Minor Development Projects (1994 – )

Summary	Minor development projects for various clients
Key Outcomes	Successful proofs of concept for novel development ideas. Various minor applications in wide public use.
Key Challenges	Need to keep track with changing target development platforms. Occasional need to learn new technologies very quickly.
Key Technologies	Basic4Android, C++, XML, Java, Visual Basic / VB.NET / VBA, PHP, WordPress

Although the bulk of my work is strategic, I have continued to engage in regular minor development work using a wide variety of technologies. Much of this is self-funded, as a combination of hobby and continuing professional development. However other instances have been funded by major clients, usually to explore and prove the viability of novel solution concepts.

I have a strong track record of both being able to invent and prove innovative solutions, and to quickly come up to speed with new technologies in order to do so. Many of my best solutions have been direct refutations of statements that a certain thing “cannot possibly be done that way”.

Key Examples

	The “Fault to Parts” knowledge base application within the idWorkshop system (ASP.NET and VB.NET)
	Ongoing development of an “app” for Android to manage and secure mixed but related content. (Basic4Android)
	CAQuest, a plugin for the popular Bibble/AfterShot RAW image processing platform, providing advanced settings management and “profiling” capabilities. This was developed using C++ and the Nokia QT framework, and runs on Windows, OSX and Linux from a single code base.
	A component for National Grid’s EAI architecture which compares and enriches related XML messages as they flow through the system, enabling better downstream routing depending on what has changed. (Java)
	Another component of the same EAI architecture which translates between two very different core message models, using a “reflection” approach and a rule table to replace a very large number of hand-coded complex transformations. (Java)
	A testing tool to drive like for like performance testing across several generations of National Grid’s enterprise content management system, and allowing simulation of the expected load (for 5000 users) from just 6 PCs. (VB.NET)
	ConQuest, a prototype Container Yard Management system which (in 1994) provided drag and drop visualisation and optimisation of container moves. (Visual Basic)
	RelQuest, a fault tree analysis addin for Microsoft Visio originally developed to support my reliability study for Oracle / BSkyB. (Visual Basic / VBA)
	A “Heat Mapping” addin for Excel developed to help British Energy visualise a complex multi-dimensional requirement set. (VBA)
	WordPress plugins to enable effective integration of WordPress into a larger site with substantial non-WordPress content. (WordPress, PHP)