Taylor Bastien is a Senior Systems Analyst at 4Point in Ottawa, Canada where he spends much of his time designing custom desktop and mobile Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) using Flex, Java and HTML/Javascript.

Drawn from an early age by the allure of software development's creative possibilities, Taylor took a slight detour from that career path out of high school, earning a B.A. in French Studies and becoming involved in theatre. After creating his first web page in 1994, he rediscovered his passion for designing software, went on to earn a B.Sc. in Computer Science and has worked as a developer in some capacity ever since. Given his somewhat eclectic background (and some would say personality), Taylor espouses a multidisciplinary approach to custom software design, being convinced that by harnessing bold imagination, sound technical skill and old-fashioned common sense, modern day developers are on the threshold of a new creative Renaissance.

Taylor has lived in Belgium, Germany and three Canadian provinces, speaks English and French fluently and has (sadly) become quite rusty at German and Dutch.

Always eager to discuss innovative ways of creating software, when he has time, Taylor jots down many of his musings on his blogs at http://blogs.4point.com/taylor.bastien  and http://www.RIAGrande.com On twitter, he’s @riagrande.