascript, Database design, SQL
• Scripting languages: Python and Perl

Took up tutoring (teaching assistant) and lab assistant role at RMIT university after the graduation and taught following subjects:

• Data Communications
• C Programming
• Algorithms & Analysis
• Computer Organization

• Got opportunities to work on back-end and the front-end of web development
• Developed data ETL pipelines
• Along the way improved my Python , SQL, Javascript skills
• Learned some contemporary frameworks/libraries – Django, vue.js, bit of Node.js
• Learned containers – Docker
• Learned the art of writing unit tests
• Participated in peer code-reviews

• Completed Certificate IV in Cybersecurity from Melbourne Polytechnic (Dec 2024)
• Tinkering with homelabs and personal projects on Proxmox, Rasperry pi, OpenWRT
• Preparing for Practical Network Penetration Tester (PNPT) certification – TCM Security
• Expanding the knowledge on daily basis