Worked in the Marketing Automation Team on a system that allows business rules to be specified that allow eligible customers to receive information about Virgin Media products. The automation team use the system to run Virgin marketing campaigns which are built up by specifying a set of business rules which are stored in a SQL Server database. The rules are processed using Think Analytics then send information to customers via SMS or email.

The system was developed using Java 1.6, Spring MVC and, Hibernate 3.0.
SVN was used for version control alongside Hudson for continuous integration.
Eclipse Galileo was the IDE and unit testing was done using JUnit 4.5.

Returned to MIG in Waterloo to work on a system that reads XML feeds containing details of music events on at various venues around the country. From this information various animated banner gifs were generated which would be texted to the mobile phones of subscribers who use this gig notification service.

The system was developed using Hibenate 3.0 accessing an MS-SQL Server database, Java 6, Spring MVC with Tomcat 6.1 as the application server and Eclipse Gannymede as the IDE. Unit testing was done using JUnit 4.5.

The system would parse four different XML feeds generating different types of banners for each feed. I created some extra database tables to hold the configuration information in a SQL Server database so that details such as banners to use, font size and font type could be easily configured. ImageMagick 6.5.7 was called via Java to generate the animated banners.

Also wrote a stand alone demo application entirely in Ext JS 2.2.1 that allows a user to type in a URL then displays that in a mobile phone sized screen in their browser. They could then set up various “zero rated” conditional rules on this URL so that customers accessing the page don’t have to pay to view it for a specified period of time. An example of the sort of conditions they could create were “for a particular length of time” or “by mobile operator”.

Worked on an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) for Virgin Media. This displayed an online television guide across a variety of browsers. The user can scroll through TV information for this week and subsequent weeks, as well as drill down into individual programmes to get more information. We worked in an Agile development team of five people with weekly iterations. The system was developed using Hibernate 3.0 accessing an Oracle 10 database, Spring MVC with Tomcat 6.1 as the application server and Eclipse Gannymede as the IDE. Working from user stories in a small team of four, we employed test driven development using JUnit 4. RESTful web services were also used to call some internal API's that Virgin had developed. The data for the TV information came in XML files of around 2GB in size. I helped write the Java code to ingest this XML into the Oracle database using the Apache Commons Digester as well as working on some of the front end functionality which used JSON to transfer the data over the network.

Worked on a music licensing system that allows users to choose from a database of 3 million songs then select a song to be licensed for film, television, advertisements, computer games or medium where music is needed. The system works out the price range to license a track and is poised to become the standard tool to aid in the licensing of music.
We developed a searching mechanism to look for songs by musical genre, track name, artist name, mood (happy, sad etc) and other criteria. Users can then search for tracks, add them to a folder and go through the licensing process for tracks they want to keep.
This was written using Java 5, Seam, Hibernate 3, with xhtml pages and AJAX tags for the front end, SQL Server and JBoss 4.2.1. Eclipse 3.3.2 was the IDE. As well as working on the code base I helped introduce the unit-testing of the system. This was done using TestNG and continuous integration was also used to deploy the code base.
This project was venture capital funded and was scaled back due to redundancies made in the company.

Worked on a Java based insurance system that involved replacing the database layer from a Toplink system to a Spring/Hibernate one. Wrote a Java system to read and process Excel files delivered in different formats by insurance companies. The spreadsheets were validated and errors written out to another Excel file. This was written using Java 1.5, with JSF pages used for the front end, Oracle 10g and Websphere. Eclipse 3.2 was the IDE. Junit was used to unit test the system and continuous integration was used to deploy the code base.

Working on the online version of the “This is London” newspaper, part of the Evening Standard newspaper (www.thisislondon.co.uk). Updated, designed, developed various pages using Spring, Java 5, JBoss 4.2.1, Hibernate 3.0, SQL Server and Eclipse 3.3.2 was the IDE. Helped build a micro-site to display details for the Rugby World Cup, updated via live XML feeds. I also wrote a web service to provide information on top articles and reviews on the site. TestNG was used to unit test the system and continuous integration was used to deploy the code base.

Ruby on Rails developer for start up company based in Victoria. Worked on the
unit testing of a social networking site that is due to launch in a few weeks. We
worked from home using Linux, Ruby on Rails and the RadRails IDE connected to
a MySQL database. Developed unit tests for all major functionality, created bug
reports and worked to resolve/fix bugs as they arose. Subversion was used for code
version control.

Worked on an online mortgage system for Northern Rock Building Society. Although the customer was based in Newcastle, the development was done in Brighton. This system allows new and existing customers to apply for loans and mortgages and keeps track of all parts of the transaction along the way via “Decision in Principle” (DIP) and “Key Facts Illustrated” (KFI) which were system generated documents.

The system was developed in Java running Weblogic 8.1 connected to an Oracle 10 database. I helped design various parts of the system in Rational Rose and used Eclipse 3.2 as the IDE. Development tasks included working on user authentication and security using JAAS. JUnit was used to write unit tests for the whole system and Selenium was used to write tests for the behaviour of the front end web pages.
Bugzilla was used in the tracking and resolving of program bugs.

Part of a team developing a highly-transactional J2EE web based system allowing new and existing AOL customers to sign up for various member services. The system interfaced with external BT and NTL systems to check details like addresses and line speed availability.

Worked closely with AOL as a customer to develop the system to their exact specifications and also worked with their load/performance team to try and identify any performance bottlenecks in the system.

The system was developed in Java running Weblogic 8.1 connected to an Oracle 9i database. Agile was used as the design methodology, which involves “pair-programming” and working from design notes similar to use cases referred to as “stories” within the Agile methodology.

TestNG, FIT and FITnesse was used to write unit tests for the whole system and Rhino was used to write unit tests for the JavaScript within the web pages.

Part of a team of Java developers writing a J2EE system for DEFRA – the Government Department of Agriculture. Working from UML designs, I developed the server side code, mostly creating java entity beans and helper classes to use them.

Developed various framework classes to access session, entity beans and other parts of the system. Used Log4J to log all output produced by the system and helped create test data for the Oracle database as the data access layer was initially tested in isolation from the rest of the system.

Worked on some UML class diagrams using the Together tool to create the business session beans that would use the data access layer. Generated stub classes from Together for other developers to use once the UML designs were finished.

JUnit was also used to write unit tests across the whole system, and I also developed unit tests using Mock objects to delegate for parts of the system still being designed.

The system was written using Java 1.4, JBuilder 9, Weblogic 7.1 connected to an Oracle 9i database.