Harry Roberts

Developer, Linux Admin & Human

UNIX® enthusiast, open-source community supporter, confessed geek and avid life-long learner.

I'm currently looking for interesting projects to work on (contract or open-source) or general Linux administration / DC rackmonkey style stuff on a part-time or shift basis in London, UK.

If you feel I could be of some value, please contact me at harry.roberts@midnight-labs.org.

Primary Skills

I have a well rounded Linux and general development orientated background and a can-do attitude towards new or foreign technology. I consider the following to be my core skills, with a summary of the most frequent uses:

C & C++ Competant but non-professional UNIX based developer.
  • STL and Boost
  • Build systems (autoconf/automake)
  • Debugging (gdb, valgrind, cachegrind)
Linux Desktop user for ~10 years, professional ~7 years
  • Non x86 architectures (Opteron, Sparc, PPC, Arm)
  • Kernel-level profiling & performance analysis
  • Security hardening + auditing (Openwall, GrSecurity)
Exposure to most other unices from AT&T v7 to modern day Solaris and NetBSD.
MySQL Both as a developer and system admin, ~7 years
  • Whole system performance tuning (from hardware to queries)
  • 5.x features (triggers, stored procedures)
  • Replication and NDB cluster
PHP Professional 6+ years
  • OO design theory, refactoring and great code.
  • Perfomance profiling and tuning/scalability
  • Security auditing, and "secure by design"

Complementing Skills

While working (professionally and personally) on various projects I've encountered a lot of different technologies which has resulted in a much deeper understanding of my core skill set and the ability to pickup new tech quickly.

SQL
  • Exposure to Oracle & Microsoft SQL at a junior level (sysadmin & developer).
  • Understanding of boolean & set algebra.
Programming Competant Java, Python, Digital Mars D and JavaScript developer with a strong grounding in OO theory and practice.
  • Unit-testing (JUnit, PHPUnit etc. or homebrew)
  • Practical knowledge of DbC and quality assurance.
VoIP Starting in 2006 I've been involved as a VoIP industry insider and have good practical knowledge (albeit not so in-depth) of common technology.
  • Hardware phone auto-configuration.
  • Asterisk and AGI/FastAGI, FreeSWITCH, YaTE
  • Fair understanding of SIP, IAX & H.323
HTML & CSS Good working knowledge of (X)HTML, CSS and web standards.
  • Accessibility in the real-world (and WAI requirements)
  • JavaScript (MochaUI, jQuery etc.)
  • XSLT based document workflows

Work History

Professional and personal references available on request.

BullBearings
2008		 PHP development providing backend administrative sites. In-house Linux/MySQL expertise.
  • Unit testing and documentation.
  • Improvement & auditing of existing framework
  • Evaluated hosting architecture & Amazon EC2
Mukuru
2008		 On-site consultancy and training for (among other things) the Kohana PHP framework and jQuery library.
Telappliant
2006		 Senior developer of B2B applications and billing systems. Responsibilities included:
  • Full-cycle (customer requirements to delivery)
  • Long-term compatibility testing of public APIs.
  • End-user and developer documentation
Key appications developed:
  • Full B2B portal and API
  • Clustered real-time VoIP billing software (Asterisk based)
  • Internal management applications
In addition I researched and demonstrated other software (e.g. FreeSWITCH and YaTE) to increase overall scalability and reduce the dependancy on a single vendor.
Coleg Sir Gâr
2004		 PHP and Java developer, responsibilities included:
  • Managing translations for multi-lingual content
  • Evaluating new technology
  • Server & application support + maintainance
  • Support for faculty staff & lecturers
Key developments included:
  • Large multi-lingual website
  • Unix/Netware integration
  • Large J2EE portal
Due to accessibility laws and a good focus on usability all websites were WAI-AA rated and accredited by the Wales Council for the Blind (WCB).
Freelance
2001		 Working mostly within the web hosting and services industry as a Linux specialist for a huge range of clients. Some common duties included:
  • Server hardening and auditing
  • LAMP stack config and scalability and clustering
  • PHP/MySQL specific optimzation
  • System admin. automation
University of Life
1987		 No formal qualifications or degrees, just my personality and ambition to learn.

In between I've been freelancing and working on a huge variety of different projects, or furthering my skills on open-source projects; more examples can be provided if required.

Open Source

I've been involved in the open-source community for as long as I've been using Linux, contributing to, developing and using many projects and getting involved in the community surrounding them.

I currently provide assistance for PHP and MySQL on the Freenode IRC network, answering questions at all levels and giving much needed insights.

I'm working on the following:

More information can be found on my blog, the CodeBus or my misc. holding place for projects Midnight Labs..



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