Interview with Tim Dorr: Owner/Operator of A Small Orange

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Interview with Tim Dorr: Owner/Operator of A Small Orange

First of all Tim, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be a part of this interview. To start off could you tell us a little about yourself?

Let's see. I'm a 23 year old recent college graduate, coming from Georgia Tech with a BS in Computer Science. I live here in Atlanta right in midtown with my girlfriend, Emily, and our dog, Hockey. I'm originally from way up north in southern New Hampshire, and I'm still a fan of all the New England sports teams (despite being a 5 year Atlanta resident).


Can you tell us a little about your educational background?

Well, as mentioned before, I've gotten my BS in Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Although, it's interesting, as they've revamped the CS program at least twice since I started there and the initial set of required classes I took are no longer available. For anyone looking at colleges, I definitely think Tech is a great school, but obviously can't vouch for whatever's going on now.

I plan on going back and getting my Masters at some point. Probably in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), as I really like solving usability and interface design challenges. A PhD is something I've thought about, but frankly I don't have 6 years of my life to give away

What sparked your interest in web hosting and computers in general?

I've always been a computer nerd since I was a kid hacking away on the 286 in our basement. I remember the days of AOL and the absolute revolution I felt by using that stuff. Back then you could really see how it was going to change everything, and that's definitely been the case.

I started with web hosting more specifically when I just got the idea one day that I wanted my own server for my website. However, I didn't want to pay the costs of an entire machine, so I got some people together via Neowin.net's forums to split the costs of a dedicated machine. Even though we were all had the understanding that I was only able to help in my free time and that this wasn't really a professional thing, I got all sorts of compliments about how good of a job I was doing with maintaining the server. Since I also had a few software projects going and wanted to build those into something, I figured I should wrap up the whole package and make a webhosting and software company out of it. Hence, A Small Orange Software was born.

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