User:Violetlight

My real name is Simon Redding, but I've had this alias on systems for some years, and just tend to keep it.

I'm based in the UK Peak District, and work 3 days a week as a technical specialist (anything from technology & information architecture to hands on support) for the UK Environment Agency. The other four days are mine, for my family and other interests such as this project. I have 15 years experience in IT, and used to be a professional Java developer.

Specific interests for the future of Freemind are using it as a visualisation tool for various live or shared data sources (i.e. mashups) and to facilitate collaboration in innovation without all parties needing to be present in one room. This latter interest leads from a college diploma in Innovation and Design that I did a couple of years ago.

I'm going to try the development of simple plugins first in order to get to grips with the software, but would be interested in contributing to core development if that goes OK.

Cheers Simon.