Curriculum Vitae
NB This online CV is more comprehensive than a traditional
paper-based version would be, and is focussed purely around technical
experience and training. For a downloadable Word document in traditional format
click here.
Work History
(descending date order)
Click on project title for expanded description
of each project
Current Activities 2004
Resource String (.RC file) translation program
A requirement
for a language translation company
to provide an editing environment for non-technical translation staff to edit
the resource strings within Visual Studio 6 ".RC" , ".HLP", and ".CNT" files
led to the development of an editing suite. This has now been rolled out to the
translators and is translating .RC files into such languages as Arabic, Russian,
and Turkish, as well as many European languages. I am also providing general
technical consultancy during this phase to ensure the success of the translation
assignment.
Website for Controlaccount plc
Having implemented a complete redesign
of Controlaccount's corporate website in 2003, I have just delivered
a second phase that includes new content plus a database-driven
corporate news management system.
World Development Systems
I have
been developing a secure user community ASP.NET
website to bolt on to an existing HTML-based
website, and am currently redeveloping the
front-end as a second phase. I have also provided
wide-ranging technical consultancy and support
such as writing custom installation programs,
producing ActiveReports-based modules, creating
an interface DLL that allows communication
with a custom piece of hardware via a USB port,
and a general helpdesk facility for dealing
with customer's technical issues. This role
is anticipated to continue on an ongoing basis.
SQL Server consultant for IA Computing Ltd (January 2002 - ongoing)
Ongoing consultancy work to administer and
troubleshoot SQL Server installations for clients.
Freelance/contract work 2003
Commercial flowcharting application written using Visual Basic.net
Economatics
(Education) Ltd have sold a flowcharting application
called Logicator to secondary schools across
Britain for several years. The application
allows a child to construct a flowchart by
dragging and dropping items onto a grid, defining
flow lines between each item, and then controlling
electronic devices as the flow runs. The functionality
within this application is in accordance with
the National Curriculum for schools. As part
of
an ongoing investment in their technology Economatics
decided to rewrite the entire codebase for
this application using .NET technology, and
contacted me to write the user interface, namely
flowcharting (using GDI+), drag and drop, serialisation
(using XML), and printing functionality.
The visual appearance of the application is
greatly improved from the previous version
and conforms to the Microsoft Office 2003 style.
The application will be commercially available
from February 2004 and was
recently demonstrated at the recent BETT 2004
show at Olympia in London. Completed January
2004. For further information see http://www.economatics.co.uk/education/.
Web-based software activation system for World Development Systems Ltd
WDS has
a successful software product called Computer
Clear which is currently sold via CD but has
now been converted for sale as a web download
via resellers. I am currently writing a system
which will allow the web site of the reseller
to send a SOAP message to the client company
(via a Web Service)
to notify that a product has been purchased
by a customer. The Web Message conversation
includes the email details of the customer,
who is then sent a unique license key by the
client's system. When the customer downloads
and installs the software the license key is
used to identify
the specific sale item and sends a message back
(via SOAP because the software is VB6) notifying
it that it has been activated. The web site
that administers this is built with ASP.NET
and the Web Services
are, of course, .NET based.
Software development services for World Development Systems Ltd
General programming tasks such as writing
several reports modules for an existing Visual Basic database application, a
custom update utility for the installed base of client applications, and other
installation routines using InstallShield Express.
Telephone Data Management System for IA Computing Ltd
Visual Basic.net application which imports
raw telephone usage data into a SQL Server 2000 database and formats the
results into a variety of management reports (using Active Reports for .NET).
The system also allows for the management of a database of known telephone
numbers
Freelance/contract work 2002
Data import and export program suite for Controlaccount Ltd
Wrote a suite of programs using Visual
Basic.net and SQL Server 2000 that imported cash payment data into an existing
credit control system, and also an export program that made data available for
a third-party system on a daily basis.
Webmaster for e-med Ltd (September 2001 - December 2003)
Maintenance and redesign of existing web
sites, creation of new sites, ongoing
content creation. This role was performed
using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and
Fireworks MX.
