Richard James Parker Personal Details Address: 17, Heath Croft Fulford York Y010 4NJ E-mail: richard@expressive.ltd.uk Website: http://www.expressive.ltd.uk Telephone: 01904 612102 Mobile: 0774 093 2474 Availability: Immediate Background I've been in the IT business since 1990, and a hobbyist for nearly 10 years prior to that. Since my first position as a C programmer I've continued to learn new skills and in 2000 I decided to move into the freelance market. Expressive Limited was formed on the 4th of August 2000 as a one-man limited company aimed at the Web, Unix, Perl and Systems Administration sectors of this market. I've since been applying my skills – learned both in work and at home – for my clients. Throughout all the contracts below the emphasis has been one of delivering quality, tested code with thorough documentation, providing the maximum value for money for the client. I believe the broad skills base I have acquired, my adaptability and willingness to learn new skills has benefited my past clients and will continue to do so for those in the future. Skills Operating Systems Unix - Solaris 2.6, 2.7 & 2.8 and 10 (6 years), Linux configuration & security – RedHat & SuSe (4 years), OpenBSD (3 years), FreeBSD (2 years), HP-UX 10.x & 11.x, AIX 4.3 & 5.1, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, NT4, 2000 & XP, Ultrix, LynxOS. Hardware PC Compatibles, Sun, IBM, HP Languages C (15 years), Perl (10 years), Shell Scripting – sh, ksh, awk & sed (4 years), VBScript (2 years), x86 Assembler (5 years), TCL (1 year). Other Skills TCP/IP Protocols and Security (4 years), Firewalls – BorderWare, ipchains, iptables ipf & pf (4 years), XHTML, HTML, CSS, Apache, mod_perl, Oracle (7, 8, 9 & 10), SQL Server, SQL-DMO, MySQL, BEA WebLogic 5.1, SQL, JavaScript, XML, WMI, ASP, Image Processing, OCR Position Sought Unix Consultant, Technical Web Developer, Sysadmin or Perl Developer. Location Contract UK wide. Employment History CREDIT SUISSE, 5 CANADA SQUARE, LONDON E14 5AQ 22nd April 2009 – 28th May 2010 Consultant (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, PC Compatibles, egenera blades Operating Systems Solaris 5, 7 & 8, RedHat Advanced Server 3.0, Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 Programming Languages Perl, C, sh/ksh, HTML Other Skills Transact SQL, Sybase 11, 12 & 15, Oracle 9i & 10g RAC, Projects Providing maternity cover for a member of the database engineering team. Coordinating release lifecycle of the DBA toolset along with maintaining, supporting and updating the tools. Day to day maintenance of the Perl toolset while working with the DBA team to identify priorities for updates and bug fixes. Moved the toolset from the previous ClearCase environment into subversion with the attendant changes needed to the build system. Updated entire toolset from using an early version of Perl 5 to the latest release, involving recompilation of Sybase libraries and re-engineering XS code. CREDIT SUISSE, 5 CANADA SQUARE, LONDON E14 5AQ 22nd October 2007 – 19th February 2009 Consultant (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, PC Compatibles, egenera blades Operating Systems Solaris 5, 7 & 8, RedHat Advanced Server 3.0, Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 Programming Languages Perl, C, sh/ksh, HTML Other Skills Transact SQL, Sybase 11, 12 & 15, Oracle 9i & 10g RAC, Projects Working within the database engineering team. Maintaining, supporting and updating the DBA toolset. Day to day maintenance of the predominantly Perl tools used by the DBA and database engineering team to provision and monitor Oracle and Sybase installs. Created extensible Perl tool to connect to remote hosts via rsh or ssh and run modular checks against those hosts. BARCLAYS GLOBAL INVESTORS, 1 ROYAL MINT COURT, LONDON EC3N 4HH 26th October 2006 – 7th September 2007 Consultant (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, PC Compatibles Operating Systems Solaris 8 & 10 Programming Languages Perl (OO & Procedural), sh Other Skills Transact SQL, Sybase IQ & Sybase 12, Sun N1 Grid Engine Projects Working within the "Knowledge Management" (Market Data) team as part of a 3-man team deployed within the Active Equities team. Working with Equities Researchers ("Quants") & Portfolio Managers to provide data & rapid development of tools for the Alpha Generation team. Data from various sources was downloaded, processed and uploaded to Sybase IQ servers for AlphaGen team to research possible investment strategies. Provided knowledge of internal data systems and assistance with SQL, Perl & Unix to equities researchers, and also to other members of the team via the internal Wiki. CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON, 1 CABOT SQUARE, LONDON E14 4QJ 7th June 2004 – 23rd April 2006 Consultant (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, PC Compatibles, egenera blades Operating Systems Solaris 5, 7 & 8, RedHat Advanced Server 3.0, Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9, Windows NT, 2000 & XP Programming Languages Perl, C, sh/ksh, HTML, ASP, JavaScript Other Skills Transact SQL, Sybase 11 & 12, Oracle 9i & 10g RAC, Microsoft SQL Server Projects