Mark Jones

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336.608.9475

About Me

I am a thoughtful nerd that is continually problem solving. I enjoy programming and have developed websites for over a dozen years beginning with NT 3.51 and ASP using VBScript. We've all come a long way since then and I have taught myself many more programming languages and techniques including most of the usual suspects (Java, SQL, PHP, Javascript, OOP, etc...). I'm a tenacious debugger and feel very strongly about my ability to analyze project needs and create elegant, forward-thinking solutions. I've worked with a variety of business systems and databases throughout my career and have written multithreaded, multi-user, networked, distributed applications. Beyond programming, I have a broad variety of web-relevant skills including image optimization and a thorough knowledge of CSS. I consider myself a good fit for a position that requires a flexible, agile programmer/go-to-guy.

Objective

I want a leadership role with a dynamic team to create quality software that employs best-of-breed technologies to leverage all participants and their time effectively. I have rich experience in a broad number of programming languages and have learned and implemented industry best practices to efficiently and consistently produce quality work. Understanding what's available and how to bring the pieces together are a big part of being effective in technology and, specifically, on the web. I am a problem solver and debugger by nature and have a habit of modeling internal systems from external evidence. I am self-taught in the programming/web building realm and have learned not only design patterns and object oriented programming practices, but how to best streamline the development cycle with an emphasis on reusing solutions by integrating existing projects where appropriate. I want to share this knowledge and experience with coworkers to make the work enjoyable, reliable and on, if not ahead of, schedule.

Summary

• Excellent verbal and written communication abilities
• Fourteen years of direct experience developing web applications including:
  Integration, Plone, Joomla!, Servlets, JSP, XML, XSLT, ASP, CGI, CSS2, XHTML, HTML, CFML, and PHP
• Extensive experience with several programming languages and application platforms:
  Java, Python, JavaScript, XSLT, Visual Basic, VB Script, UML, and SQL
• Experience with distributed applications using J2EE:
  JFC/Swing User Interface, JDBC, RMI, Java networking libraries
• Theoretical and practical knowledge of reusable design patterns and Object Oriented Programming practices
• Mastery of all Windows flavors (Vista, XP, 2k, NT...), and UN*X (Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Linux, FreeBSD)
• Experienced with office suites (Microsoft Office, Open Office) and graphics and publishing programs (GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Publisher, Visio)

Experience

Salem Academy and College

Webmaster, Migration Specialist (10/08 -Present)

• Maintained and enhanced www.salem.edu and www.salemacademy.com
• Used ClickHeat and Google AdSense to analyze the multiple dimensions of the site's usability and online presence. Using these tools we were able to gain the insight into what worked and what didn't. In the end we improved time spent on site by 20% and dropped the bounce rate by nearly 15%.
• Streamlined online media delivery including work with Flash Video and YouTube publication depending on target audience and goals of the specific media
• Interviewed content producers and managers to determine the organization's system's needs. After comparing the features offered my many open source, non-commercial and commercial solutions (Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Final Site, Systems Alliance, Sylvia, and more...), found Plone to be the most compatible and usable for Salem's needs.
• Created data migration scripts to export from Joomla that translated site-intrinsic assets (images and internal links in the article content) to search engine optimized (SEO) URIs based on the Joomla menu hierarchy, falling back on Section and Category where appropriate. This automated roughly 90% of the data migration of the over 1,600 articles and vastly expedited the migration.
• Enhanced the ZipFileImport plugin for Plone to import Core (most of the Dublin Core) metadata during import when provided. This allows for import to include: Title, Description, Subject(s), Creation Date, Publication Date, Expiration Date, and Include/Exclude from navigation.
• Optimized search engine effectiveness by migrating to SEO URLs and Google listing maintenance operations using Google's Webmaster Tools.
• Repaired/cleaned/removed previous website hacking and optimized robots.txt file to reduce the visibility to would-be hackers using Google and other search engines as a tool for discovering potential vulnerabilities. I worked closely with the server administrators to include counter-measures to secure website against future attacks.

North American Realty Services, Inc.

Systems Engineer, Programmer (02/03 -06/08)

• Designed and implemented a custom solution for Trust Document creation based on a flexible variable dataset.
• Worked closely with staff to provide technical solutions for the business needs.
• High quality print documents were originally created using RTF based on Microsoft Word generated documents, but later we migrated to PDF using Flyer Saucer's XHTML/CSS2 rendering engine.
• Originally used the work from Trinil, Inc. to realize a production system that was in daily use by the company for 5 years.
• This was the premier application of the simultaneous work for Trinil, Inc. I became the only maintainer of the Trinil code and modified and enhanced the code to suit NARS' needs.
• When Trinil folded, NARS migrated to PHP and I lead the team in creating the next generation application to ensure that all the technical and business discoveries made throughout my time were not lost, saving the company valuable time in defining the replacement application.

Trinil, Inc.

Programmer (9/01 -02/05)

• Worked directly under technical lead to develop a proprietary Symmetric Object Oriented Distributed Data Base using Java RMI.
• Created JSP Tag Library to automate data display and form field creation. This was created to give logical access to any data structure with a staging step for the data to be validated before it was committed to the database.
• Created Java Object to SQL storage automation to store any object structure to any database (though only implemented for PostgreSQL).
• Created wrapper layer that would Òpush downÓ a query to the underlying SQL database for search speed.
• Created asynchronous database commits to aid in application performance. This enabled the in-use objects to stay available via smart caching, while keeping transactions safe from data loss.
• Created a multiple document interface in Java Swing that gave advanced, secure and flexible access to the remote repository. Menu items, editing tabs and available actions were automatically registered to object types for ÒsmartÓ editing of objects.

