| Kennedy, Don (TheUberOverLord), Sgt | ||
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What are you doing now: Specialize in creating 3rd party programs/applications for Skype/Microsoft as a freelance consultant. My background includes service in the U.S. Air Force AFCS ("Air Force Communications Services") division, as a Satellite/Wide Band communications tech 304x0 for voice and data in the 2nd MOB ("Mobile Operations Battalion"), 2nd CCG ("Combat Communications Group") and AFCS NATO as well as later providing consulting services and/or creating custom software for the U.S. government, branches of the U.S. military, major banks worldwide, major brokerage firms, stock exchanges, such as the NYSE, Skype and other companies. With a focus, on their very complex real-time communication needs by providing custom software and/or modifications to software by me, as well as, in many cases, creating software that does automatic load balancing of multi-processor based systems to support their real-time communications needs and processing requirements of these entities. Which is how I got the nickname after founding the Overlord company and creating the Overlord balancing software: http://www.overlord.com/Overlord_profile.html http://www.overlord.com/Balancer_Brochure.html When I founded the Overlord company and created the original Overlord balancing software, when people learned of my role as not only being the president of the company, but also being both the founder of the company and also the author of the balancing software, they would often say things like "Ah..so you are The OverLord" or "Ah...so you are The Uber OverLord" of OverLord, as well as being called the hacker slang of "ZOverLord", which stands for "The OverLord". I am and have been a systems programmer consultant with 42 years of experience with a focus on communication interfaces and automating system resource utilization/allocation, which includes, 7 years of working with the Skype public API, wrappers for the public API and also now SkypeKit. I also have been working with Skype4COM before it was known by that name as well. I have been a moderator in the Skype forums and a beta tester for Skype as well as a consultant for Skype and currently I am a Super User both in the Skype community forum and in the SkypeKit forum and donate my time to help Skype developers and Skype end-users. |
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Other Comments: Best method to contact me as via Skype, my Skype name is: TheUberOverLord I have created many 3rd party programs/applications that work with Skype, which are free and located here: SaveOnTelephoneBills.com |
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Reflections on Sgt Kennedy's
US Air Force Service | |
Reflections On My Service
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WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR DECISION TO JOIN THE MILITARY? Grew up as the oldest of 4 in a single parent household. Started kindergarten at age four so was always one year younger than most everyone in school. Took summer school every year after 8th grade and was able to graduate as a junior in high school, at age 16. My high school was the first high school in Illinois to have a dial up TTY interface to a computer that supported creating programs on ticker-tape, in Focal, Fortran and Basic. So I started creating software for teachers for things like "bell curves" for grading and many other things at age 13. Tried 1 semester at community college in Business Mid Management. at age 16, Was not my cup of tea. Took aptitude tests for all branches of the military, wanted a trade, could not afford regular college. The Air Force offered me the longest training as a "Missile Systems Guidance Analyst " as a guaranteed job, since I scored so high on tests because of my past programming experience. So that's why I ended up joining the Air Force. | |
WHAT WAS YOUR SERVICE CAREER PATH? Sadly, I caught double pneumonia while in boot camp, so my "guaranteed job" of being a "Missile Systems Guidance Analyst" was gone due to ending up in the hospital for 8 days, since that school had started already. I was offered 4 choices to pick from, based on the current school openings and none of them included programming. Because my test scores were also very high for electronics, one of the current open school positions was 304x0 Radio Relay Equipment Repair, which also had a very long technical school. So, I picked that. Needless to say, I was very upset in learning that my "guaranteed job" was not guaranteed. More later. | |
WHICH, OF THE DUTY STATIONS OR LOCATIONS YOU WERE ASSIGNED OR DEPLOYED TO, DO YOU HAVE THE FONDEST MEMORIES OF AND WHY? They all were great in their own ways. Will write about some of them soon. | |
FROM YOUR ENTIRE SERVICE CAREER WHAT PARTICULAR MEMORY STANDS OUT?  There were many, but this is a very funny one. We had a high power tropo shot from Martina Franca Italy, to Lefkas Greece ("A rock of an island off the coast of Greece. About as desolate and isolated as it gets"). Pictured here. Please click on the picture to get a better view of the Lefkas site. Of course we had to do testing from time to time and even the fact that Martina Franca was remote duty, as well, it was Disney World, compared to being assigned at Lefkas. At the time, Suzanne Somers the actress and Bob Hope the comedian were doing tours to military bases. So, as a joke over the orderwire to Lefkas we informed them that Suzanne Somers was going to come do a performance for us and also asked them, what was new with them, trying to pull, their jealous reactions. There was a long delay of maybe 2 minutes before the response of : "Well, we got some new sheep!" came over the orderwire. | |
WERE ANY OF THE MEDALS OR AWARDS YOU RECEIVED FOR VALOR? IF YES, COULD YOU DESCRIBE HOW THIS WAS EARNED? In the process of getting my records for all of them, will update them, as soon as I get them. For the moment I have listed some of them. | |
CAN YOU RECOUNT A PARTICULAR INCIDENT FROM YOUR SERVICE THAT WAS FUNNY AT THE TIME AND STILL MAKES YOU LAUGH? There are many, trying to decide which ones I should write about and which ones could get me in trouble ;-) | |
WHAT PROFESSION DID YOU FOLLOW AFTER THE SERVICE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? IF CURRENTLY SERVING, WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT JOB? This is what is so funny now. I was very angry that I lost my guaranteed job" of "Missile Systems Guidance Analyst" due to getting double pneumonia while in boot camp and instead became a 30450-Radio Relay Equipment Repairman. Watch how life works. When I got out of the Air Force I had both programming experience as well as very technical communications experience. Which few had at the time. This is just when banks started to want/need branches all over the world as well as banks intstalling ATM ("Automatic Teller Machines") and communications interfaces to the federal reserve for things like wire transfer and fed funds purchases as well as communication interfaces to stock exchanges. All of these things required creating both new communication interfaces as well as custom software. One could not go to college and learn these types of skills at the time. Because of my combined experience in communications and programming I soon became a very sought after resource and started doing freelance consulting as of 1983 after working as an employee since 1979. While I am now retired. I maintain 17 web sites and do offer consulting work and generally focus on helping developers for Skype 3rd party applications using both the public API and SkypeKit. I am open to providing other consulting services, if I think it makes common sense, for me to get involved in the project. | |
HOW HAS MILITARY SERVICE INFLUENCED THE WAY YOU HAVE APPROACHED YOUR LIFE AND CAREER? It gave me honor, drive and confidence. | |
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR THOSE THAT ARE STILL SERVING? Be proud, stay proud. Your experiences, cannot be learned anywhere else on this planet. | |
IN WHAT WAYS HAS TOGETHERWESERVED.COM HELPED YOU MAINTAIN A BOND WITH YOUR SERVICE AND THOSE YOU SERVED WITH? I have not searched for anyone since I left the Air Force and now I have a goal and the methods, to change that and also help others as well find the people we served with. |