CV IT achievements
Introduction
The home and training course achievements are listed first, since they are generally of more recent vintage, followed by the much larger set of achievements relating to what I did at work. Most of my training achievements are described in detail elsewhere, so links are provided here.
If you're not interested in this stuff, skip this page and the next one titled CV IT technical details, because it won't interest you either. Go to the page after that, which is titled Career options in offices.
At home and training
Workshops on internet feedback issues, 2011
A research group offered me the chance to attend two workshops discussing internet feedback issues, particularly in regard to reviewing and rating, in London. I was invited on the basis of my Amazon profile to attend and to give a presentation lasting 15 to 20 minutes. It was titled My experience as a top 10 Amazon reviewer. I was told that I could use slides if I wanted to but said that I wouldn't be using them. I told some of my friends and one of them offered to do me some slides anyway. These slides actually made things a lot easier as they helped me to focus on the issues. I'd only done one presentation in my life before, way back in 1974 or 1975.
The first workshop was mostly taken up with presentations including mine, which went down very well with the audience, but there was some discussion towards the end. The second workshop was all discussion. I later attended the conference in Oxford that marked the effective end of the project. In terms of future job prospects, doing that presentation was the important task. I created a very positive impression that day.
At home (2008 to present)
I bought a new computer in March 2008 and connected it to the internet. It uses Windows Vista. I still have my previous computer, which I bought in 1999 and which runs on Windows 98 SE. I don't use it much now, especially as it is not connected to the internet, but it includes MS Office, which my new PC doesn't, so I still use it occasionally, especially when I want to play around with EXCEL.
Leicester college and at home (2004 to present)
I learned the basics of web design at Leicester College and have since spent a lot of time developing my skills using HTML and CSS, as I explain in Blog setup. I plan to learn a lot of other web design skills in the future although this will be a slow process if I have to teach myself everything. There is no substitute for a commercial environment when it comes to learning quickly.
At home (1997 to 1998)
I practised Visual Basic extensively for several months.
Interquad, Birmingham (1997)
I attended a business administration course that gave me an introduction to contemporary word processing, spreadsheets and databases, themselves now somewhat out-dated. Towards the end of that course, I revised the WORDPERFECT course training guide.
Kalamazoo, Birmingham (1996)
I attended a C programming course.
At work
Comments
Except as otherwise indicated, these jobs involved a lot of programming, usually in COBOL but sometimes in FILETAB or other languages. Apart from the programming, I did plenty of testing, which covered everything from preparation or acquisition of test data through program testing to system testing and parallel running. I sometimes provided documentation where none existed or improved the existing documentation where it was not up to standard or out of date.
Contact with users varied. In some places, I never had any communication with users but in others I talked to them frequently. In these cases, I encouraged them to let me know what problems they had with the software I worked on. This sometimes surprised them as most computer people (especially programmers) prefer to keep such matters hidden. I prefer to know about any problems and, wherever possible, correct them and thereby keep the users content.
All these jobs involved basic administration tasks such as filing, photocopying, etc.
XKO, Narborough (1998 to 2002)
I helped maintain their package of about fifteen interlocking systems that covered order processing, sales ledger, sales analysis, stock control, warehousing and other systems that I recognized from earlier projects in manufacturing and engineering, although XKO's clients were mainly food or pharmaceutical businesses. The package was tailored to suit individual clients but was difficult to maintain because of the age and complexity of the code.
Yellow Pages, Reading (1989 to 1990)
I prepared one-off reports for clients as required, discussing their requirements, programming the code and presenting the final results.
Somerset county council, Taunton (1988 to 1989)
As a contractor, I converted their payroll system from ICL DME to ICL VME single handed, albeit I was provided with the test data by one of the council’s own staff. This job was originally intended to be shared between three or four people, but their services were not required on the payroll system, so they were diverted to converting other systems. Testing involved running the new versions of the programs and comparing the results with those produced by the old versions using the same data. The comparison wasn’t always straightforward even with good comparison software, since conversion occasionally involved changes that made direct comparison in that way difficult. In these cases, it was sometimes necessary to modify the results from the old programs to allow comparison to take place.
Although I spent most of my time converting the payroll system, I also converted several small systems (often just three or four programs each) in the same way. Some of these systems were for the local health authority, which used the county council computer facilities.
Crown Life, Woking (1988)
AA, Basingstoke (1981)
These projects involved performance improvements to poorly-performing systems. The new versions of the programs had to produce exactly the same end results as the old versions, but do so much more efficiently. While they sometimes involved a lot of programming, the nature of the changes required different methods of testing from conventional maintenance and development projects. I therefore did a considerable amount of parallel running, using special comparison software to identify any differences between old and new results. Occasionally, these comparisons exposed bugs in the old systems that had been corrected by improving the code. This was great, but made the task more complicated. Other projects apart from those at Crown Life and the AA, including my most recent one at XKO, also involved some work on performance improvements.
