User:Picante

Picante is the alias for a mysterious computer programmer living in the Seattle area. Aside from programming, he has dabbled in photography, used to be a big anime fan, and is currently experimenting with music production/engineering & performing.

Early years
Since his true identity is not known, it's hard to speculate on Picante's early life. It is known that he was born in Dallas, Texas, and also lived in New Orleans for a time. The 1995 flood in that city destroyed his home and prompted his family to move to Seattle. In this new region, he quickly became familiar with the video gaming scene that is so popular in the northwest. Despite this, for the first few years that he lived there Picante spent very little time with computers or video games. In fact, rumor has it that he learned how to play the piano, spent a lot of time swimming, and enjoyed reading many books. It was not until the late 90s that he was exposed to the technology world.

Programming and Internet Career
Picante's programming career began when he learned QBasic in 1998. He and his friends created several rudimentary games for PC in that language. At the turn of the century, he turned his attention to the online realm and has since created a number of websites. Most notable of those is Planet Cybiko, which is a Cybiko community he owned and administrated from 2002 until 2008. He also created several games and applications for that handheld, including several alternative OSes for the platform. Picante was hired by the now defunct Compteks.net in late 2003 as a gaming and technology journalist. He was promoted to the rank of administrator in the middle of 2004 and ran the site with his friend Matt (compman) until its closure at the end of that year. Since then, he has been relatively inactive in the online world, though he has continued to pursue several programming projects on the side. He is also skilled in C++, C, Visual Basic, though he has maintained that he prefers to program web software with PHP.

2006 to Present
In early 2006, Picante suddenly disappeared from the online world. His whereabouts remained a complete mystery for over a year after that, prompting rumors that he had possibly died or had completely lost interest in computers and technology. Despite his absence, Planet Cybiko remained open and active. He finally did make a brief appearance on the site in the spring of 2007. After a couple of months, he vanished from sight yet again. It was not until the summer of 2008 that he truly made his "comeback". He is currently attending Bellevue Community College, and is majoring in computer science. Though he recently resigned from Planet Cybiko, he has stated that he has several other projects planned. He recently also became interested in music and played with a group of friends from school for a short time. He plays bass and synthesizers.