Personal details
I work as a research associate at the University of Kent for the CoSMoS project.
| Address | Computing Laboratory, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NF |
| Phone number | 07930 250969 (mobile) |
| Email address | ats@offog.org |
| Date of birth | 25th September 1981 |
Education
| 2000 to present | University of Kent at Canterbury |
| 1992 to 1999 | Sevenoaks
School, Sevenoaks, Kent I held a major academic scholarship and a music exhibition. |
| 1986 to 1992 | Russell House School, Otford, Kent |
Academic qualifications
| Computer Science MEng (2004) |
First-class
Master of Engineering with honours in Computer Science from the
University of Kent
This was a four-year course, since discontinued; its closest current equivalent at Kent is the three-year Bachelor of Science degree followed by the one-year MSc Distributed Systems and Networks degree. |
| International Baccalaureate
(1999) |
Higher Level: Physics (7), Maths (6), Chemistry (6)
Subsidiary Level: Music (7), English (7), German (6) |
| AS Level (1997) |
Applied Maths (A) |
| GCSE (1995-1997) |
Electronics (A*), Physics (A*), Chemistry (A*), Biology (A*), English Literature (A*), Mathematics (A), German (A), French (A), English Language (A), History (B) |
Employment
| 2007 to present | Research associate on the CoSMoS project. |
| Summer 2004 | UK Mirror Service
Software archaeology: documenting how the Mirror Service's half-million lines of code work in detail. Managing migration from mirror.ac.uk to mirrorservice.org. |
| Summer 2003 | UK Mirror Service
Performance enhancement work on the Mirror Service FTP/HTTP/rsync servers. Construction and configuration of a Linux RAID system for disaster recovery. Initial development on new RDF-based mirroring control system. |
| Summer 2002 | UK Mirror Service
Development of an rsync frontend, a real-time usage monitoring system and performance-testing tools for the Mirror Service. Various feature and performance enhancements to the existing Mirror Service C++/Perl codebase. |
| Summer 2001 | Ricardo Consulting Engineers
Development of a design process management system in C++, making use of CGI, WebDAV (via Neon) and custom socket code on Windows 2000 and various Unix platforms. Development of a cross-platform Java-based frontend for the above, using Swing and Java2D. Enhancement of an existing co-simulation library to allow communication between different simulation packages running on Solaris, Tru64 UNIX, HP/UX, AIX, Irix, Linux and Windows NT/2000 machines over a network, handling data format conversion between different machine architectures. |
| 1999 to 2000 | Ricardo Consulting Engineers
Development of fluid dynamics data analysis tools in C under Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and IRIX. Development of a GUI for a mechanical simulation system using MS Visual C++ and Stingray Objective Studio under Windows NT, and porting the same package to Solaris, HP-UX and Irix using MainSoft MainWin and Bristol Technologies Wind/U. |
| 1999 to 2002, part-time | Ravensbourne College of
Design and Communication
Development of various web-based applications (including a booking system for equipment and a fault-reporting system) using Perl and VBScript under ASP with a Microsoft SQL Server database. Construction and maintenance of Linux-based firewall and NAT systems. |
Skills and interests
- I have experience programming in a number of languages including C, C++, Python, Perl, occam, Java, VBScript, Haskell, Unix shell script, and IA32, Z80 and PIC assembler. While I'm not a graphic designer, I have a good working knowledge of web technologies, and maintain a number of web sites.
- I'm familiar with software design in the object-oriented and process-oriented paradigms, and have some experience of embedded development. My primary research interest is the design of highly-concurrent systems, with particular emphasis on systems and simulation work.
- I develop and maintain a variety of Open Source software for Unix-like systems, available from my web pages; my "rawdog" feed aggregator software has a large userbase and is included with many Linux distributions, and my "GARstow" software packaging system is used to manage software on the CS machines at UKC. I have made contributions to several other Open Source projects.
- Since 1999, I've managed a Linux machine that provides hosting services for a group of friends (and friends-of-friends, and university societies), and wrote a suite of tools for managing multiple web sites and their corresponding DNS and mail services. I've done similar administrative work for the UKC Computing Society's public machines; I also built several thin client workstations for Compsoc. I designed, built and maintained for several years Ravensbourne College's Linux firewall system.
- I have used and developed software under various operating systems, including Linux, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, AIX, Tru64 UNIX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Microsoft Windows, on various hardware architectures. I have experience of porting software between different systems and compilers. I've used Linux exclusively at home since 1998.
- I enjoy designing and building electronic devices; I have built several small Z80-based computers from scratch (and written operating systems for them), and reached the regional finals of the 1997 Young Electronic Designer of the Year Award with a microcontroller-based project. More recently I've built a computerised electricity usage monitoring system for the house I lived in.
- I'm a keen musician: I currently play fretless bass guitar, piano, mandola, octave mandola, Irish bouzouki, guitar, ukulele and hand percussion. I played double bass and piano in several classical and jazz groups at school; these days I'm more likely to play rock or folk music with friends. I have some experience in sound recording, mixing and editing, and have a MIDI-based home studio.
- My collection of books numbers several thousand, and I'm well-read in a variety of genres; I particularly enjoy speculative and historical fiction. I also have fairly extensive collections of early microcomputers and recorded music.
- I've supervised undergraduate classes in parallel programming and introductory Java at the University of Kent, and I've helped out with schools robotics activities. I was a member of the Sevenoaks Voluntary Service Unit, where I helped to run science and maths clubs at several local primary schools. I was in charge of sports scoring at Sevenoaks for several years.
- I have served as President and Librarian of the University of Kent Animation Society. I helped to revive the UKC Computing Society, took part in the drafting of its new constitution, and served as Senior Officer (in a dispute-resolution and sysadmin role). I organised a successful PGP tutorial and keysigning at UKC.
- I have a basic command of both spoken and written German; I've taken part in a number of language and music exchanges to Germany, both at school and independently.
- I hold a full UK driving licence, and own a car.