To do my little part to make the world a better place in the way I'm best at: helping people set up, maintain, maximize, and repair their technology systems so that they can focus on their own ways of making the world a better place.
Technical support for customers of a company that builds storage systems for video production studios. Handled primary support for worldwide users of Final Cut Pro and Avid video editing software, as well as networking and systems support for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Most support provided remotely over the phone, but also did some on-site work setting up workgroups to work with new systems and troubleshoot any issues that came up. Helped prepare new systems for shipment, including installing, configuring, and testing new hardware & software for dcmers worldwide.
Customer-facing role involving troubleshooting & repair of all Apple consumer hardware and software, including desktops and portables, Intel and PowerPC, iPhones and iPods. Constantly focused on mimizing repair time, cost, and disruption for both the customer and for the store. Used BSD/Unix skills to quickly analyze & solve Mac issues, such as dtrace for analyzing problems on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, rsync and others for recovering data from failing hard drives, as well as system log file analysis for establishing explanations for reported problems. Watched for patterns with incoming issues, making sure coworkers are alerted to any emerging issues, and as appropriate escalating new issues for engineering analysis. Used Windows skills to diagnose iPhone & iPod issues, and to migrate data for customers switching from Windows to Mac OS X. Also provided assistance with third-party hardware and software, such as Palm devices, Parallels/Boot Camp & Windows XP, and assorted peripherals such as hard drives, cameras, PVR devices, etc.
Actively helped manage the repair queue and parts inventory to help keep group performance metrics under control, and to minimize down time for customers. Set up a wiki documentation server to allow the group to collaboratively record common procedures, troubleshooting steps, and other resources. Set up a shared bookmark list for all back-of-house web browsers. Constantly looked for ways to streamline tasks, such as transitioning from optical media OS installs to fully-patched image files, turning a potentially hours long process into a matter of minutes. Kept abreast of emerging technologies, issues, and ideas from both Apple and the Mac community.
Invited by Damian Conway to participate in a technical review of Perl Best Practices. Also provided a technical review of the fourth edition of the best selling Learning Perl and the second edition of Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules for brian d foy, Tom Phoenix, and Randal Schwartz.
Primary technical support person at a rapidly growing software startup. Maintained a heterogeneous collection of dozens of workstations running Debian Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Served as in-house expert for all Macintosh issues, including application support, diagnosis and correction of hardware problems, user education, and assistance & administration with Apple Remote Desktop. Helped maintain centrally booted Linux systems. Helped manage account management & file shares (NIS/NFS and Samba), email (qmail/ezmlm and assorted clients), chat systems (Jabber and IRC), RT, BitKeeper, DNS, CUPS, etc. Contributed dozens of articles for the Twiki internal documentation system. Participated in purchasing decisions for new hardware and software. Provided IT support for two office moves.
Assistant editor for the GNU Project's Using GCC manual, by Richard Stallman et alia. Brought on to copy edit the book's prose, but also helped clarify technical ambiguities in the text with members of the GCC mailing list.
Technical reviewer for O'Reilly's Perl Template Toolkit. Consulted with one of the authors, Darren Chamberlain, over how to best organize & clarify material for the reader.
Oversaw administration of all advertising systems for one of the nation's largest regional web sites, with three million visits per day. Maintained and enhanced the performance of the Open AdStream ad servers and MySQL databases running on multiple Linux and Sun machines. Also participated in the administration of other email & web systems, DNS and other network services, the Request Tracker trouble ticketing system, and the SpamAssassin mail filter. Extensive scripting with Perl, the Bourne shell, and other Linux & Solaris tools. Participated in functional QA testing on the Zope application server.
Contributed to a web based genome analysis application for dynamic statistical analysis of data for bioinformatics researchers. Heavy use of Perl's CGI and DBI libraries for state management, parameter parsing, content generation, and interaction with Oracle. Rewrote existing scripts to clarify data flow while providing robust error handling and security. Advised on installation and configuration of Tomcat and mod_perl extensions to Apache.
In charge of maintenance & development of public & internal corporate sites. Designed and partially implemented a site overhaul using Linux, Apache, MySQL, and mod_perl, as well as SSI, CSS, and XML. Perl work included HTML::Template, DBI and LWP. Performed Apache logging, performance & security tuning. Set up restricted site areas for authenticated & authorized users, managed Raven/SSL encryption for credit card transactions. Migrated legacy site from HTML to SSI enhanced SHTML and CSS, then began database & template driven rewrite. Set up realtime & periodic site traffic analysis reports for performance & security tuning as well as marketing data. Assisted in company LAN administration, email systems administration, and network security & virus monitoring. Brought in Bugzilla bug tracking & Mailman listserv systems to make work processes more efficient & productive.
Implemented web page designs prepared by a graphic designer. Insured that all pages are usable and met W3C standards, with accessibility across all web clients, including search engines and text & PDA browsers. Expedited repetitive editing with shell scripts and a build process that assembled documents out of file scraps. Completed several small sites in rapid succession, exceeding expectations with each project.
Supervised three employees working in a screen printing shop. Prioritized & scheduled projects, allocated resources, and performed heavy equipment maintenance. Graphic design training & work with Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand and Quark. Helped maintain Novell-based LAN, carried out software & hardware upgrades for client machines, helped maintain antivirus profiles.
University of South Alabama, Computer Science Dept., 1994 - 1999
Information science major, business management minor, currently on hiatus
In March and July 2005, contributed reviews of three O'Reilly books: Damian Conway's Perl Best Practices, and updates to Learning Perl and Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules by brian d foy, Randal Schwartz, and Tom Phoenix. In July 2003, contributed an English usage review of the FSF's Using GCC; in May 2003, contributed a technical review for O'Reilly's Perl Template Toolkit.
Attended the January 2003 MIT Spam Conference, and wrote a summary of the proceedings that appeared in the June 2003 issue of ;login:, the magazine of USENIX & SAGE.
In January 2001, wrote a review of James Tisdall's Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics for the homepage of Slashdot.
Completed most of the core curriculum, including fundamentals: data & file structures, operating system theory, networking, database theory, and software engineering. Advanced courses included systems analysis & design, Oracle administration, and Human-Computer Interface. I expect to be within one year of graduation when I resume my studies here in New England.
Participated in Boston-area Apple conferences on Leopard and BenchTalk Live in 2007. Attended classes on information graphics with Edward Tufte and advanced Perl with Damian Conway. Actively keep up with trends in IT. Read a wide variety of materials, including O'Reilly's technical books, various news sites, and the sites of vendors and standards organizations. Participate in mailing lists (many Perl related) to both learn from experts and share knowledge with novices. Experimented with technologies like Python and BeOS to help develop a better understanding of thoughtfully designed & implemented systems.
Available upon request.