Michael Smith is a Belgian born IT professional and software developer. He became interested in computers in the mid 1990's when his friend Eric Paillet and he successfully experimented with data transfer over Citizen Band (CB) radio frequencies, also known as packet radio. His first programming experience was with the Microsoft's Basic language. It was the time that Windows 95 came out and things quickly moved on to GUI programming using Microsoft Visual Basic.

After that Michael became interested in open source software and discovered Linux. His first distribution was a German adaption of Red Hat Linux called BHV Linux. Then he discovered Slackware and moved on to Gentoo, Ubuntu and finally settled with Mac OS X. Michael's first computer was a 386 DX 40 mhz with 5 MB of RAM and a 100 MB hard drive, which he got in a barter with his friend Eric for a table CB radio set.