Tom Ryder

Name:

Tom Ryder

Skills:

Design, development, systems administration

Email address:

Location:

Palmerston North, New Zealand

Phone:

+64 27 767 1705

I’m a web design, web development, and systems administration enthusiast. I have personal and professional experience with all three, using various operating systems and applications, both proprietary and open-source.

When I can prise myself away from the computer, I’m interested in languages, philosophy, and music. I play acoustic guitar and ukulele, and sometimes keyboard when I’m feeling brave.

Education

• 2009 — Accepted into Graduate Diploma of Science programme at Massey University, majoring in computer science, and studying extramurally as much as possible. I only study as my programming and design work allows, but my Web Technologies paper receieved an A+ grade.
• 2006 — Finished my Bachelor of Science degree from Massey University. Majored in psychology, with papers in mathematics, statistics, and computer science. I was granted provisional admission to the university at the age of 16, and the entire degree was completed via international extramural study.
• 2002 — Finished Year 10 study at Wellington College. I was the first student in my grade for all three years of my attendance.

Experience

• March 2007 – August 2010 — Web developer, web designer, and systems administrator for Professional Development Ltd, a Palmerston North information technology company specialising in websites and web applications. Duties included:
  • Specifying, designing, writing, maintaining, optimising, and documenting PHP5 code for a complex proprietary content management system, which was driving around 15 sites when I began work and more than 90 by the time I left.
  • Web development and web design with XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, using free software graphics tools, with Apache HTTPD, PHP5, and MySQL as a server backend.
  • Web server administration, mail server administration, and network administration for both live and development servers, including implementing complex custom scripts with Perl, Bash, and occasionally Python.
• June 2007 – July 2008 — Various contracts as website coordinator for UCOL’s public website, working with the marketing department and the webmaster. Duties included:
  • Prototype web design and assistance in implementation of new public website.
  • Primary user of a custom content management system written in ASP/VBScript — managing content, reporting bugs and suggesting solutions and new features, implementing workarounds, testing capacity of system.
  • Technical support for marketing staff.
  • Data collection, collation and entry and document maintenance.

Expertise

• I make, maintain, and administrate websites and web applications in my spare time, and have been doing so for ten years. I do this sort of thing for fun.
• WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal experience. I generally choose either WordPress or a home-spun templated system for my own projects, having found Drupal too unwieldy for clients to use, and Joomla! rather insecure.
• GNU/Linux, BSD and Windows systems, with both source and packages.
• Scripting languages, particularly PHP, Perl, and to a lesser extent Python.
• Markup languages, including HTML, XHTML, and even XML when I have to.
• JavaScript, particularly when augmented by libraries like MooTools or jQuery, including AJAX in both cases.
• CSS. I’m very excited about many of the new techniques available in modern browsers.
• SQL and database design. I use MySQL a lot.
• Subversion version control.
• Web usability nut. I’m one of Jakob Nielsen’s fans.
• W3C standards nut.
• Some graphic design with the GIMP and Inkscape for vector art.
• In general, I am a very fast learner. If the language or tools you need aren’t listed here, ask me about them anyway. I usually appreciate the challenge of a new language or system to pick apart.