My name is Simon Shirley, BSc and am more currently known by the Internet nickname, foreversonic.
Computing History
I started using computers from an early age, the first of which being the Commodore 64. After playing a plethora of games created for it, I took my love of computing and began to learn the BASIC programming language.
Without the aid of computing lessons, as there were no computing teachers at school, I learned and began training fellow school pupils. It wasn’t until I enrolled on an A Level Computing course at the Kett Sixth Form Centre, that I had undertaken a computing lesson.
Since then, I have moved on from the BASIC programming language to Visual Basic, which was first introduced during the A Level. After completing the A Level, I went on to further my education at City College Norwich, where a number of courses have been studied.
These include:
- BTEC Bachelor’s Degree in Business Computing
- BTEC National Diploma for IT Practitioners (Software Development)
- World Wide Web Authoring Levels 2 and 3
Musical History
I have written an article about growing up with music, which you can find by clicking here.
Sonic History
Born in 1985, I grew up with Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends his my life. My first ever Sonic game was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System, which, to this day, is still my favourite game.
I have been a great fan of Sonic and his friends right from the beginning and has followed them since. In April of 2007, I decided to begin researching information on the franchise and began to investigate other sites with the same interest. This led to the discovery of the Sonic Stadium.
On the 23rd June 2007, (Sonic’s 16th Anniversary), I first made use of Internet Relay Chat (IRC), to join in the celebrations for Sonic’s birthday whilst listening to the celebrations from SegaSonic Radio.
When a member of FastFeet Media posted a forum topic asking to have Sonic music written in tablature form, Simon began the task of creating such media. This led to becoming a member of FastFeet Media, and after sending some website suggestions
to Graham Seward, I soon became one of the developers for the site. Since then, the site has expanded and has since left the Sonic Stadium Network to become it’s own site for Sonic the Hedgehog and other SEGA media. This has now evolved into a hub for SEGA related info and content from podcasters and contributors. You can find them over at SEGA Media.
After being introduced to the website by Kool Chao, I became a member of the ever growing, RadioSEGA website, in September 2007. In April 2008, I had been promoted to his first moderator status. With the new layout (2008 – version 6) of RadioSEGA being developed, Simon assisted with the alpha-testing. This led to Simon writing AJAX for the Now and Next Playing Information bar, although this has not been used in favour of an alternative method. This also resulted, having been a moderator, to be appointed a Techinal Administrator of RadioSEGA. I am now currently working on the next generation for RadioSEGA, codenamed, “Project 7″.
