About Chris Hope

Posted November 22nd, 2003 (Updated March 10th, 2008)

Chris Hope, that's me, is a website developer based in Auckland, New Zealand, and this is my LAMP blog website where I post about Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.

After completing a computer course at Auckland University of Technology in 1997, I started Webenz in 1998 with my brother-in-law Greg McNamara and Jacqui Jones, his partner at the time. Webenz was a website development company which worked on many websites including Wild Poppies, ZM Online, Netcheck, Newstalk ZB and Personalised Plates. Most of those have since been redeveloped by other companies or in-house teams.

While working at Webenz, I developed Minerva Mail and the e3 Commerce System, which were used by many customers and websites. More information about these is available from the Webenz and Minerva Mail websites as well as in the Case Studies section of this site.

I moved on from Webenz in 2003 and began working as an independent contractor, and continued to maintain a working relationship with Webenz, managing their Linux webservers and offering help and advice to their developers. The Webenz hosting business was sold to Web Drive in July 2004 and I managed the migration of all existing customer websites, ensuring the various PHP, Perl and database driven websites worked correctly on the new servers. Minerva Mail and the Webenz development customers were sold on to BKA Interactive in October 2004 and Webenz closed down at that time.

I continue to manage Linux servers for Personalised Plates, Minerva Mail and Just Kids, and run my own sites on a VPS (Virtual Private Server). As well as working on my own various projects (e.g. Linux CD Mall), I work on a contract basis for Personalised Plates, EVP, Just Kids, and in partnership with the ecommerce sites healthy.co.nz and gorgi.co.nz.