Benjamin Aldrich
I help individuals and organizations understand, stabilize, and improve the systems they rely on — especially where reliability, clarity, and long-term maintainability matter more than trends.
My work focuses on operating systems, infrastructure, and hardware-aware problem solving, emphasizing solutions that are appropriate to the task at hand.
System Diagnosis & Troubleshooting
Root-cause analysis of performance, reliability, and
operational issues across Linux, BSDs, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Infrastructure Simplification
Reduce unnecessary complexity, dependencies, and moving parts
while preserving functionality and reliability.
Automation & Tooling
Purpose-built scripts and utilities to replace fragile manual
processes and opaque tooling.
Legacy & Mixed-Environment Support
Work comfortably with both modern systems and older or
“obsolete” platforms that remain mission-critical.
Hardware-Aware Consulting
Choose and configure the right platform for the job based on cost, performance,
latency, scalability, and total cost of ownership.
Unix & Unix-like Systems: Linux, BSDs
Legacy & Modern Windows: DOS, NT, 9x, Server & Client OS
Apple Mac OS X
Bare metal, virtualized, and cloud deployments
Embedded and small-system environments
Custom, self-hosted, and long-lived infrastructure
I approach problems methodically:
Understand the system as it actually exists.
Identify the true failure modes or inefficiencies.
Apply the simplest solution that fully solves the problem.
Leave behind systems that are understandable, maintainable, and documented.
Some problems need a small, focused fix; others require deeper changes. I recommend the approach that best fits your specific situation.
You value clarity, reliability, and correctness.
You want problems understood and resolved, not obscured.
You have systems that need to keep working, not be constantly reinvented.
You appreciate pragmatic engineering over one-size-fits-all approaches.
Technology decisions driven primarily by trends or marketing.
Complexity added where it isn’t necessary.
Generic, cookie-cutter solutions instead of tailored, practical results.
Good systems don’t need to be fashionable or rely on the latest libraries unless there is a tangible benefit. They need to be understandable, secure, and dependable.
Inquiries? Send me mail: Ben (at) lostgeek.net