HomeStore.com, Inc

Integration Specialist contractor (2/01 -8/01)

• Applications technical lead for integration of rent.net and springstreet.com apartment and rentals listings.
• Contract position focused on integrating the two disparate databases/applications and enhancing the final product to have the best of both source databases/applications.
• Skills/languages used: UML, SQL Server, ASP, VB/COM, VSS, PERL, ColdFusion, and accounting systems (Solomon) integration.

MyEzWeb.com, Inc

Senior Architect (5/00 -11/00)

• Technical lead for a small group of developers where I lead the design, implementation and organization of code/objects.
• Skills/tools involved included Bugzilla (http://bugzilla,mozilla.org/) for bug tracking/quality assurance, Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) for version control, Junit unit testing, and Ant (like make but better for java) for build control/automated testing/deployment/containment of unit test code to keep out of deployment code.
• In addition to my contributions in object/database design and application lifecycle management, I was leading the way in the Research and Development for the future of the company's technical direction, including employing IBM's SanFrancisco, J2EE technologies (JNDI, EJB, JMS) and making recommendations based on my experience with the products and the needs of the company.
• As well as setting up the plumbing for a successful programming environment and laying down the foundation for the technical direction/future of the company, I helped train the team of programmers in OOP techniques and practices including Object Patterns, general rules of encapsulation, abstraction and interface design and implementation.

Dotster SDK

Java Beans Developer (4/00 -5/00)

• Java Beans were used to make a cross-platform middleware agent to the dotster registrar service. The same source code/compiled java bytecode worked for ASP (as COM/ActiveX), JSP/Servlets, ColdFusion and any other platform that gives a handle to a Java Beans object/component layer.
• Socket communications to the Dotster server were pooled and used encryption to send information securely to the Dotster server from anywhere on the Internet.
• JavaDoc comments were used throughout the code for the API documentation.

Omnikron Systems, Inc.

ColdFusion Developer/Technical Lead (11/99 -4/00)

• ColdFusion developer for various projects including technical lead for smalloffice.com, a then client company of Omnikron.
• Designed the Oracle Database backend and implemented the DHTML throughout the site (smalloffice.com)
• As technical lead on the project I was heavily involved in the over-all design of the site including our efforts to integrate with all the smalloffice.com partners. Integration involved sharing of the user database through XML and an exit-page system that would establish the user's session on the partner's web application.
• Technical documentation and workflow diagrams as well as regular meetings were used to help the team of 9 developers produce a cohesive production.

WhatsHotNow.com, Inc.

Java Programmer (4/99 -11/99)

• Java Servlets and Microsoft SQL Server 7
• Responsibilities included many of the site's features: the Hot List, user nominations, club pages, user preferences, ordering system and a spider that regularly crawled the web for search result counts as an additional feedback system.
• Important skills/contributions to the site included cacheable components, credit card validation (CyberSource), XML order exchange, and integration of our online ordering system with SBT accounting software (Visual FoxPro).
• Additional knowledge/API experience: Junit unit testing, JavaDoc, Servlet, JavaMail, JDBC, and more.

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc.

Information Systems Specialist (7/98 -4/99)

• Webmaster of press.grammy.com, the Recording Academy's press/media portal.
• CGI programmer & Technical Contact for www.grammy.com, including maintenance of existing code and creation of new CGI scripts (PERL).
• Modified legacy code to exchange data with IBM for GRAMMY wbecast (www.grammy.com).
• Analyze web site traffic logs to generate comprehensive reports of www.grammy.com and press.grammy.com.
• Set up and maintained RedHat Linux servers for Web, SMB (Windows networking), AppleTalk (Macintosh networking), DHCP, NFS, and DNS.
• Set up and supported company computers (hardware and software) and staff.

California State University, Northridge

Residential Computing Resources Manager (5/95 -8/98)

• Determined content, layout and design of rcr.csun.edu, including coding a library in JavaScript for data validation of web form input. The library used regular expressions and encapsulation to make it easy integration for multiple uses. All web programming done here ran on the server-side using ASP to ensure compatibility across platforms/browsers.
• Set up, maintained and administered Windows NT 4.0 server, including IIS 4.0
• Managed and trained a staff of 20, educating them in TCP/IP networking, HTML design, Microsoft Office, and a wide variety of Internet Applications (FTP, gopher, etc...).
• Set up computer workrooms for student use and design, content, and implementation of closed circuit cable channel.
• Received plaque recognizing three years of tremendous contributions in the field of technology and for being a pivotal player in the growth and maturation of the Residential Computing Resources program from the directors of the program.

National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. 38th GRAMMY Awards

Webmaster, GRAMMY Insider (1996)

• Combined articles from an editor with an artist's direction to create the content and style of the site.
• Published database records in HTML of past 37 GRAMMY Awards results using automation scripts.
• Managed all links, HTML code and functionality of the GRAMMY Insider.

Education

California State University, Northridge

Bachelor's Degree in Music Performance (1998)