Nationwide Building Society 1998-2001 (freelancer)
Mortgage account type switcher intranet application
Intranet
application that allowes customers to switch from one mortgage
product type to another. Designed the overall architecture and
the security model for the system. Also wrote ASP pages. Software
involved: Visual InterDev, Visual Basic 6, IIS/MTS, SQL Server
2000
XML Parser Service
Codenamed
Enigma, this general purpose service is available upon the Nationwide
corporate network to accept XML-based requests for data to and from the ICL
mainframe via HTTP. This application was written to run as a service on a
dedicated load-balanced Windows NT server pair. Software involved: Visual Basic
6, MS XML parser 3.0, Visual InterDev (for ASP pages to handle HTTP
conversations), IIS/MTS.
Conversion of Microsoft Access system to use SQL Server
A Microsoft Access system to verify the
quality of mortgage lending was initially developed as a prototype but, as if
often the case, quickly came to be used as the core system for this department.
Performance problems quickly appeared as the application came to be used over
the network, so a tactical solution was devised to move the actual data over to
a SQL Server backend but retain the Access forms while a longer-term strategic
solution was formulated. Software involved: Microsoft Access, SQL Server 7.0.
Tactical solution to manage daily interest account updates
In order to get running with Daily Interest
type mortgage accounts as quickly as possible, the Nationwide required a
tactical solution that would process transactions upon staff accounts which
were piloting the scheme. Concurrently, a separate mainframe team were
developing a strategic solution. Software involved: Visual Basic 6, MSDE
Data upload/download component for Remote Arrears Processing application
The Remote Arrears
Processing system was an ongoing project by the time I joined it. The nature of
the application suite was to enable the Nationwide's sales force to pull down
arrears case data onto their laptops around the country, make visits as
necessary, update the data, and then upload the changes. This involved
exchanging both Access-based data (via replication) and direct communication
with the ICL mainframe. Software involved: Visual Basic 6, Microsoft Access 97
Automated letters production application
Replacement
of an antiquated Windows 3.0-based system which communicates with the ICL
mainframe to look for events which occur on accounts being processed by both
the Legal department and the Possessions and Recoveries department. When events
occur letters are automatically generated by this application and printed
locally for staff to sign and post. This application was written to run as a
service running on each user's machine. Software involved: Visual Basic 6, Word
97
Y2K-initiated rewrite for Housing department
An existing Visual Basic 3.0 application
(which I had worked on earlier, see below) was identified as suitable for a
rewrite because much of the functionality of the department had altered and the
application no longer matched. This was a networked application that was used
by some 30 users to store property details as security for each loan given to
housing associations by the Nationwide Housing department. Software used:
Visual Basic 5, Microsoft Transaction Server, SQL Server 7.0
Y2k-initiated rewrite of data warehousing application
The opportunity arose to rewrite a system
that I had previously written in 1994. The reason for the rewrite was that the
software available was much more sophisticated and could therefore speed up
overall processing significantly. The nature of the system was to read a copy
of the entire mortgage book once a month from magnetic tape and import the data
into a SQL Server database for analysis by the Finance department. When the
system was originally written only DB-Library existed to import the data, and
the job typically took about three days to complete. With this rewrite it was
possible to use SQL Server's Data Management Objects (SQL-DMO) and this reduced
to data upload time to a matter of hours. Software involved: Visual Basic 5,
SQL Server 7.0.
Claritas Ltd 1996-1997 (freelancer)
Sales Ordering system
A
major rewrite of the company sales ordering system was taking
place for this company which produces marketing data, which
included both the processing of sales orders and the actual
production of marketing data. My role was to produce the business
and data tiers of the sales ordering part of the system. The
role also expanded to writing a major part of the SQL Server
database for the rest of the system, quality assurance (code
reviews etc), and general troubleshooting. Software involved:
Visual Basic 4, SQL Server 6.5, Microsoft Transaction Server
Concurrently: NT account management application
Wrote an application for
Clifton-Reed Ltd for inclusion in their commercial Ranger product suite. Ranger
is a set of tools and programs that are used for managing computer network
environments in schools. My application was a general purpose utility that
allowed for the bulk creation of NT user accounts and security groups. Written
solely in Visual Basic, but using the relevant security APIs.
Nationwide Building Society 1989-1996 (full-time member of
staff)
Security application and quality assurance for Housing
department application
An external software
house was brought in to develop a suite of software applications to cater for
the needs of the Housing department (Housing give loans to Housing
Associations). Although I wrote a central security administration application
for user logins (this was before the days of integrated NT security), my
primary role was to oversee the quality of the system and generally act as
'fixer'.
