The Author

Dean Harris AKA Marcus Furius

Firstly, my real name is Dean Harris. I was born in 1975 and grew up in Derby (England) where I still live with my four cats, Claudius, Micro, Tilly and Oliver, and my beautiful girlfriend, Emily. I studied Applied Biology at Nottingham Trent University, then Latin with the National Extension College of Cambridge, then Classical Studies, Business Studies and Computers and Information Technology with the Open University.

I work as a Systems Architect with an American multi-national. My programming experience came from doing data driven desktop application development and interfacing using Microsoft technologies, such as .Net, MSSQL Server and Microsoft Office.

At work, my programming language of choice is C#, though I’m proficient in VB.Net and VBA; for scripting I use Python. At home, I’m trying to kick the Microsoft habit and primarily use Python. I also enjoy doing a little web site work for family and friends.

I love ancient Greek and Roman classical literature (which I also collect), cycling, going to the gym and kick-boxing. I also enjoy, in true geek style, programming and computers. At home I use Linux and my distribution of choice is the ever popular Ubuntu for my main PC, though I also use a MacBook.

The Site

Why Marcus Furius? The name Marcus Furius came about when I signed up to XBOX Live. I was trying to find a gamertag which wasn’t taken without having to resort to the use of numeric suffixes. With my passion for the classics I decided to try a few people from classical history, such as Caesar, Plato etc, but most of the most well known ones were taken. Therefore, I was forced to try the more obscure names from classical history. Marcus Furius was free! I signed up using this name and since that day I have used the name Marcus Furius not just for XBOX Live but also for sites were I have to use a user or login name.

I initially set up this site as a blog to post my experiences with Linux, however, it soon became a central place to host my Open Source Projects, such as Furius ISO Mount.