About Me
Who are you?
I am Alexander Groß. I live in Leipzig, Germany, with a cat and three co-residents. I was born in 1980. I've been into computers
since the age of 8 when my grandfather introduced me to the world of 8-bit microcomputers manufactured by Robotron. Fairly
short after that I started coding my first programs using the now-ancient BASIC interpreter that came with the
KC 85/3. I remember one of my first programs being as simple as drawing a race car I plotted on paper before. This
has been one of the key moments in my life: I earned great satisfaction from using a machine as a tool to make my world a
little brighter.
By the age of 12 I got hold my first IBM PC, with blazing 12 MHz clock speed. The computer was put together by my uncle
who left me and the machine with some notes about MS-DOS and Norton Commander installed. I was intrigued by the new system
and started exploring the inner workings starting from batch files to writing
TSRs when I learned Turbo Pascal on my own a couple of years later. With some friends of mine I ventured into the
world of assembler but soon introduced myself to Borland Delphi and Windows programming in C and C++.
I am now quite comfortable in the Microsoft world and started transitioning all my
development efforts to .NET in 2003 when Microsoft conducted the first .NET Summercamp at the University of Leipzig. Today
I am one of the leaders of the local .NET User Group Leipzig and organize these
camps and other events like the .NET Open Space myself. This gives me the great opportunity of introducing other developers to .NET and adjacent
technologies as well as getting in touch with people. I consider myself a reasonably experienced Windows software developer
with a particular interest in application architecture, graphic design, tools and agile processes.
I currently work for Synexus Software GmbH, an
ISV and IT consulting
shop in Leipzig. Synexus Software gives me the opportunity to be part of interesting and challenging projects and is helping to advance
my expertise on a daily basis.
During my spare time I like to check in the other line of code to the dasBlog source
tree (the software I use to run this blog). Besides that, I like to prepare the occassional meal for my friends and enjoy Geocaching.
Why do you blog?
I started blogging in 2005 because I wanted see what it's like to publish content on the web and be connected to other software
developers. Mostly for selfish reasons The Right Stuff is the repository for
my recipes and a knowledge base for some of the challenges I encounter during my work. Hopefully other people will find
my posts useful, relevant to their work or just interesting. I strongly believe that blogs are a two-way medium, so please
feel free to comment or write an e-mail.
What's your education/your professional experience?
I've been studying Computer Science at the Berufsakademie Glauchau and the
University of Leipzig. During the the last years I've implemented several business applications, including work
on a research project conducted at the Univerity of Leipzig's Department for
Business Information Systems. For a more information please visit
my XING profile.
Can you send me your dasBlog theme?
I currently don't publish the theme that is used to display this blog. However, this may change in the future.
Where can I find the imprint?
The imprint of this blog can be found here. Please note that it's available in German only.
Please leave a comment on my posts or write an e-mail.
If you're using one of the many social networking sites you can find me over at
XING and LinkedIn.