Skills and experience

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  • General Skills
    • Able to design, plan, implement, and manage business projects.
    • High level of technical experience.
    • The ability to locate, acquire and present information quickly and efficiently.
    • Ability to solve complicated problems.
    • Technical communication suitable for people of all levels of experience
  • Professional Experience
    • 2015 Acorns learning - I held classes in science and maths for home educated children age 8-13 for one day a week in an outdoor environment.
    • 2011 – present Part time teaching of home educated children, science topics ranging from key stage 3 to GCSE.
    • 2005 – present Part time adult education teaching for Moretonhampstead Development Trust evening and weekend courses, covering subjects including Digital Imaging, Website development, Digital Cameras, Desktop Publishing and support for Internet based family research.
    • 2003 – present Moretonhampstead.net (part of MCS below) has been providing website hosting for small to medium sized businesses for over 10 years. Hosting is provided on a Debian Linux server for which I am responsible for all system administration and customer technical support at all levels.
    • 2002 – present Merlins Computer Services (MCS) is my company set up to provide computer support, system administration, consultancy, tuition and website development.
    • 2000 – present I am a director of Affinity Woodland Workers Cooperative Ltd which has included Woodland management activities, Company administration and Renewable technology design and implementation.
    • 2003 – 2005 Part time adult education teaching for South Dartmoor Community Collage (Devon ACL) covering subjects including Basic computing, Digital imaging, Website Design, Desktop Publishing
  • Education
    • 1986 – 1991 Greensward School, Hockley, Essex
    • 1991 – 1993 Southend Collage of Arts and Technology
    • 1993 – 1995 Queen Mary and Westfield University, London
  • Qualifications
    • 9 GCSE's, 5 of which are grade C or above
    • A Level, Mathematics, Physics and AS level Electronics all grade C or above
    • NVQ 1&2 Information Technology
    • C&G 7307 adult teaching
    • Amateur Radio Full Licence Having passed my foundation licence in 2013, I am now a full licence holder since December 2014
  • System software
    • Operating systems
      • GNU/Linux
        • Debian v3 - v8 I have used various versions of Debian and Ubuntu for both server and desktop use since 2003.
        • Ubuntu v5.04 - current / Linux Mint 17.2 - current I have used Ubuntu and Linux Mint mainly as a desktop system but experimented using it as a server using virtual machines.
        • Redhat, Suse (some experience) I have experimented with some other Linux distributions to some extent but do not have experience running production systems using anything other than Debian and Ubuntu other than running a Red Hat server for a short time.
      • Microsoft
        • MSDOS v5 - v7 I started using PC's while still at school back in 1990. At that time they where running early versions of MS DOS and windows 2.
        • Windows v3.11 - v10 Microsoft Windows was my main operating system for my desktop computers from about 1993 to 2001 when I started using GNU/Linux as a desktop OS. I still however run current versions of windows either on a hard drive partition or virtual machine in order to keep up to date so I am able to continue to offer support to Windows users which I do on a regular basis through IT Surgery and home visits.
    • System Administration
      • GNU/Linux I have been using GNU/Linux as my main desktop operating system since 2001 and on a production web-server since 2003 (Moretonhampstead.net). Moretonhampstead.net has been providing website hosting for small to medium sized businesses for over 10 years. Hosting is provided on a Debian GNU/Linux server for which I am responsible for all system administration and customer technical support at all levels.
        • Command line administration (remote and local)
        • File systems (partitioning, LVM)
        • Boot process (grub/lilo, init, runlevels)
        • Kernel Modules and device drivers (modprobe, lsmod, modules.conf)
        • User management
        • Process management and System performance (top, ps, kill)
        • Networking
          • Configuration (ifconfig, interfaces)
          • Wireless (security, WPA, WEP)
          • DHCP
          • Network analysis (nmap, iptraf)
          • Security (firewall, iptables, fail2ban)
          • VPN (OpenVPN, server and client configuration)
          • VNC
        • GUI (X, Gnome, KDE, xfce)
        • Package management (dpkg, aptitude, rpm)
        • Compiling from source (kernel configuration, application software)
        • Scripting (Bash, Perl, Python)
        • Scheduled tasks (crontab)
        • Services (installation, configuration and maintenance)
          • Network shares (samba, nfs, sshfs, ftp, permissions & security)
          • Openssh (sshd.conf, security)
          • Mail server (Exim, POP, IMAP, SMTP, virtual users, spamassasin, clamav)
          • Webmail (squirrelmail, roundcube)
          • Apache Web Server
            • httpd.conf
            • Virtual hosting
            • Modules (installing, enabling, configuring , disabling, uninstalling)
            • Configuration Directives
            • SSL (configuration, certificates, keys)
          • Database (MySQL, phpmyadmin, Postgresql)
        • Webalizer web-stats
        • Log analysis
        • Virtual machines (Installation, local and remote management, virtual networks)
        • Administrative control panels (webmin, cpanel, plesk)
      • MS Windows
        • OS and software installation and removal
        • User management
        • Networking (configuring clients, connecting to shares, mapping drives, printing)
        • Process management and system performance (task manager)
        • Security (firewall, AV, update manager)
      • Customer technical support Being the sole owner of Moretonhampstead.net since 2003 I have been responsible not only for the effecient running of the server but also for offering technical support to my clients. This, and the fact that I have experience teaching, has led to me being able to offer excellent technical communication skills suitable for people of all levels of experience.
