I grew up in New Orleans to which I periodically return in search of a decent bowl of gumbo. However, I currently reside in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.
In what passes for real life these days, I'm a software developer, nature photographer, and writer of computer books and short fiction. I've also been known to speak at a conference or two including Devoxx, EclipseCon, JavaOne, Lunacon, Readercon, Software Development Expo, Summit 2000, MacFair, OOP, XMLDevCon, JavaDevCon, XMLOne, XMLEurope, Extreme Markup Languages, JAOO, Javapolis, JavaZone, STARWest, STPCon, EclipseWorld, XML 2006, and MacWorld. I've also trained developers at numerous corporations including Google, Bank of America, Verizon, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and Hoffman-LaRoche. I'm a member of several professional organizations including SFWA, the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, and the Brooklyn Bird Club. I'm also a member of the Taos Toolbox Class of 2018.
My short fiction includes:
Here are some of my books:
My family keeps bugging me to "write a book they can understand" so I hope one day to branch out of the computer book ghetto and write some more general non-fiction. It hasn't happened yet though. In the meantime, though, I've begun keeping a blog and online journal about whatever topics strike my eye, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Buffy in Cyberspace, Intelligence, Timothy Leary, The Spot, Fruitopia, Fuzzy Truth, Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, The vagaries of book titles, Cab Rides in New York, and Robert Anton Wilson's The New Inquisition
The quickest, most reliable means of reaching me is to send email to elharo@macfaq.com. I don't give out my phone number or street address to any and all on the net; but if for some reason you'd like to call me or send snail mail, send me email with your phone number, and I'll get back to you. (It wouldn't hurt if you told me why you wanted to call me either.)
As well as my popular books and writings on the web, I've written and cowritten a number of technical papers on topics ranging from solar physics to railguns to baseball. Most recently:
I've also been known to cross over to the other side of the fence and do some editing on occasion. I've been technical editor for Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 Days by David Till, The Developer's Guide to the Java Web Server by Dan Woods, Larne Pewkowsky, and Tom Snee, and for the Java chapter of Andrew Tanenbaum's Computer Networks, 3rd Edition, and the XML chapter of Cay Horstmann's Big Java, 2nd Edition.
Over the years, I've written a number of shorter form articles:
I've also been interviewed here and there: