There is a little sprite sitting above my head. You can move her around with the keys listed below. So far I have spent 3 hours building this mini game (from scratch, no previous experience, just common sense).
I'm building this little mini game to teach myself Vim's many shortcuts I can never remember but are super helpful.
That's all it does for now ... come back to see how it evolves
It's only hard until it's done, but if it's shit it's shit forever. ..more
- Tim Schafer
Tim Schafer is one of my favourite game developers ... being CEO of Double Fine Productions. This quote was a throw away comment he made during the production of Broken Age and resonated with me. My take away is to work hard and not cut corners. The extra time is worth it in the result.
Even while an active member of New Zealand's Fitness Industry, I dabbled in computer programming and web design to market myself and automate my surroundings. From the fitness industry, I transitioned into web design, focusing on the magic that can be created with a little javascript in the right place, pulling something that looked a little "flat" into something that popped.
From there I stumbled over the Linux operating system and was pulled back to my childhood playing with my Sega 3000. I was transformed. I learned to script in Bash, automating my everyday tasks, used Php to really ramp up the usefulness of my websites and thought I'd better formalise this information.
Massey University opened my eyes for a second time. This time to languages, algorithms, and data manipulation techniques. I realised that while the syntax of languages change, they mostly boil down to the same basic functions and at that point I started picking languages to suit the project, not forcing projects to suit my favourite language.
iQualify is a LMS serving many New Zealand education providers and commercial partners, such as Open Polytechnic Wellington (now under the Te Pukenga umbrella).
Full Stack Lead: Engineering, Architecture and Availability
Fascinated by the information I can pull from my surroundings, I have slowly built and scrapped data to make the information I care about be available at my fingertips
I added NodeMCU platforms with temperature and humidity sensors after I purchased a Tuya sensor that required connection to an overseas server and was only accessable with a smartphone. I wanted more quality access to my data.
Current methods for making Submissions and Further Submissions are time consuming for staff and the public.
This project is designed to collect user Submissions and provide them to Local Government staff for review and acceptance. Upon acceptance, documents can be prepared for the Panel.
Project life cycle was 18 months
The brief for this project was to take a board game where each player takes turns and change it so that all players play at the same time.
This was the Massey Universtiy Capstone Project. I was paired with 4 other extramural students, each of us was working full time and 3 of us had families as well.
Project life cycle was 12 WEEKS
My grade for this project: A+ (see Downloadable CV for transcript)
I switched over to Linux 15 years ago, loading Xubuntu on an ailing XP laptop and was instantly converted.
This project required we build two independent mapping solutions. The first map was to demonstrate the major attactions on the West Coast of the South Island and difficulty getting to those areas posed. Most tourists saw the 130km distance but didn't appreciate the winding roads that would get them there.
The second map was part of an Itinerary building plugin we developed. It connects to BookIt servers, grabs all the available accommodation, dining and activities and places them on the map. Users can then build an itinerary and book from it.
Please Note
They have chosen their own hosting and it is starting to suffer performance issues.
Project life cycle was 12 months
This project was initally slated to be an online portal where multiple retailers could sell their goods from a single "online mall". It's point of difference was that it would allow local retailers to compete against larger corporate entities while retaining their independence.
Project life cycle was 9 months
They have chosen their own hosting and it is starting to suffer performance issues.
These are small projects that keep the lights on:
I realised I lack the visual design skill but I can make a website do just about anything you want which is why I prioritise White Label work for other developers / graphic designers rather than
Requirements:
Allow the general public to make digital submissions on upcoming Plans.
Current Situation:
Council staff take submissions by post, transcribe them into software, copy to Excel Spreadsheet to create emailing and Panel lists.
Goal:
All in one Saas package to easily provide required functionality.
Requirements:
Hold all information separately from core Django code to insulate data from code bugs / upgrades
Goal:
Allow bugs in code to be fixed, upgrades to run and All in one Saas package to easily provide required functionality.
Goal:
Create a rapid development environment with small goals tracked using burndown charts. We set up testing and CI/CD first so that all development would benefit from consistent and automated protection of the master branch. All merge requests require testing notes. Those notes are used test the merge request along with any other tests that the merger can think of before a request is merged.
Conclusion:
Building custom SaaS using Python, Bash, Docker and Postgres on an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server will be listed as one of my favourite projects. The opportunity to build a custom 3NF database, write the Tests that govern functionality and then to deploy it to a custom server configured to run the project optimally was an experience I wish to repeat.
Requirements:
Take 5 extramural students and bring them together to pick and build a video game based on a current board game.
Current Situation:
Goal:
Maintain an efficient (and stable) API with all data being passed for each round inside a single packet. Keep the API as lean as possible and reduce bloat where applicable.
In the last 2 weeks, we added an extra data channel in to allow in round trading which was separate from the API itself.
Successfully maintaining the API was a cornerstone of our success as everyone was on the same when passing data in a loosly typed language.
Notes:
Apart from the Home wiki, which was a collaborative effort, I maintained the documentation for the project making sure they were up to date as the models changed (especially the API).
We constantly reinforced checking the wiki before starting each Issue to see how it would tie in gracefully into the existing layout.
Goal:
Protect the master branch. The master should always be a stable and well managed branch and it is the "mergers" job to preserve that stability. Therefore any errors on the master would be traced back to the person that merged the code and a review made of why it was accepted initially.
The office server backs up all the Digital Ocean servers with a custom bash script executing Duplicity. Further bash scripts take 3 hourly SQL backups from each DO server.
For data protection I used RAID 1 to allow for a complete drive failure without affecting performance.
Reasoning
I have an uneasy feeling about trusting my data (files, pictures, communication) to large multi-national corporations that use my data to generate income. I'm not a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, I just like to be responsible for the safety and security of my own work product and documentation.
Reasoning:
Digital Ocean provide a solid price to performance metric for hosting projects. There is the ability to scale droplets to meet demand and offload core function to another provider while retaining database and Spaces functionality in the platform.
As each droplet is a full linux VM, performance tweaks can be made to improve the user experience.
SSH access to each droplet allows for rapid updating, deployment and debugging.
For every new release of Ubuntu, I create a separate partition and run my custom bash script from my local gitlab instance. Within 20 minutes, I have all my tools and softlinks to the Storage folders loaded. This keeps bloat to a minimum and gets rid of those pesky bugs that creep in while I test new projects and software.
Notes:
I run virtualbox for testing Linux distros, if I need to test using Windows specific software(Windows 8 and 10), or open my digital wallets (on separate VM's).
I am happy as a pig in muck ducking in and out of servers and docker containers using ssh. I back up files before I edit them. I don't mind if vim or nano are available, I'll use what's there and I won't "fluff" about making the environment "nicer" to use. I like to get in, make it work efficiently and get out (documenting as I go of course).
I run zsh, spacemacs and nvim on my local machine but all servers run stock bash, vim and nano as the less third party interference the better.
The tip of my cli tools are: cat, grep, less, man, ls -la, chown, chmod, scp, git xxxx, ssh xxxx, rm (-r), rmdir, mkdir, touch, cd, tail and piping together makes them more efficient again.
I generally find it quicker to open a terminal and do what I need to do than use the GUI interface with the majority of programs. If there is an opportunity to automate the terminal commands for later use, I'll add that to my bin folder and if not, I'll add it to my markdown library of commands or the appropriate wiki.
Reasoning
I have an uneasy feeling about trusting my data (files, pictures, communication) to large multi-national corporations that use my data to generate income. I'm not a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, I just like to be responsible for the safety and security of my own work product and documentation.
Reasoning:
Digital Ocean provide a solid price to performance metric for hosting projects. There is the ability to scale droplets to meet demand and offload core function to another provider while retaining database and Spaces functionality in the platform.
As each droplet is a full linux VM, performance tweaks can be made to improve the user experience.
SSH access to each droplet allows for rapid updating, deployment and debugging.
For every new release of Ubuntu, I create a separate partition and run my custom bash script from my local gitlab instance. Within 20 minutes, I have all my tools and softlinks to the Storage folders loaded. This keeps bloat to a minimum and gets rid of those pesky bugs that creep in while I test new projects and software.
Notes:
I run virtualbox for testing Linux distros, if I need to test using Windows specific software(Windows 8 and 10), or open my digital wallets (on separate VM's).
I am happy as a pig in muck ducking in and out of servers and docker containers using ssh. I back up files before I edit them. I don't mind if vim or nano are available, I'll use what's there and I won't "fluff" about making the environment "nicer" to use. I like to get in, make it work efficiently and get out (documenting as I go of course).
I run zsh, spacemacs and nvim on my local machine but all servers run stock bash, vim and nano as the less third party interference the better.
