My CV

Summary:

I have just returned to the UK after two years traveling and working in New Zealand and Australia. I am now looking for contract work in Europe.

I enjoy a challenge and thrive on solving problems. I have had a range of experience with Web development and server configuration as I have worked for many small companies and had to contribute to many aspects of IT.

Experience:

February 2006-April 2006; Travel Wherehouse, Sydney, Australia

Lead Project Developer

I was responsible for writing software in Python to communicate between a web interface and the Amadeus GDS API via XML to enable flights to be searched for, booked and ticketed.

Software used: Postgre SQL, Vim, SVN version control

October 2005-December 2005; Simbient Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia

Developer

My role included graphical and hand coding HTML, CSS and JavaScript on several websites, including www.agu.org.au, www.australianopengolf.com and www.internationaldeveloper.com.

Software used: Adobe Photoshop, SourceSafe

June 2005-September 2005; Department of Education, Sydney, Australia

Information & Communication Support Officer

I am responsible for redesigning the Intranet site for the directorate, making it XHTML 1.1 , CSS2 and WCAG 1.0 compliant and conducting cross browser testing.

I also designed and built the new NSW Careers Advisory website to the above standards

Software used: Macromedia Studio MX 2004, Fireworks MX 2004

Other responsibilities included general 1 st level IT support for the directorate, asset tagging and registration and production of technical and non technical user guide lines

May 2004-August 2004; Motor Trade Finance, Dunedin, New Zealand

.NET Developer

I completed a three month contract to add additional functionality to the staff extranet . I used .NET IDE version 7.1 (framework 1.1) and C# utilising ASPs and a MySQL database.

Software used: .Net IDE, Adobe Photoshop

Projects:

Staff Extranet
- Contact database - a database containing all staff contact information. There were two possible views depending on the user login. If the user is a manager or in Human Resources additional home contact information is displayed
- Company financial and performance figures
- I set up an online database for the company figures for the last two years, wrote a script that would be scheduled to run daily to import the month to date figures from the live AS400 server and to archive the figures at month end.
- I then used this database (MySQL) to generate graphs on the fly, showing the previous years rolling data and trend lines for various KPIs, some plotted directly from the figures stored in the database some calculated from different fields.
- These figures could then be displayed for individual dealers, areas and for the company as a whole.
Notice board
- This enables marketing and human resources personnel to log into the site and add new notices to the staff website. The notices could appear immediately or a date to display can be entered.
- The notice can also be given an expiry date.
- There is also an option to email the staff distribution list to notify all staff that a new notice is available on the notice board.
Customer Relationship Management Tool
- This system imports business information regarding the various car dealers in each sales manager area into a new database. Enabling the managers to view the information securely over the internet and to add additional notes about each dealer. It also would allow each manger to add information about prospective dealers into the system.
- The system also contains a calendar so that for each dealer, the managers can also add appointments, details of points discussed and action points for each dealer and prospective dealer. Any overdue or upcoming action points are then displayed on login and various reports can be run to get additional information or for different time periods. The General sales mangers login provides additional functionality allowing access to all areas and allowing reports to also be filtered by area.
Documentation
- Technical Documentation - I produced APIs and user files for some of the C# classes and packages I wrote as part of this contract
- User Manuals/help files - I produced some end user manuals and online help files for some parts of these sites
I also trained certain staff on the correct use of some of the systems I implemented

August 2003- March 2004; Comtec Europe, Cardiff, South Wales, UK

Java Developer

I was part of a small team that wrote a new flight-booking engine. ( www.flight.co.uk )

Necessary skills included Java, JSP, JavaScript, SQL and Linux (Redhat) .

Linux was used for the application and database server and I was responsible for the set-up, configuration and maintenance of them.

Software used: Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Borland JBuilder

Project:

Web based flight booking engine, this system will allow a user to perform one search and it will return all matching published, negotiated, charter and budget flights. All of these flights can then be booked online.
Published fares - these fares were retrieved directly from the airlines GDS systems, any GDS could be 'plugged in' (i.e. Sabre, Galileo etc) and booking made the same way.
Negotiated fares - these fares were retrieved from the travel agents database of net fares and flight information and booking was done through the GDS system.
Charter fare information and flight details were obtained from another database and integrated into the results
Budget fares - As the budget airlines do not provide an interface to allow third parties to display their fares a screen scraping technique is used.
My responsibilities in this project were the front end design, JavaScript form validation, database design and the Java middleware to communicate between them.

