Who is Jose Lopez?

Hi there! that would be me =). I was born in 1980 (yup, I'm pretty young), believe it or not it is probably my main advantage in the industry I work with.

I come from a very humble family in the Dominican Republic, I was raised along with my brother by a single mom, a loving grandmother and a caring family who strive hard each day to make a living not only for themselves but for those they call their own. After school of course, I needed a job and having played with computers and counting on my brother's experience with them I applied for a Job at a local Web Design firm that was about a stone's throw from home.

This is where the ball started to roll, I was hired as the "Scanner Boy", yet surrounded by graphic designers, IT technicians and people with management skills, I had enough distraction to pull me away from the scanner often and actually learn something about this fascinating world we call Internet.

So, what do I do?

As you may have guessed already, influenced by technology, design and management all around I realized IT was my ride and the Internet my final destination. I quickly learned with my "picky" eye the ins and outs of working on the cyberspace. I faced it myself when I did freelance and even failed badly at it on my first attempt to make an Internet Business. Yes that is right, I have failed in the past. With the rights perspective though, failing is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned lessons I wouldn't learn otherwise and I had a look and feel of what wrong decisions, bad timing and poor attention to details lead to.

Since then (and its been 5 years since) I focused all energies and compiled my mistakes into a pathway to success, and it paid off. I am today running a successful Technology oriented business with its majority of operations based on the Internet. We are even developing new technology of our own. This business I talk about is Lopez Interactive. As a company, you've probably heard little of us, because our operations are not promoted through our company names, they are instead individually branded, some you may have heard which belong to Lopez Interactive are:

Logos Mix

ElAtomo.com: shared and dedicated Web Hosting.
TwistedBlend.com: Interactive Design Studio.
Kokobilling.com: Alternative Payment Platform for content Websites.
Razine.com: drag racing and fuel related sports portal.
GetTwistedNow.com: popular contest for creative minds.
among other portals and corporate websites we are associated in part with or have a collaborative roll on.

More recently, we've decided to further expand our products and services and we will soon launch a promising campaign of products and services to reach not only business but also end user solutions. We will also be featured as guest speaker and exhibitor company at TECDO (first ever technology conference in the DR and majority of the Caribbean) where guest speakers and sponsoring companies all over the world will be featured as well, these include Microsoft, Cisco, Panasonic among others. Please visit TECDO's Website for more information.

What kind of background do I have?

Don't expect me to start talking about University, master's degree or anything like that. I strongly believe college/university can only prepare you so much, from there on you are entirely on your own. More specifically on the IT/Technology Field pretty much anything I was taught where subjects from 2 years before and beyond. Do not get me wrong though, I do believe in education and I do promote everyone to get a career in whatever field they prefer to venture, all I am saying is that an educational background will only get you to a starting point on your future life. If you must succeed you will need to go beyond those books and those titles hanging on your wall.

Now leaving the educational talk behind and getting down and dirty I do handle several technology practices well. I do not dive deep enough to get hooked on one, I take from each barely what I need and learn their limitations, I then move on to something new to serve my research purpose and so on. The reason why I fall into this practice is because all though I do build websites, I am not a Web Designer, all though I do programming work I am not a programmer and all though I develop custom solutions I am not a developer. I rather see myself as an "Internet Architect"; I visualize what I need, I research, I plan it, I review it, I evaluate it and ultimately I give it life. I leave the careful and precise process of designing, coding, programming and publishing to those who are expert on each of their fields. Which is the reason I am thank full for the excellent team I work with.

But if you must know specifics, I am experienced working with:

PHP, ASP, JSP, Perl
HTML, DHTML, JS, AJAX
LAMP, WAMP (I can work cross platform)

I have worked in the past with leading Internet companies, as a consultant, as an outsourced developer and as a project manager. I've worked with teams as big as 35 people so I am very much used to handing over work :P.

Proud? Cocky? Overconfident?

Yes, all of the above. The reason why is very simple too. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WHAT I DO. I was meant to do the things I've done and I would be letting myself down not to brag about them. It has cost much more than time to reach the point where I can gladly smile back at those years of frustrating effort I went through.

Now let those comments dust off on your head and keep these ones clear instead... "I know the things I am capable of doing, enough to brag about them; those things I do not know much off, I simply ignore".

Thank you for dropping by and caring to learn a bit more of myself. If you feel like dropping me some lines please feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Jose R. Lopez