Michael Edward McNeil

Writer, Editor and Publisher at Impearls

San Francisco Bay Area

Current
  • Founder, editor and publisher along with principal writer at Impearls
Past
  • Inventor and Analyst at Certichron, Inc.
  • Co-founder, CTO, Chairman of the Board (plus other hats) at GMT - Glassey-McNeil Technologies
  • Member of the Technical Staff at Coastek Infosys, Inc.

see less...

7 more...

Education
  • University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Montana State University-Bozeman
  • Great Falls High School
Connections
45 connections
Industry
Writing and Editing
Websites

Michael Edward McNeil’s Experience

  • Founder, editor and publisher along with principal writer

    Impearls

    (Writing and Editing industry)

    November 2002 — Present (7 years 2 months)

    Web magazine Impearls explores a wide range of subjects in science, history, society, and culture. With its by now hundreds of diverse postings Impearls may be liberally referenced for instances of Michael’s writings – both as to substance and style, not to mention thought processes – while other essays by authors ranging from farsighted physicist Freeman Dyson to renowned atmospheric chemist James Lovelock (originator of the “Gaea principle”) and others have also appeared within. Beyond that, numerous commentators in other fora have crafted testimonials attesting to the high regard in which Impearls is generally held across the “blogosphere.”

  • Inventor and Analyst

    Certichron, Inc.

    (Computer & Network Security industry)

    September 2006 — September 2008 (2 years 1 month)

    Certichron, Inc. – in coordination with NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) – installs, maintains, owns, and operates “Time Servers” in a number of localities across America, deployment intended to eventually extend overseas as well. Under this and other umbrellas since GMT folded, Michael and Todd Glassey worked together once again (especially during the indicated period), refining and developing the time-location certification as well as time-server intellectual property initially invented by the two at GMT and Coastek – including the patent concerning whose IP Michael and Todd remain independent owners. In September 2008, however, the two co-inventors, while still cooperating with regard to the IP incorporated in the granted patent, determined to no longer work together under the aegis of a common firm.

  • Co-founder, CTO, Chairman of the Board (plus other hats)

    GMT - Glassey-McNeil Technologies

    (Information Technology and Services industry)

    April 1998 — December 2002 (4 years 9 months)

    GMT was a consulting firm specializing in secure networking and non-repudiation in electronic commerce – especially utlizing cryptographic time- and location-stamping, among other technologies. GMT’s most illustrious client was Datum Inc. (now part of Symmetricom Inc.), manufacturer of highly accurate timing instruments such as cesium-beam atomic clocks. At GMT co-invented technology incorporated in a patent titled “Controlling access to stored information based on geographical location and date and time,” assigned Patent No. 6,370,629 granted by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in 2002. Agreement between the principals and Datum/Symmetricom grants general ownership of this technology independently to the former partners Michael McNeil and Todd Glassey.

  • Member of the Technical Staff

    Coastek Infosys, Inc.

    (Computer & Network Security industry)

    March 1997 — March 1998 (1 year 1 month)

    Recruited from NetFRAME to serve as a principal designer of this startup firm’s non-repudiated virtual private network product line. Working with Todd Glassey co-invented “Certified Time Authority” cryptographic time server, submitted for patent at the USPTO. Developed code for these projects using C, C++, and Java. Managed subcontractor implementing a proprietary so-called “composite” TCP/IP protocol stack.

  • Sr. Technical Support Engineer

    NetFRAME Systems Inc.

    (Public Company; MU; Semiconductors industry)

    September 1991 — February 1997 (5 years 6 months)

    At NetFRAME served as the company’s “system coroner”: its principal failed server (application and operating system) “abend” (abnormal end) dump, live debugging, and sniffer trace analysis diagnostician. Recruited from 3Com as a Windows NT specialist (in demonstration of which promptly obtaining the Microsoft MCSE credential), Michael also thoroughly acquainted himself with Novell NetWare (equipping himself with the MCNE, Novell’s “Master” certification) as well as Unix running on NetFRAME servers. Analyzed hundreds of system dumps together with a great diversity of sniffer traces – as well as composing utilities in C and various scripting languages in support of same – also developing a significant help desk application for Tech Support using FoxPro. Sent overseas on a number of occasions to ferret out the causes of system failures, the report from one such successfully completed diagnostic expedition (dubbed a “masterpiece” by fellow engineers) is available for perusal.

  • Technical Support Engineer

    3Com

    (Public Company; COMS; Computer Networking industry)

    January 1988 — July 1991 (3 years 7 months)

    Employing network sniffers and sophisticated debugging tools, sometimes traveling to customer sites across America as well as providing support from 3Com HQ, diagnosed difficult hardware and software problems affecting 3Com servers and its other networking products. At 3Com became expert supporting Microsoft Windows NT.

