History
ProBC (pronounced: pro-bee-see) was founded in mid-1996 and is based out of Vernon, British Columbia. While working a typical retail job, a decision was made to place a tiny classified ad in the local newspaper offering to build websites for local companies. Initially the primary focus was basic website development and hosting and was done more as a hobby. At the time I knew nothing about programming and relied solely on a WYSIWYG product called Microsoft FrontPage. Who knew that a simple advertisement would lead into a full fledged company producing elaborate database driven management systems for multi-million dollar companies in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba.
In the beginning I used a single Microsoft IIS webserver on Windows NT4, and a second FreeBSD server to act as a Mail Server & DNS Server. Although this setup worked well enough at the time and got us through a few years to build a client base we discovered better alternatives existed with Linux. Our move to Redhat and eventually into CentOS using Apache, MySQL and PHP has proven to be very successful.
Through an arrangement with another company in a nearby city I was able to build upon my knowledge in web development and hosting while branching out into basic programming while learning about domain name registration. Quickly I found a new way of life using Perl & CGI scripts coupled with MySQL. To me, this was a milestone moment as it started to open up doors that I never knew existed. Looking back at my time working with this company I can conclude it was extremely beneficial as it lead to some important connections moving forward to this day.
My next venture operating as ProBC led me to Vancouver to provide consultation work in network infrastructure for a concept project based out of Harbour Center. Although this project was a complete shift in what I had been previously doing it was a nice change of pace at the time. Unfortunately that company never fully materialized (although it was actually a good thing it didn’t), however it lead me directly into more work with a completely unrelated company and also facilitated a core change in programming from Perl to PHP. MySQL is still the preferred database for me, so it sticks with me to this day.
After the Vancouver project ended, I jumped directly into a large development in the Mortgage industry. 12 years later, and many versions later, it is still my primary contract. Through these years I have made many advancements around server environments, coding frameworks, version control, database replication, virtualized servers, and more. The I.T. world around me continues to change and I continue to learn more new techniques and skills.
ProBC’s current direction is to provide affordable domain name registrations, low-cost DIY web-hosting, WordPress hosting, and most importantly custom programming of database / backend management systems.
Contact me today to discuss your requirements, I may be a perfect fit for your needs!
