Personal Details

Summary

A competent Macintosh programmer with experience of POSIX development and system administration on Snow Leopard Server, Linux & BSD. Also a professional‐level HTML and PHP coder with an interest in development of the Semantic Web. Keeps abreast of the most recent advances in web development, including participating in the standardisation of HTML 5 and CSS 3, and implementing parts of those new standards in a major rendering engine. Strongly advocative of the benefits of adhering to published W3C standards, and of making sites accessible to the blind, physically disabled or those using alternative access devices (e.g. mobile phones). Has no difficulty learning new skills, adapting to any operating system or using a new programming language, and is eager to do so, though is currently most familiar with the Macintosh and C‐derived languages.

Primary Programming Skills

• C, C++, Objective–C, Java, AppleScript, shell scripting.
• Xcode, gcc, gdb, cvs, subversion
• Detailed familiarity with the Mac OS X frameworks
• The standard C and POSIX libraries
• The OpenGL libraries

Primary Web Skills

• HTML 5, XHTML, CSS Level 3
• Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP)
• AJAX, jQuery, JSON, RESTful design
• Accessibility (WAI/AAA/Bobby)
• Semantic Web, Linked Data, XML, RDF, XSLT
• Bandwidth management, HTTP, caching, white hat SEO, IPv6 configuration

The personal statement and skills checklists are intended to convey principal skills, knowledge and experience, and are not intended to be detailed nor comprehensive. A long tail of minor skills and experience has been left off for brevity.

Current Position

BEST Electrical

I am presently the senior I.T. engineer at an electrical contracting firm, who service major high street retailers across the Midlands and South–East of England. Primarilly, I am responsible for all front‐end and back‐end development, and maintenance of our bespoke client, job, and costs tracking system, written in PHP and MySQL. My second most time‐consuming responsibility at the office is being the geek who fixes everyone's Windows boxes when they break.

Previous Experience

Boinx Software

At Boinx I brought the award-winning video production tool ‘BoinxTV’ from a concept on a whiteboard to a finished product. Using cutting-edge GPU programming technologies, BoinxTV brings to market a capability that has never before existed on a desktop computer for any platform. Working largely autonomously for one year under the guidance of the Product Manager, and then joined by up to six other programmers and artists as development progressed, we released version 1.0 in the Autumn of 2008, and did not stop there. Our small and close-knit team achieved much recognition and praise in the media, such as from New York Times columnist David Pogue. In 2009, BoinxTV won a highly coveted Apple Design Award for its user interface and technical excellence, and this was followed by the 2010 Editor's Pick award from Streming Media Magazine. Mac News Weekly's reviewer called it, “the most powerful application I've ever seen for the Mac.”

Cognition Games

For several years I ran my own company named Cognition Games where I ported products from the PC to Mac OS X and Carbonised older Mac software. I have worked on entertainment titles from Creature Labs, Ambrosia Software, and Running With Scissors, both under contract and licensed for self‐publication. Additionally, I write shareware under the Cognition Games moniker, my first such product being a character editor for the popular Blizzard Entertainment title ‘Diablo II’. Experience gained in contract negotiation, record‐keeping, accounting and tax matters has been a valuable side benefit of the business.

Feral Interactive

I worked for Feral Interactive as Webmaster and Lead QA Engineer for two years, where I developed a strong understanding of procedures and expectations of a company and its employees, as well as gaining professional experience. Further, my job entailed writing internal tools, liaising with developers, publishers, resellers, press, and giving public product demonstrations at international trade shows in Europe and North America.

Freshly Squeezed Software

Concurrent with part of my tenure at Feral, I spent some time working at Freshly Squeezed Software, a de‐centralised Mac OS X shareware company writing tools for small businesses and organisations. Here I worked on a mailing list management program with personalised email capabilities, which was written in Cocoa.

Experience in Education

As part of my Astrophysics degree at the University of Hertfordshire, I studied both Fortran and object‐orientated design principals (using Java), in addition to the regular Maths, Physics and Astronomy modules. I was recruited by one Computer Science lecturer as a classroom assistant for his Java tutorials, where I assisted fellow second‐year students who were having difficulties or needed additional guidance.

Personal Projects

Active contributor to many open source projects, including WebKit, WordPress, HexEdit, ResKnife, FreeCol & XFN Graph.

Employment History

Education & Training

• North Hertfordshire College (2006)
  • City & Guilds e-Quals Advanced Diploma in IT
  • ILM Level 2 Introduction to Team Leading
  • Secretary of NHC Management Forum
• University of Hertfordshire (1999—2002)
  • Studied three years towards an Astrophysics degree
• Becket School, Nottingham (until 1999)
  • Passed Physics and Chemistry A–Levels
  • Received 9 GCSEs between A* and C grades

Personal Life

Family man, non-smoker, in full health and with clean UK driving license. Academic interests include astronomy and spaceflight, minority or endangered languages, linguistics, paleontology, history, and politics.