  • Software Engineer

    3Com

    (Public Company; COMS; Computer Networking industry)

    December 1984 — December 1987 (3 years 1 month)

    Developed and maintained drivers and other principal components of 3Com’s “3+” and “3+Open” network operating systems, running the XNS and TCP/IP protocol suites, utilizing Assembler and C. Responsible for such critical elements as the multitasking process manager, Ethernet manager, Internet Datagram Protocol, Sequenced Packet Protocol, and the driver-bind utility. Also developed embedded drivers for 3Com “intelligent” network adapters.

  • Softtware Engineer

    Dysan

    (Computer Software industry)

    August 1981 — October 1984 (3 years 3 months)

    Recruited as a Forth language expert to a startup firm founded by disk-media savvy Dysan which was implementing a CP/M-based, Forth-smart business microcomputer – in support of which designed software architecture and implemented the system BIOS. Served
    as architect and developer of principal components of the company’s multitasking Forth-based software product line; implemented (and published – see Bibliography) a hash-table lookup method for optimizing Forth compilation. Also spearheaded investigations of causes of subtle system failures – including composing an interrupt routine as a diagnostic tool for zeroing in on the source of what turned out to be an IBM PC-DOS (not hardware as first thought) bug, which as it happened occurred due to not-so-disabled interrupts creeping in in the O.S. and executing in between machine instructions where they were not supposed to go –as a result distant memory regions were getting trashed.

  • Member of the Technical Staff (Software Engineer)

    Time and Space Processing

    (Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)

    July 1980 — July 1981 (1 year 1 month)

    Developed Unix-based applications for this pioneering voice digitization firm using C, Fortran, and Assembler as well as various Unix scripting languages. For instance, utilizing C along with shell scripts, implemented a “Universal PROM Programmer” able to burn a wide variety of PROM chips.

  • Programmer-Analyst

    UC Santa Cruz

    (Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)

    January 1979 — December 1980 (2 years )

    Part-time student employee of the late physics professor Stanley Flatté at U.C. Santa Cruz – there obtaining ocean acoustic wave analysis research results via remotely programming using Fortran a CDC 7600 supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Also developed software in Basic displaying the foregoing results using Tektronics desktop graphical workstations.

    On the side while attending U.C. Santa Cruz, implemented in Assembler full-blown (fig-) Forth language kernel running under Unix on DEC PDP-11’s.

  • Programmer-Analyst

    Blue Shield of California

    (Non-Profit; Insurance industry)

    August 1971 — September 1978 (7 years 2 months)

    Programmed reports, automatic form documents, and special projects, utilizing RPG II and WP/32 for a large word processing/data center, on an IBM System 32 as well as a other equipment such as the IBM MT/ST.

    It was during this interregnum between attending Montana State University and returning to school at U.C. Santa Cruz that Michael cultivated an interest in the exotic computer language Forth (a favorite – due to its inherent extensibility and flexibility – of astronomers) – at Blue Shield launching an investigation concerning implementing the language on IBM System 3 family computers in Assembler language.

Michael Edward McNeil’s Education

  • University of California, Santa Cruz

    Physics 1978 — 1980

  • Montana State University-Bozeman

    Physics, Music minor 1967 — 1971

    Activities and Societies:
    Honors Program, M.S.U. Orchestra (violinist), M.S.U. Chorale

  • Great Falls High School

    graduated , 1964 — 1967

    Activities and Societies:
    Concertmaster - Great Falls High School Orchestra, Civil Air Patrol

Additional Information

Michael Edward McNeil’s Websites:

Michael Edward McNeil’s Interests:

astronomy, physics, biology, geology, information technology, history, music (violinist)

Michael Edward McNeil’s Groups:

Member of the Board of the Friends of the U.C. Santa Cruz Library

  •    University of California-Santa Cruz Alumni (UCSC)
  •    Linked Local Santa Cruz CA
  •    Litigation Ventures

Michael Edward McNeil’s Honors:

U.S. Patent No. 6,370,629 (awarded 2002-04-09): "Controlling access to stored information based on geographical location and date and time."
past Concertmaster of Great Falls High School Orchestra.

Michael Edward McNeil’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

  • career opportunities
  • consulting offers
  • new ventures
  • expertise requests
  • business deals
  • reference requests
  • getting back in touch

View Full Profile

Public profile powered by: LinkedIn

Create a public profile: Sign In or Join Now

View Michael Edward McNeil’s full profile:

  • See who you and Michael Edward McNeil know in common
  • Get introduced to Michael Edward McNeil
  • Contact Michael Edward McNeil directly

View Full Profile