About Alan...

Alan Zisman, that is...

Alan is a Vancouver (BC, Canada) teacher, musician, and computer journalist, writing a weekly column for Business in Vancouver, and appearing regularly on LowEndMac, and elsewhere in print and online. Alan lives in Vancouver's historic Strathcona neighbourhood.

Alan plays accordion, piano and other keyboards. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was active in Ad Hoc, a Vancouver 'benefit band', and later in the 1980s-90s in The Tools. Currently, he is currently playing piano with a Vancouver-based swing band and accordion with the Gram Partisans and is active with Vancouver's Squeezebox Circle. Recently, Alan joined the boards of directors of the Deep Cove Big Band, the BC Western Swing Music Society, Spartacus Books, and the Accordion Noir Society.

Alan lives in Vancouver, BC, and has visited Central Europe in 2002, Cuba in 2004, London and Paris in 2005, the eastern Mediterranean in 2007, the Rhone valley and Barcelona in 2008, and Rome in 2009. (Photos online). From 1968-77, Alan lived in Montreal: mementos of that era are at Plastic Roseland.

At the end of June 2010, he retired after three decades teaching - most recently helping students in grades 1-7 learn to use computers and the Internet at Vancouver's Chief Maquinna Elementary School. Most recently, he became a grandfather!

	Technology journalism While letting computers take far too much time and energy in his life, he has managed to turn this addiction into a writing career, with over 1500 articles published since 1991 including weekly High Tech Office columns for Business in Vancouver newspaper and articles appearing in other print and online business, technology, and education publications. Computer tutorials and links Alan has developed and posted a series of workshops and tutorials. These include tutorials on Internet Security, web page creation and other topics. The Poledit tutorial comes up first on Google for this admitedly obscure topic! There is also a growing list of free software and links of interest to teachers, students, and computer-users in general. More online life You can probably tell a lot about someone by what they do online. Alan has a bunch of domains registered and manage a number of others. Along with zisman.ca, Alan also maintains: adamraskin.com, squeezeboxcircle.org, grampartisans.com, brucefreedmanjazz.com, lindareadjewelry.ca, westernswingmusic.ca, katezisman.ca, plastic-roseland.ca, proto-barbarism.ca, teachingforpeace.org, gourmet-provence-et-vous.com, and columbiajournal.ca. The SqueezeboxCircle.org site is Google #1 for searches for Vancouver Accordion. He has a YouTube channel with playlists with including: Christmas Band, Deep Cove Big Band, Gram Partisans, Information at Your Fingertips, Louis Jordan, Rodgers Brothers, Squeezebox Circle, The Black Band, and more. Check 'em out! You can follow him on Twitter and receive updates of new articles published, music gigs, and random thoughts. Alan Zisman is a Vancouver educator, writer, musician, and computer specialist. He can be contacted by e-mailing Alan
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