I've been programming since the early 80's and from 1988 for the large, US based,
global IT company 
I'm based in the UK and am a senior analyst/designer/programmer,
my official title is too ridiculous to mention but a/d/p best describes what I do.
I've worked on many platforms including Mainframes, UNIX, Solaris, Linux, Windows and others and in many environments, languages and tools including C, C++, C/C++ with SDK and MFC (on the Windows platforms),
VisualBasic, PowerBuilder, Oracle Forms and Developer/2000, Forte, Java, JavaScript, HTML, PHP and Perl as well as various shell scripting languages including bourne and korn shell.
I've worked mostly on enterprise scale, multi-national, large user community, client/server systems.
I've worked with all the major databases including DB2, Oracle, Sybase and Informix as well as SQLServer and Access for smaller jobs.
I've completed many personal projects too, recently writing an IPTC tagger in Perl to enable me to easily tag the thousands of pictures I have taken (and scanned). Of course I code all the JavaScript on my website myself, including the cool expanding menu and the dynamic page generation in the Trips (and Photos) sites. Look at my software site for the source code and runtimes of IPTC and tzsh respectively.
I'm ex-RAF (Royal Air Force) but my flying is now relegated to flight sims.
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| Something serious now, my Curriculum Vitae |
I am also into fast cars, photography, painting (mostly in oils and watercolours), watching SciFi movies on the big screen (and taking part in my head), and horse riding and Wing Chun Kung Fu. See
here for a selection of pics of me doing stuff (select Family then Me Doing Stuff)
Being a programmer I of course have written a utility to add IPTC tags to all my images. This works at a command line level which mean I can basically do one, tens or hundreds of files in just one command. This was very useful when updating directories which had related content, but it also has add, update and replace modes to add extra information on each specific picture. For more see here.
I took up riding (English not Western) in September 1998 because a friend wanted me to go riding when I visited her in Switzerland, and I thought it might be a good idea to at least be able to get on a horse without getting killed, but I really caught the bug and ended up riding more than my friend. I took a school based BHS (British Horse Society) Preliminary and Novice stage Dressage tests (my teachers idea, not mine) and found to my surprise that I really enjoyed it (once it was over). I've also started jumping fences (this is my idea) - cool! In 2004 I finally rode western (in Argentina) and found it to be much more relaxed and easier than I imagined, the horses there were very well trained and forgiving.
In September 1999 I finally took up Kung Fu, Wing Chun to be precise. I've always enjoy watching Bruce Lee
movies but never really thought I could learn such an art. My sister Helen and I are now keen students of Wing Chun
which is a great fighting system, our teachers are very good, and it is having the side effect of getting me fit
again. Check out their website at UKWCFKA if you'd like to know more. I train mainly at
my local kwoon which is at the London HQ in Southgate. Being
a photographer I took this photo of our 2006 Advanced class
From 13 to 22 years of age I was in the Air Training Corps, the Air Cadets, No. 2473 (Southgate School) Squadron, rising to the rank of Cadet
Warrant Officer (CWO) and in my last 2 years there we won the Middlesex Wing Drill Competition held at RAF Uxbridge. I stayed in the ATC during
my time at University reading Physics at UCL (University College London).
I then spent a short time in the Royal Air Force rising to Flying Officer but found the job to be mostly man management which I was not
interested in. I was however, very good at programming and even wrote an interception algorithm on a programmable
calculator (RPN) we used "in field" for quick checks, so the world of Information Technology seemed a sensible and exciting field to enter. I did so via the Oil Industry where I worked for NL Baroid as a logger and computer operator. After passing
the prerequisite traning I did a two week hitch on the semi-submersible exploration rig Glomar Arctic One, working 12hrs on 12hrs off, nights
first week then days second. This was well paid and the food on board was of the highest standards, but I have never liked the sea and one 80 foot wave
which we encountered settled my mind for a life onshore. In January 1988 I joined EDS and have never looked back.
On the 25th of July 2004 I married Angela, we moved into our new house after the honeymoon in Thailand. You can find details of all of these events on my site, follow the Trips or Events links from the home page.
On the 17th of December 2008 Angela gave birth to an 8lb 1oz beautiful baby boy whom we named Leonidas after the King of Sparta, of the 300 fame.
Here is some information about my home computer systems.
TheoWare International (author of tzsh) is building a new HQ, bigger than global, it's
intergalactic. It's still in the early stages of construction. Here's a view of the project as it stands now.
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