Working within the database engineering team. Firstly on a 3 part cost transparency project: Created 3 Perl modules to report on database replication for Sybase, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server using SQL and SQL-DMO to extract information from all live databases. Enhanced current Intranet site to allow data about decommissioned databases to be retained within the current data structures. Intranet site was coded as VBScript ASPs with JavaScript providing the user interface. Created a system to report if a given database matches CSFBs internal standard build criteria, written in Perl and SQL. Contract extended for the certification of the DBA toolkit on Oracle 9i RAC and RedHat Advanced Server 3.0. Created a Perl script to allow the cloning of Oracle databases backed up using Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN). Contract extended for certification of the DBA toolkit on Oracle 10g non-RAC and Solaris 8. Also certified internal audit and monitoring tools for this build of Oracle. Specified and designed a script to allow DBAs to create Oracle 10g databases according to the internal CSFB standards. Contract extended to assist the operational engineering team with maintenance, support and updates to the internal database engineering toolset. J P MORGAN SERVICES (SCOTLAND), ALHAMBRA HOUSE, 45 WATERLOO STREET, GLASGOW G2 6HS 8th September 2003 – 9th May 2004 Operations (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, PC Compatibles Operating Systems Solaris 5, 7 & 8, Windows NT Programming Languages Bourne shell, awk, sed, Perl, C Other Skills SQL, Sybase, WebSphere 4 & 5, ClearCase Projects Operations for the J P Morgan bond trading system. Monitoring the running applications, fault finding and diagnosis, code rollout & ad hoc report creation. Solaris, Sybase and WebSphere were the main technologies; SQL, Bourne shell, Perl and Unix skills were used on a daily basis. Involved liaising by phone, email and IM clients with all levels off staff & supporting many levels of technical expertise. WebSphere, Unix and SQL were used to support developers, especially in rolling out code to UAT and live environments. Took control of the application monitoring system, extended and documented the system and handed over to new member of staff. J P MORGAN SERVICES (SCOTLAND), ALHAMBRA HOUSE, 45 WATERLOO STREET, GLASGOW G2 6HS 5th August 2002 – 7th May 2003 Systems Developer (Contractor) Hardware Used Sun, IBM, HP, PC Compatibles Operating Systems Solaris 5, 7 & 8, HP-UX 10.x & 11.x, AIX 4.3 & 5.1, Windows NT & 2000 Programming Languages Perl, C, awk, sed, Korn shell Other Skills XML, SQL, iPlanet, WebSphere, WMI, ClearCase Projects Developing the client software for JPMorgans inventory system. Divided into 2 areas: A Unix client in Perl to be deployed onto 10,000+ servers worldwide. Multiple Unix versions (Solaris, HP-UX and AIX) and hardware configurations are to be reported on, the data is transmitted in XML to an intranet server running WebSphere and a Java application and stored in a Sybase database. A Windows client in C, to be deployed to 100,000+ desktops worldwide. Reporting on hardware and software configuration using many methods to gather the information such as registry scans, SMBIOS scanning and WMI. This client is self-updating with the DLL scanning component being replaced when an upgrade is present using Microsoft Authenticode technology to digitally verify the authenticity of the DLL. Also performed various Developer Support tasks including Solaris problem diagnosis, iPlanet configuration issues and Perl scripting. HALIFAX PLC, PO BOX 101, COPLEY DATA CENTRE WAKEFIELD ROAD, HALIFAX HX3 0TD 20th August 2001 – 19th April 2002 Perl Developer (Contractor) Hardware Used PC Compatibles, Sun Operating Systems Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT 4, Solaris 7 Programming Languages Perl, VBScript, VB Other Skills Solaris, ASP, Active Directory, SQL Projects Systems Management Services team – Developing a Devolved User Administration in Perl and VBScript. Using ADSI, ASP, CDO, MS SQL Server 2000 and Oracle to add users to Active Directory, PDCs and Exchange Servers via Tivoli. Operating systems Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Solaris 7. Capacity and Storage Management team - Developed a suite of Perl scripts for automating the reporting of backup status from Tivoli Storage Manager and Veritas NetBackup using ActiveState Perl on Windows NT4 with reporting via Microsoft Excel using Perl and OLE. BRITISH AIRWAYS, CRAGSIDE COURT, WILLIAM ARMSTRONG DRIVE, NEWCASTLE BUSINESS PARK, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE NE4 7YA 9th April 2001 – 27th July 2001 Consultant (Contractor) Hardware Used PC Compatibles, Sun Operating Systems Windows 2000, Solaris 6 Programming Languages Perl, JSP Other Skills XHTML, HTML, CSS, SQL Projects Taken on to assist with the redevelopment of the BA website, including 1 month based at iXL, the web design agency used for the 'look and feel'. Remainder was based in Newcastle maintaining the current site, including small fixes, larger scale page changes, JSP development, and Perl scripting and