London Life, Bristol (1988)
I enhanced their quotations system to cater for LAUTRO, the then new regulatory authority.
ICL, Reading (1987)
I helped develop a system for British American insurance.
Ford, Daventry (1986)
Woolworth, Rochdale (1984)
Bath and Portland Group (1980 to 1981)
At these and other sites, I did a lot of maintenance. Most programmers dislike maintenance (as I did in the beginning), but it favours me because employers quickly find out where the talent lies. On a development project, it can be several months before a bad programmer is exposed and even longer before any damage is repaired.
Black and Decker, Spennymoor (1986)
I helped tailor the MSA manufacturing package to suit Black and Decker's own requirements.
Rothmans, Aylesbury (1985)
I helped develop their online sales analysis system.
Pirelli, Southampton (1984 to 1985)
I did some maintenance work on old ICL systems and also converted their Sports Club membership system from ICL to IBM.
UK Provident Life, Salisbury (1983 to 1984)
This was the biggest project I ever worked on, employing well over 100 contractors at its peak. It was a policy accounting system that was never fully implemented because the business was eventually taken over by Friends Provident, Dorking.
Listmart, Henley-on-Thames (1983)
I helped convert their unified housing benefits package from ZILOG to ICL, though my involvement was purely at the ICL end of the conversion. Although the headquarters were in Henley, all the work was done at other sites. I spent time at Caernarfon, Bracknell, Waterlooville and Newbury.
Powell Duffryn, Basingstoke (1982)
I helped convert their production control system to make it saleable by DEC to other customers. This involved replacing a series of in-house routines by DBMS code that performed the same functions in a different way. The bill of materials function was particularly interesting.
ICL, Bristol (1982)
I helped convert a health patient administration package from ICL 2900 to run on the smaller ICL ME29. This unusual conversion gave clients a choice. Some of them clearly did not wish to replace their ME29 with 2900 machines when they still had spare capacity on their existing computer.
ICL, Leeds (1977 to 1980)
I made an important contribution to the LAMIS project, both programming and on the operating system procedures. LAMIS (which stood for local authority management information system, not to be confused with the more recent but unrelated LAnd Management Information System) later evolved into PLANES (sorry, can't expand that acronym) and that system was still in use by several local authorities during the nineties and maybe beyond.
Gateshead metropolitan borough council (1975 to 1977)
I was the key programmer in the development of their social services system. Apart from programming, I was heavily involved in developing operating system procedures. I also developed a series of programs to cross check the integrity of the test data, which evolved and expanded considerably. From a quick fix designed to identify test data errors, these programs eventually became a useful auditing tool even after the system went live. As a result of these programs, live implementation was incredibly smooth and the system proved to be very reliable.
Capital Cities, Watford (1975)
Part of my time at ACS, London. I helped develop a union membership system for the National Association of Schoolmasters. (Note - the union later merged with the Union of Women Teachers to became NASUWT.) Capital Cities was an appropriately named software house, having offices in London and Edinburgh. At the time, it was rare for one software house to do work for another but I guess that this practice is likely to be commoner now.
Black and Decker, Maidenhead (1975)
Part of my time at ACS, London. I helped enhance their stock control system to incorporate bulk haulage between major depots.
Department of Employment, Watford (1974)
Part of my time at ACS, London. As well as developing programs, I developed complex operating system procedures including automatic restart, recovery and date change mechanisms for their employment survey systems.
Smiths Industries, Cricklewood (1973 to 1974)
Part of my time at ACS, London. I helped develop their stock control system. Power cuts caused by the miners' strike presented a challenge famously known as the three-day week, successfully overcome.
Ready Mixed Concrete, Feltham (1973)
Part of my time at ACS, London. I helped put the then new Value Added Tax into their system for invoicing self-employed drivers.
Plessey, Swindon (1969 to 1973)
The world of computing was very different then. I started my career using equipment that seems very primitive now, including punched cards, paper tape, enormous reel to reel magnetic tapes, barrel printers and very fragile exchangeable disc drives. The software was very different too. Computers did accounting with old-style sterling currency that used shillings and pence. Factory workers were paid in cash so the payroll included a coin analysis routine to work out how many of each coin and banknote should go in each pay packet. Oh yes, things were very different then, but they changed a lot even while mainframe computers remained dominant and I kept pace with all the changes.
As a consequence of working in such a primitive environment (though it didn't seem primitive at the time), I learned a lot about how computers do their work and the importance of testing thoroughly, giving me experience that younger programmers never had the opportunity to learn. This stood me in good stead later on.
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