Gilles Detillieux Gilles Detillieux
As the only systems analyst for the entire Spinal Cord Research Centre, you can imagine I keep fairly busy. So, I don't have the time to update the sorts of really useful information in my home page that you'd find in those of other users on the Internet, such as what I've had for lunch, or how much coffee is left in the carafe next door. If that's the sort of thing that turns you on, you can check out the definitive work on the subject, simply titled Useless Pages.
Although I work for everyone in the Centre, most of my salary is paid by Dr. David McCrea, so he's the man I call "boss." (Actually, I call him "Dave.") I also do a lot of work for Drs. Larry Jordan (my former supervisor), Brent Fedirchuk, Phillip Gardiner, Brian Schmidt and Susan Shefchyk, who, like Dave, do electrophysiology research using Linux-based A/D capture and analysis systems.
Apart from developing and maintaining custom software for data acquisition and analysis on these systems, I also maintain the Centre's Ethernet network, which now includes over 110 nodes (7 Linux boxes, 2 Macs, 15 networked HP LaserJets, 1 networked digital storage scope, and oodles of IBM PC compatibles). I'd be lost without the valuable assistance of our electronic technician, Matt Ellis, who handles the lion's share of the PC support work, in addition to the construction and maintenance of much of our lab equipment. Yes, our electronic technician does some software work too, and I've been known to pick up a soldering iron from time to time. There are those who'd say we make a pretty dangerous pair.
When I have a bit of slack time, I dabble on the net looking for things that could be of value to the group, such as cool new Windows TCP/IP applications or X-Window software. Sometimes the dabbling pays off big-time - I set up our UNIX boxes for Internet e-mail years ago (via UUCP no less, we didn't have a direct link back then) before most of our members knew of its value, or even what it was. Now, we can't function without it!
A relatively recent pet project of mine, as you might have guessed, is the World Wide Web (I don't really need yet another link to www.w3.org here, do I?). I've spent part of the week of January 16, 1995, setting up the NCSA httpd WWW server and building up the SCRC information pages. I then went on through to mid February, building them up further, as well as setting up pages for the Dept. of Physiology. I've continued building up the site since then. About 3 years ago, I switched us over to a 200 MHz PC running Apache on Linux, which really sped things up.
If you browse around the SCRC and Physiology pages, and you know a thing or two about setting up a server, you might (correctly) come to the conclusion that I'm a big fan of CGI scripts. The "staff-dir" script I've set up pulls out the information on individual members from a database I had set up previously, and spits out the HTML for an information page for a given member. Kinda neat. It's slow, but it sure beats maintaining all these information pages by hand. (I've used a similar trick for the Physiology faculty and staff, using the online staff phone directory as my database.) Over five years later, I'm still maintaining all our site's web pages, when time permits. In 1998, I added a search engine to our site, and proceeded to spend way too much time on its ongoing maintenance and development. I sometimes feel I've created a monster.
I've also written a little program I call querysh, which helps me write CGI scripts to handle forms, such as the comment form mentioned below. My brother Gilbert gave me a few pointers, helped document it, and included it in his seminar on Getting Set Up on the World Wide Web.
In November, 1995, a spare time project of mine was the information pages for the Diabetes Research & Treatment Centre on UMinfo. I've since developed pages for the Winnipeg Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience and the Dept. of Surgery (using frames was their idea, not mine).
As time permits, I'll be adding stuff to this page about the software I've developed, and about my interests and hobbies. You may be able to see some of my interests by checking out my Mozilla bookmarks file. I'd put up a photo of my wife, Karen, but she doesn't want her photo on the web because she thinks it's geeky. (If you want to see her, here's a little hint: she's the bassist in the band Plain Salt.) If any friends and family would like to see photos of our little one, just e-mail me for the web address.
SCRC Home Page
Here's my obligatory geeky access counter:
hits since April 8, 1997.