general Unix work. PAPERX.COM, 20 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON W1V 5FD 5th October 2000 – 28th February 2001 Web Developer (Contractor) Hardware Used PC Compatibles, Sun Operating Systems Solaris 7, Linux Programming Languages Perl, JSP, PL/SQL Other Skills Linux Configuration & Security, Apache, mod_perl, XML, Jakarta Tomcat, BEA WebLogic, CVS, Solaris Systems Administration, SQL (Oracle 8 and SQL Server 7) Projects Taken on as a Web Developer / Systems Programmer. During reorganisation moved into the infrastructure team as sysadmin, Weblogic administrator and developer support. Varied tasks included a web site log analysis package written in Perl, modifications to JSPs and SQL queries, code deployment for a team of Java Developers, Apache, mod_perl, Solaris, Linux firewall and Weblogic administration, porting SQL Server databases to Oracle and general Unix housekeeping. INTERACTIVE MEDIA SERVICES, 15, MARK LANE LEEDS. 11th July 1994 - 15th September 2000 Senior Analyst Programmer (Permanent) Hardware Used PC Compatibles, Sun, DECStation, IBM R6000 Operating Systems Solaris, Ultrix, LynxOS, Windows (3.11 - NT 4.0), Linux, AIX Programming Languages C (10 yrs), Perl (3 yrs), CGI (4 yrs), 80x86 Assembler (5 yrs), Vignette StoryServer 4 (7 months), TCL (1 year) Other Skills WWW, HTML, Linux Configuration and Security, XML, Netscape Enterprise, Apache, mod_perl, SQL, Shell Script, HTTP, Group 4 Fax, JavaScript, Sockets, BorderWare Firewall Projects Many, varied projects ranging from ISDN and graphics drivers in C to web content management systems in Vignette and Perl. Highlights include a web log analysis package written in Perl for an audit by ABC Electronic, high performance image manipulation DLLs written in C, the Euro2000 live match entry system using Perl & MS SQL Server 7 and porting an undocumented AIX based Informix database to MS SQL Server. PINDAR INFOTEK LTD, 60 PICADILLY, YORK. YO1 2NX April 1990 - July 1994 Analyst Programmer (Permanent) Hardware Used PC Compatibles, Apple Macintosh Operating Systems MS-DOS, DR-DOS, Windows 3.11, Macintosh System 6.x and 7.x, Xenix Programming Languages C, 80x86 Assembler Other Skills Document Image Processing, Kofax Image Processing Platform, OCR Systems, Tape Formats, SGML, TIFF Projects Originally taken on as a maintenance programmer, to maintain a DATIMTEX format tape writing system. Developed several other tape systems for other contracts. Created a distributed OCR system for Patent abstracts. Diversified, along with the company, into Document Image Processing. Implemented a document capture, display, manipulation and storage system in C using Kofax Image Products hardware and software. Home Projects Expressive Limited Website The website for Expressive Limited (http://www.expressive.ltd.uk) was created in-house. It is HTML, SHTML, CSS, Perl and JavaScript based and hosted on a FreeBSD server in London. All images were created in Photoshop and the remainder hand coded and maintained with vi. This is very much a work in progress, additions and alterations being made as time permits. Teergrube A "teergrube" or "tarpit" ("teergrube" is German for "tarpit") is a method of combating Unsolicited Bulk Email or "Spam". It is basically an extremely slow SMTP server, so slow in fact it is possibly to extend the time it takes to deliver an email from under a second to over a day. The project is an adaptive, pre-forking, configurable fake email server written in Perl and is to be released as Open Source. Firewalls Created ultra secure, Open Source based firewalls for home and office. PC compatible hardware and a free, secure operating system (OpenBSD) combine to create a solution, which is both cost effective, and as secure as commercial offerings many times the cost. The latest incarnation of the firewall runs on a near silent VIA EDEN powered Mini ITX PC perfectly suited to a small office or home. Education and Qualifications Date Place Qualifications 1988 - 1990 Control Training Ltd, Sheffield Higher Technology NVQ Software Engineering, C and ADA 1986 - 1987 Sunderland Polytechnic 1st Year Combined Science BSc 1984 - 1986 Bootham School, Bootham, York. 2 'A' Levels 'D' Grade - General Studies 'E' Grade - Biology 1979 - 1984 Nunthorpe Grammar School, York 8 'O' Levels 'B' Grade - English, Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, History 'C' Grade - Geography, English Literature Interests I have a keen interest in local history, being an enthusiastic collector of local antiquarian books. I have also developed an interest in the history and literature of the First World War, with particular emphasis on the war poets, especially Siegfried Sassoon. I am an active member of CAMRA, backing campaigns for maintaining historic public houses in their original state. I am also bar manager, licensee and beer orderer for the City of York Beer Festival involved in cellermanship and the skills required to serve high quality real ales. I enjoy traveling and hope to get further afield than the continent in the near future. I take part in charity fundraising events including abseiling down a York hotel and bungee jumping. References On Request