Michael Chaney

Michael Chaney (b. March 5th 1968) is a computer programmer who lived in Bloomington from August 1989 to November 1998. In 1999 he gained worldwide fame by paying the renewal fee of $35 for Microsoft's domain passport.com, which was used as part of the popular webmail service hotmail.com.

Biography

Michael was born and grew up in Brazil, Indiana where he went to Northview High School. After graduating he attended Rose Hulman Institute of Technology and Indiana State University in Terre Haute before transfering to Indiana University in Bloomington.

While at IU, he also worked at BACS/UCS from 1989 until 1994, when he created a computer software company with Scott Payton. The company split in under a year. In 1995 he lent the Slackware Linux discs to the manager of Intersource to help them get their server started. However Intersource ultimately ended up using Red Hat Linux because they didn't think the name Slackware was appropriate for business use.

During his time in Bloomington, he also wrote some material for the Bob & Tom show.

External links

• http://www.doublewide.net/
• Former Bloomington techie bails out Microsoft for $35, Herald Times - 2000-01-11