John O'Fallon
 John was one of the early pioneers in the Mac OS Internet community, founding Maxum Development in 1994. Maxum's first products, NetCloak and NetForms, quickly became favorites among Web developers, and Maxum has continued to innovate with products like Phantom, PageSentry, Rumpus, and WebDoubler. |
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| How did you personally get into using the Macintosh family of computers? |
I started out on Apple II computers (and still enjoy reminising about writing 6502 assembler programs for an 8 bit, 1 Mhz, 32k machine), published numerous game and utility packages for both the Apple and Comodore 64. In 1984 I became the proud owner of an original 128k Mac, but college and a consulting job took me into the UNIX and Windows (if you think Win 98 is clunky, you should have seen 1.0) world for several years. The superiority of the Mac, however, has made me a Mac guy for life. | |
| Status: | Software developer first, business president second (or maybe third). | |
First Mac:
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128k Mac. | |
Current Mac:
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Mac IIsi, Quadra 630, PowerBook 5300, PowerMac 7300, PowerMac 9500, iMac | |
| When did you get your first modem? | 1982 | |
| Who did you call first? | I helped set up a BBS (custom written in Basic, of course) for the computer store I worked at. | |
| Present Occupation: | President of Maxum | |
| Claim to Fame: | Founded the first Mac OS Internet software company. | |
| Dream Job: | Apple Fellow. |
| Not So Random Thoughts... | |||
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| Was there ever a time in your life that you had to "Think Different?" What was the situation and what did you do? | |||
| I like to think that I, and Maxum as a company, has always "Thought Different." We are always looking for new ways to solve problems that no one else has addressed yet. The world has plenty of database solutions and log analyzers... Products like NetCloak, NetForms, and PageSentry were, when they were introduced, completely new and different from everything else available. | |||
| How has using the Macintosh computer changed your life? | |||
| Probably. I don't know that I would have the heart to do what we are doing in the Windows world. The community is what makes this fun. | |||
| What is the weirdest thing in your office right now? | |||
| Well, I've got an entire trade show booth stuffed in here. Also funky are my Virtual Boy and the iMac. I've also got 2 complete networks, one that is 100 MBit Ethernet and the other that's 10. | |||
| My Passions are: | |||
| My family. Sports cars (Mmmmm... Lotus Elise...) and autocross racing. Truly tight, efficient, fast code. Beer. | |||
| If you could have dinner with one person dead or alive who would that person be and what would you ask them? | |||
| My wife, Dawn. Hey, we've got little kids and don't get to go out enough... | |||
| Do you play a musical instrument and/or are you in a band? | |||
| *ANswer | |||
| When I grow up I want to be: | |||
| A professional race car driver. | |||
| The question never asked: | |||
| Why didn't you name your company "Microsoft?" |
| Just The Facts, Please... | ||||
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| Biographical Tidbits: | John continues to lead software development at Maxum, and remains an active and vocal memeber of the Mac OS Internet community. | Education: | Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Illinois. | |
| Location at Birth: | Chicago, IL | Current Location: | Streamwood (outside Chicago), IL | |
| Where you've been in between: |
Not very damn far. | Astrological Sign: | Sagittarius | |
| Available? | Married (happily, even!) | Chat Nick: | Johnny O | |
| Favorite Books: | Magazines, mostly: Car and Driver, Road and Track, Scientific American, Next Generation (video game magazine), and Grassroots Motorsports. | Favorite Music or Band: | Counting Crows, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Collective Soul, Dire Straits, etc. | |
| Favorite Food: | Anything really, really hot. Mmmmmm, Buffalo Wings.... | Cat or Dog Person: | None really (we've got 2 cats, which I tolerate). | |
| Johns' Professional and Favorite Web Site | |
| "That's great... Can we make it faster?" |
Created Wednesday, October 7, 1998, 12:05 AM; Edited: 1/30/99