About

Welcome! Here’s a short description of me, so that you can tell you’ve found the right “Torben”. I mostly use this blog to publish software tricks but also a few personal stories for my friends across the world. Let’s put it this way:

If you’ve seen the rest of this page, and you’re still not sure whether you know me, then you don’t :-)

I’m an identical twin. Man that’s fun!

I’m from Denmark, but I’ve also lived many years in Sweden, Germany, Japan, and currently Austria. I speak 4 languages fluently, plus one or two more rather badly.

I’m a father of two wonderful young boys, and I’m very active on a great parenting Q&A website.

My education is a hybrid of IT, economics, and organizational change, from Copenhagen Business School. That makes me a bit of a Swiss army knife, and I’ve worked in software, shipping, insurance, banking… Every kind of industry that uses software. I worked with anti-money-laundering for many years (which is more exciting than you’d expect, and probably safer than the kind without “anti”). This prepped me for my recent job as a business consultant at a software vendor for the financial industry with a focus on international tax reporting.

I’m very good with tools, whether IT or mechanic. Nobody can assemble IKEA furniture faster (and better!) than I can. Yes, you may challenge me. Or hire me; I’ll bring my own tools. I’ve always been the local software and hardware guru in the office, and I leave a wake of wiki intranets wherever I work. Also, tinkering inevitably led me to my hobby of remote-control cars.

On computers: I’ve used Macintosh in the good old days before it was Unix-based, when other computers didn’t even have mice yet. I don’t like OS X because it requires so much mousing. I did like my (jailbroken!) iPhone because the hardware is fantastic; I absolutely hate iTunes. Switching to Android in 2013 made me a much happier man.
I’ve used DOS and Windows since forever, and I really miss Windows XP, and hate Windows 10. I switched to Ubuntu on my home computer in 2013 and I’m doing great. Ubuntu’s “App Store” is awesome, and so is the Ask Ubuntu help community.

I’m generally soft-spoken but driven by clear principles.
I’m not religious; I believe in science.

I’m a facilitator – what I do best is help others be great.