Chris Ball - Curriculum Vitae Address CB05, Grosvenor Place, Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HR. Phone number (07766) 523542 E-mail address chris@cpan.org Education 2000-2003 - Degree. University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. (UMIST) Bachelor's degree in Computation. Completed modules include Machine Learning, Data Structures and Algorithms, Discrete Mathematics, Programming and Program Design, Java and Net-centric Computing, Internet and Distributed Computing, Computer Architecture. My third-year project ("A Java compiler retargetted at .NET") explores my interest in compiler design, attempting to modify an existing Java compiler to output .NET assemblies instead of Java classes. The project is made possible by the Java and .NET virtual machines being extremely similar in design, allowing a modified bytecode emitter to convert between the bytecode of the two systems. The biggest gains from the project have been compiler-level knowledge of C++ and Java - I'm working with the Jikes Java compiler, written in C++ - and experience of writing code that strictly adheres to technical specifications. 1998-2000 - A-levels. Cardinal Newman Sixth Form College, Hove. A-Levels in English Language (A), Psychology (B) and Computing (B). 1993-1998 - GCSEs. Cardinal Newman Secondary School, Hove. Eleven GCSEs including Mathematics and English. All eleven at grades A-C. Skills and Hobbies C, C++, CGI, Cryptography, FreeBSD, HTML, Java, Linux (Red Hat, Slackware, Debian distributions), MySQL, Oracle, Perl, Solaris, SQL, Sybase, XML. I have over three years of experience administrating and using Linux machines. I am a capable user of a variety of Unix systems, including IRIX and BSD variants. I am skilled at document preparation using markup tools and have used LaTeX and SGML in documents produced for my course. I have a firm working knowledge of the Internet, not only the World Wide Web; I understand the core protocols and have programmed high level network tools. I have been a member of the admin team for Manchester University's Computer Society since arriving at UMIST in September 2000. This has involved installations of Linux and BSD systems as well as regular checking for relevant security updates, administrating user accounts and software and configuring Exim, Apache, Bind, PHP/Perl and MySQL. CompSoc hosts web, mail and DNS for approximately 30 domains. Music is a big hobby of mine; I play classical and acoustic guitar, piano and bass. I enjoy programming in groups, people, thinking, opinions, whiteboards, and travelling. I was first team captain of the Manchester Universities chess club throughout the 2002-2003 season, playing regularly in league matches and tournaments as well as maintaining the team website and organising travel and players for matches. It was a great season for the team, winning both a county-wide cup (the Wahltuch Trophy) and league promotion. Employment June 2002 - September 2002: IT Analyst, Morgan Stanley UK. Took part in a three-month internship for Morgan Stanley's internal IT department based in Canary Wharf, working in the Unix Engineering, Information Security and Floor Support groups. As well as experiencing a huge technology-oriented company, I obtained experience of both using and administrating Solaris, Sybase and a large VeritasFS-based fibrechannel SAN. While interning, I was fortunate to be part of a small group receiving four days of intensive Perl training from Dr. Damian Conway, a famous figure in the Perl world. At the end of the internship I was given full marks and a recommendation for re-hiring by my line manager. Dec 2000 - June 2002: Web Engineer, FAST Web Media Ltd. Working part-time (20 hours/week, alongside university) for Fast Web Media, a Manchester-based company owned by FAST (www.fastsearch.com). Maintained a large repository of code responsible for parsing data in varied formats in order to move structured records to an Oracle database running on Linux, as well as creatively providing tools for monitoring and analysis. Technologies used included XML and Perl's DBI. FAST's web search division has since been acquired by Overture (www.overture.com). 1997 - Current: Technical Columnist. Writing as a paid freelancer for several sites including linux.com, perl.com, iUniverse.com and binaryfreedom.com. Articles written include guides to installing Linux, interviews with Linux figures (such as the Director of the NCSA Supercomputing Center and Director of Linux Clusters at IBM), tutorials on Perl techniques, editorials and commentary. In September 2001 and January 2003, articles written on manipulating the web with Perl (firstly with HTML::TokeParser, secondly with WWW::Mechanize) were published by O'Reilly on perl.com. Summer 1998 - Summer 2000: Library Assistant, Hove Central Library. Worked at my local library full-time in summers and permanently part-time during term-time. Alongside library duties, I wrote and presented introductions to the Internet to the public as part of a collaboration with a local community Internet project - scip.org.uk. I also authored booklets on using the web and managing a Hotmail account for the library; these were used by the public in each of fifteen libraries in the local area. I consider my time working at the library to have been of great benefit to my interpersonal and ``soft'' skills.