  • Application software
    • Office (MS Office 97-2010, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Word, Spreadsheet, Database, etc.)
    • Imaging Software (Photoshop v7 - CS4, GIMP)
    • Website development (Dreamweaver, Kompozer/NVU)
    • FTP and networking (Filezilla, SSH, Putty)
    • Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer)
  • Website development and programming
    • HTML (4, 5)
    • CSS (2.1, 3)
    • Javascript (jquery, DOM scripting, Ajax)
    • PHP (4, 5)
      • Object oriented design
      • Libraries (PEAR)
      • Frameworks (CakePHP, smarty)
    • Perl (CGI, Apache ModPerl, OOP, CPAN)
    • MySQL Database
      • Administration
      • Efficient Relational database design
      • Query design
    • Web Software (installation, configuration, maintenance)
      • Wordpress (administration, template customisation, plugins)
      • CMS Made Simple
      • GINAS (Apache Perl module I wrote which parses tags within HTML for tasks such as returning formatted database query results)
      • SWE (Simple Website Editor back-end written by myself in PHP, JS and Ajax using Mercury front-end)
    • Techniques
      • Web standards
      • Accessibility
      • Cross browser compliance
      • SEO
      • MVC architecture
      • API's
      • JSON
      • RESTful
  • Renewable Energy
    • DIY off-grid solutions I have lived off-grid since 1997 and supplied my own sources of electrical power and wood fuel. More recently at the Steward Community Woodland project I have shared my experience by running courses on the subject.
    • Photo Voltaic Solar
    • Pico Hydro
      • Pelton wheel turbine
      • Turga turbine
      • Water power analyses
    • Wind Power Although I have not had as much experience using wind power as Solar and Hydro because of the location where I live I have experimented with building my own basic turbines in the past.
    • Wood Gasification I have experimented with wood gasification at the Steward Community Woodland project. We have built a working gasification unit but had issues with good gas filtration and therefore could not run it for any reasonable period of time without risking damaging the engine.
    • 12v electrics I have got a good understanding of 12v electrics having been interested from a young age and studied electrinocs at collage. This has lead to me understanding energy consumption, safety, battery technology and other principles.
    • Battery technology Having used off-grid renewable energy since 1997 I have had a lot of experience with different types of battery technology, especially deep cycle lead acid.
    • Wood fuel Having lived with a wood burning stove for many years I have a good understanding of wood fuel usage and sustainable woodland management for wood fuel.
      • Rocket stoves
      • Wood fired boilers and plumbing
    • Site feasability study and reporting
  • Other Technology
    • Micro-electronics My mixture of interests in computers and alternative technology have inevitably lead to my involvement in micro-electronics projects. These are a hobby as I have no work experience with micro-electronics and include using micro-controllers, ADC\DAC's, digital displays and more
      • Arduino
      • PIC Micro-controllers
      • Raspberry Pi
      • Protocols (I2C, SPI)
    • Amateur radio I have been a licence holder since 2013 and now hold a full licence. I use an HF rig and VHF/UHF handheld rigs. I also enjoy experimenting with the electronics used for radio communication.
      • Radio electronics
      • Antennas and feeders
      • Propagation
      • Licensing
  • Teaching
    • Adult teaching I have been teaching evening classes part time to adults since 2003. Subjects have included Basic computing, Digital imaging, Website Design, Desktop Publishing, Digital Cameras and support for Internet based family research. This experience has given me the skill to explain technical subject in a patient and easy to understand way.
    • Child teaching Since about 2011 I have been part time teaching home educated children, science topics ranging from key stage 3 to GCSE. Previously to this I have been teaching my home educated son since 2002.
    • Designing and running courses I organise and run courses on off-grid renewable energy.