Who Am I and What Is This All About

I am Lonnie Nunweiler, a Canadian Citizen currently residing in Medicine Hat, Alberta. I graduated in 1973 from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton as an Electronics Engineering Technologist and originally worked for the Ministry of Transport, responsible for Navigation Aids,Landing Aids,Radio Communication,Security X-Ray,Weather Monitoring, and all Electronics Equipment at an Airport. Those duties required a high degree of "doing it right" as people depended on the correct functioning of the systems and lives were at risk if it did not meet the specifications.

Who Am I and What Is This All About



1

Education and my First Real Job

I graduated in 1973 from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton as an Electronics Engineering Technologist and originally worked for the Ministry of Transport, responsible for Navigation Aids,Landing Aids,Radio Communication,Security X-Ray,Weather Monitoring, and all Electronics Equipment at an Airport. Those duties required a high degree of "doing it right" as people depended on the correct functioning of the systems and lives were at risk if it was not perfect.

2

Self Employed Opportunity

I have been self employed since 1978 when I was offered a contract to maintain the very first Microwave Instrument Landing System in Canada. It provided landing assistance for a helicopter to carry employees between between Edson, Alberta and Coal Valley, Alberta. That contract ended when they decided to use busing instead, as a cost cutting measure.  It was a tough time and they did what they had to.

3

Moving On

In 1994 I moved to Valemount, BC, and did some contract programming for companies in the US and opened a computer business. In 1998 I participated in a project to bring Internet to the area and thus the StarOS Wireless Routers were developed as Internet needs expanded. As some of you may know, dial-up sucks. We could provide Wireless Internet to people who could not even get a party line phone. We used Solar Powered mountain top repeater sites for the distribution. It was fun to visit them using quads and snow machines. StarOS has been a product ever since, recently migrating to the use of Openwrt for the code base.

4

Organizing the Wireless Routers

I have always enjoyed code development for Database and User Interface. Thus I began dabbling with an Information Organizer to hold all of the information for the Wireless systems that a Wireless ISP might employ. The Valemount experience was a huge help as I learned first hand what was needed in order to organize our sites. Mapping was added and it became a huge feature as an Internet system lends itself very well to being shown on a Map.

It soon became obvious that it could be used to store almost any other information you could want to group and store. Thus my Free Form Database was developed. Most Databases (early on I used Sqlite) required me to design the Data Dictionary to include every conceivable data one could possibly need. Consider that the Information for a Bank Account is way different from the Information for Family Member details. Believe me it gets messy, and soon the very Database that was so wonderful just keeps getting more complicated. My Free Form database is actually a simple Binary data file, and holds the field data, field descriptions as well as the information to build the unique Edit form. I use it for everything. I can easily create an entry for a website I wish to visit again. I do not allow my Browser to keep track of me and the sites I want to bookmark. That is a decent measure of privacy I gain back. Note: MyWay does NOT EVER record or report anything you do. That is your business. My business is helping you to keep your information organized and private.

5

Enter MyWay

I keep all of my purchased software details in the system. My passwords for all logins are secure. It is the same for bank info. Also, if I wish to add a comment field to my bank info, I just add a field and call it, for instance, "Comment". It's really that simple.

When I started to keep my Bank Information I needed some security for Password fields. Initially I used AES 256 bit encryption which is very secure. Banks typically use AES 128. Both are very secure but the recent advances in computer hardware started to shorten the security life span, so RSA 2048 bit  encryption was chosen to encrypt all Passwords and sensitive information. See this link about breaking RSA 2048. My feeling is that RSA 2048 is secure for quite a while yet and will provide enough time to develop something even better.

I am good at what I do, and fortunately I love what I do. It does not ever feel like work. The same KISS principles that were used to make an 8 MB Wireless Router are applied to the MyWay program. Imagine having an encrypted, customizable database, with a real Spreadsheet and able to show results on a Map in around 15 MB of code. Ever wonder why a simple program is 300 to 400 MB (or more)? Thinking about that can make you crazy.