June 2002 - August 2003; International Travel Agents Link Limited, St. Fagans, South Wales, UK

Graphics Programmer/Web Developer

maintaining and developing a number of travel and insurance websites.
configuration and maintenance of test servers (SuSE Linux, tomcat, Apache, MySQL).
creating HTML newsletters for the various sites to promote that months special offers and increase traffic on the website.

As well as front-end code (HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, JSPs) I also maintained and developed the Java classes and databases (MySQL). I used Macromedia development tools (Studio MX) and Borland JBuilder.

May 1998 - June 2002; Admiral Insurance Services Limited, Cardiff , South Wales, UK

Web Developer (May 2000 - June 2002)

I moved to the IT department and became more concerned with the programming side of the websites. I gained a more through Knowledge of HTML , JavaScript, CSS, Java, PHP , Unix and web server configuration. I used Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks , IBM Visual Age for Java and Websphere Studio on a daily basis.

Responsibilities:

Search engine optimisation - this was an ongoing process that evolved online research of ranking techniques and analysis of our web server logs for referring sites and search terms used.
Test server configuration and maintenance - Linux Redhat with PHP, Tomcat and Apache.

Projects:

content management system (VIP)- this involved researching the different products available and producing recommendations, then setting up a server and installing the software. I then was in charge of getting all the companies' web content added to the system and training users in how to use the interface.
automated tracking system - As Admiral are a direct marketing company they need to be able to track the source of all insurance quotes and site visits to identify which advertising is working and which isn't. I wrote this system in PHP, it would automatically assign a five letter marketing code to all visitors to the site based on how they got there, this was in one of 3 main ways
Search engines - based on the referring URL a code was assigned for each search engine
URL encoded links - all sites Admiral had paid adverts on were give a unique link bearing the five letter media code
From referring sites - from server log analysis, the top referring sites that do not belong to the above two categories were also assigned a code

Website Marketing Executive (to May 2000)

I was responsible for the upkeep of existing company websites, the design of new sites and the online marketing for the company.

I was also involved in the production of banners (animated GIFs or Flash) and other creative used in online advertising. I then dealt with the third party websites to actually place the banners on these sites and tracked the effectiveness if these ads using Excel

Education:

September 1992-June 1994 - Newport College of Higher education Newport , Gwent, Wales
HND in Electronics and Communications

September 2000-June 2002 - Cardiff University Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales
Obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Science

Achievements:

I have completed several courses in Web design including design packages (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Director, and Photoshop). I have a good knowledge of raw (X)HTML and JavaScript.
My PGD gave me a good grounding in many aspects of software development, design and technologies.
June 1999 - Adobe Photoshop course
June 2000 - intensive Java course.
March 2001 - IBM training in Websphere Studio, Websphere Application Server and Visual Age for Java.

References:

on request cv@rhydd.com

Additional experience:

March 2005 - SurgeMedia, Wellington, New Zealand

PHP Developer

I worked on sections of a couple of websites:

A PHP/MySQL Content Management System for Unicus, including document uploads for the policies section
Web forms using PHP logic and JavaScript validation for Macris

Dec '04 - Mar '05 Worldwide Backpackers, Wellington, New Zealand

Hostel Manager

I was in charge of the day to day running of the hostel, duties included:

Taking in bookings on the computerised booking system
Making sure the guests were happy
Placing orders for the hostel(cleaning products, consumables etc.)
Cleaning and preparing rooms
Ensuring the cleaners preformed adequately

Dec '04-Feb'05 - Dragon Bar, Wellington , NZ

Bar Staff

I was a barman at the Welsh bar in Wellington duties include all normal bar activities and helping out in the restaurant when necessary.

Oct '04 - Nov '04 - Various vineyards, Blenhiem, New Zealand

General pre-season preparation

I worked in several vineyards for a contracting company, duties included:

Planting
Bud rubbing
Tying up vines
Removal of dead vines

General experience:

Other work I have done includes:

General bar work since I was 18 up to assistant manager for Bass Taverns in Wales for a couple of years
General office experience with numerous software packages including Microsoft Office suite, Dreamweaver, fireworks and Photoshop. My typing speed is good (9+ years experience!) although I don't know my actual speed.
I was a warehouse manager, which involved checking in stock to a computerised stock control system, storing and recovering stock in the warehouse, ordering stock when it ran low.
General IT experience, as I have worked for small companies I have been involved in a lot of second level support for many PCs and servers as and when necessary. This includes repair, virus removal and upgrades to machines and networking.