After spending more than 20 years as an Analyst Programmer in the mainframe environment I decided on a change of direction and in 2003 I went on a self-funded course to become a CIW Certified Webmaster and Web Developer. As such I have passed the following examinations:

  • Internet Fundamentals CIW Exam 1D0-510
  • Site Design CIW Exam 1D0-420
  • E-Commerce Design CIW Exam 1D0-425
  • CIW JavaScript Fundamentals CIW Exam 1D0-435
  • CIW Perl Fundamentals CIW Exam 1D0-437

These courses gave me a sound grounding in HTML/DHTML/XHTML and CSS. I also have had exposure to Flash and Paint Shop Pro and stressed the importance of adherence to W3C standards. Initially I used these new skills in designing my own Genealogy website and websites for some friends businesses. Subsequently though I have been using these skills for three years at Telent Technology Ltd where I have been creating documents such as User Support Guides, Release Notes and Training Material delivered via the company intranet. I also built Complied HTML Help pages for use in our bespoke applications. Later as part of my Business Analyst role I designed an SQL/VB application to handle our Change Control procedures. In addition to the VB thick client, this application also had an XHTML/ASP classic thin client front-end that allowed us to reach 600+ users very cheaply via the intranet as opposed to paying our 3rd Party Infrastructure Managers to distribute the bulky VB application – saving us tens of thousands of pounds per release per annum. The database and front-end itself was designed for flexibility and so now supports more than just Change Control, running the corporate Audit Management and Contract Variance functions without any programmatic change, thus making another significant cost saving. As a part of this ASP development I realised that there was a powerful way of speeding the delivery of our documentation to users and so was allowed to develop and implement a bespoke Content Management System.

The tools I used were initially Dreamweaver Studio MX and then Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, although now I also use MS Visual Studio 2008. Currently at home I am learning VB.net and ASP.net as I work towards Microsoft Certification where I use Visual Studio 2008 Pro and SQL Server 2005 Pro.