The tip of my cli tools are: cat, grep, less, man, ls -la, chown, chmod, scp, git xxxx, ssh xxxx, rm (-r), rmdir, mkdir, touch, cd, tail and piping together makes them more efficient again.
I generally find it quicker to open a terminal and do what I need to do than use the GUI interface with the majority of programs. If there is an opportunity to automate the terminal commands for later use, I'll add that to my bin folder and if not, I'll add it to my markdown library of commands or the appropriate wiki.
Reasoning
I have an uneasy feeling about trusting my data (files, pictures, communication) to large multi-national corporations that use my data to generate income. I'm not a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, I just like to be responsible for the safety and security of my own work product and documentation.
Reasoning:
Digital Ocean provide a solid price to performance metric for hosting projects. There is the ability to scale droplets to meet demand and offload core function to another provider while retaining database and Spaces functionality in the platform.
As each droplet is a full linux VM, performance tweaks can be made to improve the user experience.
SSH access to each droplet allows for rapid updating, deployment and debugging.
For every new release of Ubuntu, I create a separate partition and run my custom bash script from my local gitlab instance. Within 20 minutes, I have all my tools and softlinks to the Storage folders loaded. This keeps bloat to a minimum and gets rid of those pesky bugs that creep in while I test new projects and software.
Notes:
I run virtualbox for testing Linux distros, if I need to test using Windows specific software(Windows 8 and 10), or open my digital wallets (on separate VM's).
I am happy as a pig in muck ducking in and out of servers and docker containers using ssh. I back up files before I edit them. I don't mind if vim or nano are available, I'll use what's there and I won't "fluff" about making the environment "nicer" to use. I like to get in, make it work efficiently and get out (documenting as I go of course).
I run zsh, spacemacs and nvim on my local machine but all servers run stock bash, vim and nano as the less third party interference the better.
The tip of my cli tools are: cat, grep, less, man, ls -la, chown, chmod, scp, git xxxx, ssh xxxx, rm (-r), rmdir, mkdir, touch, cd, tail and piping together makes them more efficient again.
I generally find it quicker to open a terminal and do what I need to do than use the GUI interface with the majority of programs. If there is an opportunity to automate the terminal commands for later use, I'll add that to my bin folder and if not, I'll add it to my markdown library of commands or the appropriate wiki.
Part of a tight knit team and an even tighter ...
From soliciting work to invoicing clients, running servers to bugfixing code. At Coded, we take Full Stack to it's broadest terms, short of running physical cable door to door. We run our servers through Digital Ocean with an inhouse backup, maintain the servers and troubleshoot performance issues, build the projects, maintain the paperwork and follow good record keeping practices.
From changing nappies through to counting up to 10, the stresses invlolved with such a unique role have been evident on the colour of my hair and the lines on my face. Raising twins, balancing the books of my wifes business, studying at Massey and working part time designing websites (a very young CODED) pushed me to work on my biggest personal flaw, perseverance.
I had 3 main roles at Sport Marlborough. Get employees moving, get patients moving and get community members active. Apart from the paperwork, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.
From a full custom build from the ground up to a custom modification of an existing system, I'm equally at home driving forward the project to it's completion.
Whether it's in PHP or Python, Java or Javascipt, C# or Sass, I will apply my skills for planning, building, testing and deployment to get the job over the line on time.
Now this is where I enjoy myself. When the project requires more than just a shiny interface and some animations, I get excited.
Pulling data from multiple sources and displaying it in a way that allows for sound business decisions is where I thrive.
Give me a challenge that includes databases, apis and a well planned timeline and you might as well adopt me ... because this is where I will be living from now on.
All of my android experience has been through projects for myself and my family, mainly repurposing old android equipment to use after it has reached it's useful EOL. See below for my android projects.
Not a clue.
Please don't ask me to write for IOS unless you factor in a bit of learning time. Swift doesn't scare me, just never used it.
The BS that flows from my keyboard should be quite evident by now but if there is still some doubt, came and have a look at some of the 200 articles I have written for the Marlborough Express daily newspaper. There you will see that I can turn my hand to any topic, after a bit of research.
Much to my extended family's disgust (or indifference), I have never had the inclination to try and hold a tune. I'll sing in the shower and in my office when the other businesses are closed for the day but provide lip service to the family gatherings that require a tune to be sung. Lip service is better than the the alternative so I believe in this regard I am providing a valuable service.
BSc - Computer Science Major
Cert. Fitness Industry Training
BSc - Double Major, Physics and Mathmatics
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