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Personal
Profile |
A down-to-earth
and gregarious nature, coupled with an extremely diverse
technical background (spanning such wide-ranging
disciplines as user-support, operations, systems and web
programming) helps me to communicate very well at all
levels. It also means I can view a problem from several
angles; calling upon a much richer skill-set to provide
effective solutions. Self-taught and supremely
adaptable, I am not afraid to step outside of my
intellectual or disciplinary comfort-zones to tackle
tough issues.
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Career
Profile |
An experienced
IT professional and an accomplished, resourceful and
self-motivated programmer with a firm grasp of numerous,
popular, server- and client-side web technologies. An
excellent communicator, and listener, with outstanding
analytical and problem-solving skills, and a proven
history of delivering effective, often innovative,
solutions.
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Key Skills |
Programming:
PERL, CGI, DBI, PHP, MySQL, XHTML, CSS, XML and XSLT.
Environments:
SuSE (primary) and REDHAT LINUX, REDHAT Cygwin, Solaris,
WindowMaker and GNOME. Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0,
Windows 9x, Windows 3.x and MSDOS. IBM VM/CMS in S/390
and ES/9000 mainframe environments.
Tools and
Applications: Apache Web Server, Star Office, Open
Office, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, GIMP, Netscape,
Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Macromedia Home Site and
Dream Weaver.
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Other Skills |
Programming: GNU
C/C++, GNU M4 Macro Processor, GNU Make, JavaScript,
REXX/Regina, XEDIT/THE, CMS Windows and CMS Pipelines
General: As well
as having excellent all-round PC general knowledge, I
have an above-average understanding of Linux, Windows
and network administration fundamentals. I prefer to
build or upgrade, rather than buy my own PCs and, thus,
have an excellent understanding of underlying hardware. |
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Career
History |
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2000-present |
[snip],
Camberley, SURREY.
Web Content
Management; Web Automation Specialist (contract).
Initially, I joined the Marketing IT group to help
transfer static web content into a Java/Documentum-based
content management system.
Some four months later, I moved into IT Operations
to take on the day-to-day running of an internal IT
Operations and Workplace Resources web site. I was
also tasked with developing a web-based workflow and
project management tool, which I did using Perl (CGI
and DBI) and a MySQL database back-end.
I later returned to the Marketing IT group to take
on the day-to-day running of several of Sun’s
Reseller Network web sites. Here I was able to
automate the labour-intensive distribution of
pricing data and I contributed Perl tools to help
colleagues fix broken links and clean-up ‘scruffy’
HTML 3.2 code and make it XHTML-compliant.
Finally, I left centralised IT to join Services
Marketing Group and to help re-vamp internal and
external web-content so that it was compliant with
Sun’s new online branding. For this, knowledge of
tools and practices employed by the centralised IT
function proved invaluable. I developed an XML/XSLT-based
content management system, written in Perl, designed
not only to aid non-technical staff with
brand-compliant content creation, but also to
automate the timely embedding of current pricing in
static content. During my time, I have contributed
numerous web-based marketing aids.
I single-handedly solved an important pricing issue
that EMEA Marketing were told, by Corporate HQ,
couldn’t be solved. Due to an inadequacy in the
pricing database, i.e. integer pricing fields, it
was ‘impossible’ to deal with individual items that
had a fractional cost. Because of this, Sun’s
customers were going to have to purchase banded
blocks of software licences at block-price. With a
little lateral thinking and a small enhancement to
one of my existing tools, I was able to deliver the
only accurate quoting mechanism for block-priced
items. This meant that EMEA customers would only be
charged for the licences that they required.
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1998-2000 |
[snip], Portsmouth,
HAMPSHIRE.
VM Systems
Programmer (contract).
Joined the Global Services Organisation to provide
VM and REXX expertise for the Y2K effort, the
de-commissioning of IBM’s internal VM-based NOSS
information network and the migration from
OfficeVision to Lotus Notes.
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1997-1998 |
[snip],
Fawley, HAMPSHIRE.
VM Systems
Programmer (contract).
Joined the IT group to provide VM and REXX expertise
for the ongoing Y2K effort and the migration of
UK-based applications over to systems based in
Houston, Texas, in preparation for the
de-commissioning of the Abingdon Datacentre.
[snip], Winchester.
VM Systems
Programmer (contract).
Joined the IT group as part of the “HantsNet”
development team, where I contributed to the
extension and day-to-day maintenance of the HantsNet
information network, which was available at council
offices across the county. HantsNet was a VM-based
application, written entirely in compiled REXX,
using CMS Windows and Pipelines.
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1994-1997
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[snip],
Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX.
Desktop Rollout,
Standardisation and Support Specialist (contract).
[snip],
Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX.
Help Desk and
Second-line User Support (contact).
[snip], Osterley, MIDDLESEX.
Second-line PC
User Support (contract).
[snip], Crawley, WEST SUSSEX.
Help Desk and
Second-line User Support (contract).
An assortment of contract roles, providing telephone
and face-to-face technical support to users with
variety of desktop software, hardware and network
needs.
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1989-1994 |
[snip] Fawley, HAMPSHIRE.
Computer
Operations and Hotline Support; VM Systems Support.
Day-to-day operational support for Hitachi, IBM, DEC
and Data General hardware running VM/CMS, VMS and
AOS/VS. My particular area of expertise was VM
systems support; the creation and maintenance of
REXX and EXEC2 automated procedures, and the
PROFS/TELEX bridging software that I helped write.
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Education |
Rock Ferry High
School, Merseyside.
Totton Sixth Form College, Southampton.
GCE O Level:
Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Geology, French
and Engineering Drawing.
CSE: English
Language, English Literature and Biology.
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Personal
Details |
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Date of
Birth: |
29 July
1968 |
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Licence: |
Full,
clean, UK driver’s licence |
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Interests: |
The
study of Ancient Egyptian language and history.
Music and cinema. DIY and cooking.
I am one
of Explorer Post 227 technical advisors. The
Post is a charitable organisation, based in
Tampa, Florida and affiliated with Learning for
Life and the Boy Scouts of America programmes,
whose mission is to help teenagers gain
‘hands-on’ programming- and other IT-related
skills not taught in schools. As an advisor, I
field queries that fall into my own areas of
expertise; these can come from both the kids and
the other advisors at the Post. |
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References: |
Available upon request |
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