Arrears MIS Data Server
A
consistent problem that the Nationwide had at this time was in providing ad-hoc
data to external bodies such as the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the
Building Society's Ombudsman, when typically such requests for data had to be
answered within 30 days. The problem here was that it involved pulling a
mainframe programmer from his/her task and writing a specific query program,
followed by the overhead of then putting the program live etc. It was decided
to create a SQL Server installation (before the term Data Warehouse became
fashionable) that would have a monthly snapshot of the mortgage database. To
enhance the system a set of twelve generations of monthly data was kept. To
make this work the monthly data was written to magnetic tapes by the mainframe.
My application then utilised a standalone tape reader and a suite of C programs
obtained data via the device driver and wrote the data to SQL Server via
DB-Library. Software involved: Microsoft OS/2 1.3, SQL Server 4.2, C
Sales Administration System prototype
The
Society wanted to pilot the use of PowerBuilder (version 1) and so asked me to
write a prototype application to calculate commission for sales made by the
Society's sales force. At the time PowerBuilder was too unstable and so I
rewrote the application using Visual Basic and C.
Resource Management System
Before
the launch of Windows 3.0 I used to develop applications in Clipper. The
Resource Management System collected workload statistics from both of the
Nationwide's mainframes (via magnetic tape) and calculate the overall workload
for each branch. This was then compared against a formula to calculate the
theoretically-available manpower for each branch to determine their efficiency.
Departmental efficiency systems (various)
Similar
to the Resource Management System (above), a series of smaller applications
were written in Clipper to calculate the efficiency of individual departments.
The Open University 1988 (full-time)
Course modelling software
Writing
a suite of applications that course tutors would use to model the costs and
resource requirements of new courses. Software involved: dBase III+, Clipper (a
dBase compiler), and SuperCalc.
Anglia Building Society 1986-1988 (full-time)
COBOL programmer
From
my initial start as a trainee programmer I wrote several mainframe programmes,
particularly involving the Anglia's general ledger. I also became something of
a local expert on magnetic tapes.
Training History
| Title |
Days |
Year |
Provider |
| Microsoft Training
(Visual Studio.Net) |
2 |
2003 |
Microsoft |
| Macromedia MX Studio
development |
3 |
2002 |
Macromedia |
| MSDN Briefing |
1 |
2001 |
Microsoft |
| Master Web Development with
Visual InterDev |
5 |
2001 |
QA Training |
| .NET Developers Conference |
2 |
2000 |
Microsoft |
| MSDN Briefing |
1 |
1999 |
Microsoft |
| DevDays 99 |
1 |
1999 |
Microsoft |
| MSDN Briefing |
1 |
1999 |
Microsoft |
| DevDays 98 |
1 |
1998 |
Microsoft |
| MSDN Briefing |
1 |
1998 |
Microsoft |
| Practical Software Testing Methods
|
4 |
1996 |
Learning Tree |
| Windows Developers Conference |
4 |
1995 |
MSJ |
| Windows Developers Conference |
4 |
1994 |
MSJ |
| SQL Server Programming |
3 |
1993 |
QA Training |
| SQL Server Administration |
3 |
1993 |
QA Training |
| LAN Administration |
2 |
1992 |
QA Training |
| Windows Developers Conference |
3 |
1992 |
Microsoft |
| Programming in C |
4 |
1991 |
QA Training |
Formal Education
Qualifications:
| 8 'O' Levels |
Maths, English Language, English Literature, Biology, Chemistry,
Physics, Commerce, History |
| Higher Education: |
BTEC Diploma in Technology (Engineering)
BTEC Higher Certificate in Business and Finance |
| Microsoft Certified Solution Developer: |
Having passed requisite exams in:
Windows architecture
SQL Server database design
Visual Basic 6.0 Desktop
Visual Basic 6.0 Distributed
|
Academic Institutions:
| 1984-1986 (p/t) |
Nene College, Northampton |
| 1981-1983 |
Nene College, Northampton |
| 1978-1981 |
Oakham School, Rutland |
| 1976-1978 |
Spratton Hall School, Northamptonshire |
