| Khaled Mardam-Bey خالد مردم بك |
|
|---|---|
| Born | March 19, 1968 Amman, Jordan |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | programmer |
| Website | |
| Personal homepage | |
Khaled Mardam-Bey (Arabic: خالد مردم بك) (born March 19, 1968) is a British programmer of Palestinian and Syrian origin. He is notable for creating and developing the popular Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for Microsoft Windows mIRC.[1][2]
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Khaled began developing the software in late 1994, and released its first version on February 28, 1995.[3]
Khaled decided to create mIRC because he found the first IRC client for Windows, WinIRC, lacked some basic IRC features. Then he continued developing it due to the challenge and the fact that people appreciated his work.
mIRC became very popular, having been downloaded almost 21 million times from CNET's download.com service as of January 2011.[4] Nielsen Net Rankings also ranked mIRC among the top 10 most popular Internet applications in 2003.[5]
Through the years Khaled kept on developing the software by itself himself, occasionally posting the beta versions of mIRC in order to have users test them for software bugs.[3]
Khaled initially developed mIRC as a hobby and used to disribute it as a Freeware. Later, as mIRC became very popular and after Khaled realized he needed to devote more time to develop it, he decided to change the software license in order to make a living from developing it. Consequently, since 2004, Khaled distributed the software with an uncrippled evaluation license which after a 30-day evaluation period employs a nag screen that pops up on startup which urge the users to register so as to support the further development of mIRC. This nag screen can be removed by registering the program for $20. As a result, since then Khaled's main work is developing mIRC.
He was born in 1968 in Amman, Jordan, to a Syrian father and a Palestinian mother.[6]
Before developing mIRC, Khaled studied for a master's degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Westminster.[7]
Khaled stated on his homepage that he had just started to work on his thesis when he decided to write a small IRC client. It eventually became so popular that he decided to give up his studies and commit himself to his work on mIRC.
During the 2000s Khaled visited the Palestinian Authority to complete his master's research in environmental sciences.[8]
Khaled is vegetarian, for moral and health reasons.[9]
Khaled currently resides in London, England.[8]