Contact Information

739 Main St.
Akron, PA 17501
Phone: 717-271-1084
Email: mah@nichework.com
URL: hexmode.com

Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana

Technical Skills

Front End

HTML5, jQuery, AJAX, JavaScript, XHTML.

PHP

PHP5, APC, XDebug, PHPUnit, Command Line PHP.
Various PHP Frameworks : MediaWiki, Symfony, Drupal

Perl

CPAN Author : Image::Grab, IO::BLOB::Pg, Filesys::Virtual, POE::Component::Server::XMLRPC, Software::Packager::Svr4.
Knowledge : mod_perl/Apache, DBI, POE.

Open Source Contributor

Linux Distributions : Contributing PHP packages (MDB2, hardy's XDebug) to Debian and Ubuntu.
Emacs : Contributor to Emacs with copyright assignment papers on file with the FSF.
MediaWiki : Contributing to MediaWiki, managing public releases and planning long-term maintenance for MW 1.19.

Mail Administration

Mail and Calendar Suite : Zimbra
Mail Transfer Agents : postfix, exim, sendmail, qmail.
Spam Filtering : SpamAssassin, Amavis.
Virus Scanning : ClamAV.

Protocols

LDAP : OpenLDAP.
SQL : MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL.
Web Services : XML-RPC, REST, JSON-RPC (BloggerAPI, MetaWeblogAPI, Bugzilla, MediaWiki clients).

Developer/Consultant Employment History

MediaWiki-related Projects

MediaWiki Release Management: Formed a partnership with 'Hallo Welt' to manage MediaWiki releases on a contract basis for Wikimedia.

Upgrading Sherwin Willliams internal MediaWiki: Upgraded and customized their MediaWiki system
Implemented a way to separate MySQL schema changes from the regular upgrade process for MediaWiki so that they could be handled by Sherwin Williams' DBA. This code is now in MediaWiki (link needed)

WikiPathways customizations for Gladstone Institute: Extended their highly customized implementation at WikiPathways.org, while bringing them more in line with MediaWiki best practices

WikiHow upgrade: Consulting with WikiHow as they upgrade their MediaWiki installation (with extensive customizations) to the latest version of MediaWiki.

Contract Developer/Bugmeister
Wikimedia Foundation

Organized public bug reporting for the Wikimedia projects; held regular bug triages; and worked to build community relationships so that the Foundation more rapidly resolved issues.

Achievements

Community liaison for UploadWizard: Opened lines of communications between Commons admins and the WMF developer charged with the development of UploadWizard
Coordination between paid and volunteer developers: Arranged cooperation between the developers of the Collection Extension and the BookManager Extension integrate BookManager into the Collection extension.
Beta Wikimedia deployment: Used WikiMedia Labs environment to work with community members, admins and editors from different projects to find and solve significant issues with Resource Loader — MediaWiki's method to allow users to extend the site with JavaScript gadgets.
Production Deployment problem triage: I was able to build valuable relationships and find people to help in future roll-outs as well as get problems solved before they hit larger projects

Open Source Developer
IntraHealth International, Inc.

Worked on multiple open-source software projects, including travelling to client countries (in my case, Rwanda and Uganda) to help IT workers there implement Open Source solutions:

open.intrahealth.org: Set up MediaWiki as a repository for sharing information with our partners and clients.
iHRIS Suite: Focused on integration with Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu) and adapting the PHP-based software suite to the [WAMP] platform to run standalone on a Windows Desktop.
Human Resources for Health (HRH) Global Resource Center upgrade: Upgraded the HRH GRC site maintained out by the USAID's Capacity Project.
Knowledge Management for Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH): Integrated Joomla and Knowledgetree to provide a complete KM solution for the MoH.

SysAdmin/Web Developer Team Gigabyte

Implemented front-end enhancements using AJAX and PHP. Later, managed production; the integration systems; the autobuild system; the custom Ubuntu package repository; backups; and system monitoring via a combination of Cacti, Swatch and Nagios.

Wrote custom handlers to produce fast geographical lookups using PHP for a Front End move to MediaWiki. Migrated our custom package repository to Amazon’s S3.

General Projects

Regularly working with corporations in the Forbes Fortune 50.

New Orleans Jazzfest spam filtering: Maintenance on New Orleans Jazzfest's anti-spam relay

XML Namespace handling for Emacs : Provided initial implementation for XML namespaces in Emacs

weblogger.el: Developed a weblogging client for Emacs that supports XML-RPC APIs
xml-rpc.el: Assumed maintainer-ship of the XML-RPC library for Emacs.

PHP Developer
Comcast

Worked with the XPlat group to develop a tool written in the Symfony framework that will ease troubleshooting for Tier 2+ helpdesk

SysAdmin/Web Developer
Layover, Inc.

Managed servers and maintained legacy code base. Planned and initiated a site-wide move from custom template system with a mix of custom CGI code to Catalyst and Template Toolkit.

Primary SysAdmin
Clark for President, Inc.

Managed the Linux-based network at the Headquarters as well the Linux servers co-located in Little Rock and New York City.

Implemented virus and spam scanning using open-source tools for all campaign email addresses to save staffer hours and campaign funds.

Saved the campaign $50,000 on a contract by bench-marking a vendor's field outreach tool: my measurements showed the tool became unusable with even a small number of users. The contract was cancelled.

SysAdmin
J. Ray McDermott (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Responsible for maintenance of DNS resolution ; SMTP gateway router; FTP servers; HTTP Proxy; and SOCKS proxy. Applied security upgrades and implemented Auditor's security recommendations.

Developed and Deployed a spam and virus scanning system using mimedefang, Trend Micro's virus engine and SpamAssassin.
Developed bootable CDROM to deploy UNIX systems without using a JumpStart server.
Developed a means of packaging Solaris SVR4 directory-format packages without the use of Solaris tools (e.g. without pkgmk).

JCALS SysAdmin

Maintained documentation storage system for Air Force Reserve base.

Performed additional SysAdmin duties including working with the FBI and Navy Security to track down a hacker.

Form 1003 submission: Developed an automated system for Standard Mortgage that would take input from a web-page to submit a prepared Form 1003 to Fannie Mae for a lending decision. The decision would then be given back to the user. Implemented entirely with Apache and Perl using a custom Perl module.

SysAdmin
Baily Link, Inc.

Registered domain names. Created and implemented policies for a separate development and production servers, as well as for a version control system for internally developed software.

SysAdmin
Department of Interior (Minerals Management Service)

Maintained the DNS; developed an interim web-based solution for plotting and displaying over 200GB of well-logs; implemented CFEngine to ease Solaris workstation maintenance. Installed and maintained the proxy servers for the Gulf and California locations.

Computer Operations Supervisor
Tulane University (EECS Department)

Administrated over 40 Sun Solaris workstations; three servers; and several Microsoft Windows 95 Personal Computers. Also managed student workers.

Official Resume

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