Nick Gravgaard, creative software developer

Name	Nick Gravgaard
Email
URL	http://nickgravgaard.com

Category	Skill	Experience
Operating systems	Windows	1991 - Present
	Linux (SUSE, Red Hat, Slackware, Ubuntu)	1998 - Present
	Mac OS X	2006 - 2007
Programming languages	C	2000 - 2008
	C++	2002 - 2004, 2009
	Python	2006 - 2009
	Java	2006, 2009
	JavaScript	1999 - 2006, 2009
	Perl	2004
	SQL	1999 - 2000, 2004 - 2006, 2009
Libraries, APIs, frameworks	C++ STL	2002 - 2004, 2009
	Qt	2009
	GTK+, PyGTK	2008 - 2009
	Python Imaging Library (PIL)	2006 - 2008
	Django	2009
	jQuery	2009
	MFC, Win32	2000 - 2004
	OpenTV	2006 - 2008
	Java Swing	2006, 2009
	Xlib (X Window System)	2000 - 2006
	Component Object Model (COM)	2000 - 2002
Compilers	GNU C / C++ Compilers (gcc, g++)	2000 - 2008
Compilers	Visual C++	2000 - 2004, 2009
Editors, IDEs	Visual Studio	2000 - 2004, 2009
	Eclipse	2006, 2009
	vi / Vim	2006 - 2008
Version control and SCM	CVS, TortoiseCVS	2006 - 2008
	Subversion, TortoiseSVN	2004 - 2006, 2009
	WinCVS	2003 - 2004
	Visual SourceSafe	2000 - 2002
	ClearQuest	2000 - 2002
Build systems	Makefiles	2006 - 2008
	CMake	2009
	Ant	2009
Object-oriented analysis and design	UML	2000 - 2004
	Design Patterns	2002 - 2004
	Together	2003 - 2004
	Rational Rose	2000 - 2002
Software development methodologies	Agile software development with Scrum	2006 - 2008
Databases	SQL Server	1999 - 2000
Databases	Oracle	2004 - 2006, 2009
Document authoring	HTML / XHTML	1999 - 2000, 2004 - 2006, 2009
	CSS	2004 - 2006, 2009
	XML	2000 - 2002, 2009
	XSLT	2000 - 2002, 2009

position	description
Software Developer Zero Point Software, Copenhagen, Denmark April 2009 - May 2009	When Zero Point Software decided they needed to launch a community site quickly, they asked me to come on board and help them build it. I advised them to use the Python web framework called Django, and with the help of some of their permanent developers and designers we were able to build the site in record time without compromising on quality. Achievements included: Was a key developer and technical advisor to a small team, and was able to build a community site with a lot of functionality in a very small amount of time using Python and Django Used the jQuery JavaScript library to integrate a popup image viewer with django-cms
Software Developer Examotion, Nuremberg, Germany January 2009 - March 2009	After Adobe bought Macromedia and stopped devlopment of the Adobe SVG Viewer, Examotion's SVG player became the leading SVG solution for Windows and Internet Explorer. Examotion invited me to work with them to meet some pretty tight deadlines making cross platform client applications which embedded their player using C++ and the Qt toolkit. Achievements included: Developed an SVG viewer app and laid the foundations of an SVG authoring tool using C++ and the Qt toolkit Worked on making the W3C's DOM conformance test suites generate C++
Software Developer NDS Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark June 2006 - December 2008	The Danish office of NDS specialises in developing interactive applications for set top boxes, and I worked on developing games for the OpenTV platform (usually for channels available to Sky Digital subscribers in the UK). The platform was somewhat dated and slow, which limited us to simple 2D games, and it was often difficult to get an acceptable frame rate out of the machines. Sometimes we would develop new games, while other times we would extend existing games, frequently written by someone else. The challenge then was to quickly get up to speed with someone else's code so that it could be extended in the best way. Achievements included: Created, extended, and reskinned many games for OpenTV in C. Examples include the official port of Atari's Asteroids, and many puzzle and platform games which used Cartoon Network's characters and settings. Used Python to manage and sometimes manipulate each game's assets
Technical Consultant Maconomy, Copenhagen, Denmark July 2004 - May 2006	Maconomy offers business solutions and services for professional service companies and marketing communications organisations. Their software and solutions optimise finance management, job costing, project management, business intelligence, and resource planning in one ERP solution. My work consisted of creating and customising components according to our different customers needs, as well as working on a few in-house development projects. Much of the work was written in a proprietary scripting language similar to JavaScript. Achievements included: Created a benchmarking tool in Perl which created threads to run various Maconomy scripts (one thread represented one active user). These scripts would perform typical user tasks, and the Perl script would record and store performance information Replaced the standard reporting component with one of my own which allowed for complicated post-processing of the data Wrote import programs that collated data from many users' Excel files before importing them into Maconomy and performing the necessary actions on them
Software Engineer Serco Assurance (formerly AEA Technology Consulting), Winfrith, England November 2002 - June 2004	At Serco Assurance we worked on an asset management application (on Windows using MFC) that allowed asset managers to interrogate their asset knowledge database and pose "what if" style questions to help them formulate new strategies that could help them manage their assets and thus make their companies more profitable. It combined risk models, engineering performance models and asset data management and could be used for analysing the impact of long-term replacement, operation and maintenance strategies. Achievements included: Designed and developed the symbolic path mechanism which allows the system to use user defined "logical directories" in place of standard directories (C++) Designed and developed functionality to parse and execute batch files used to automate large jobs (and testing) (C++) Documented and wrote test plans for much of the application's functionality Used Together to detail the low level design of the system
Developer TrustMarque International, Gerrards Cross, England September 2000 - April 2002	At TrustMarque we worked on TenderTrust - a smartcard (Gemplus) and internet based, secure electronic tendering system. TenderTrust used the latest PKI security and encryption techniques, and digital certificates which were held on smartcards provided and guaranteed by The Royal Bank of Scotland. The system enabled purchasers and suppliers to manage the entire tendering process - from the creation of the Invitation to Tender (ITT) and it's publication, through to the receipt of Tenders from Suppliers, their analysis and award. TenderTrust was specifically designed to meet the requirements of both public and private sector tendering. Achievements included: Developed extended stored procedure to send emails on writes to a database (C) Integrated 3rd party PKI code from Entrust to time stamp data prior to encryption (C) Wrote form selection wizard to help the user create the correct kind of notice form (HTML and JavaScript) Created form template using HTML and JavaScript Converted form template to be represented as XML and parsed through XSLT to create final HTML and JavaScript in browser control. Used Rational ClearQuest to track bugs Liaised with representatives from the Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC) in Luxembourg to discuss their proposals for standards in e-tendering (XML DTDs)
Developer 24-seven newmedia, Southampton, England September 1999 - September 2000	At 24-seven newmedia we worked on all sorts of dynamic web pages for NTL, our biggest client. Examples of projects worked on were the graduate recruitment database and their FAQ/Q & A engine. Achievements included: Designed and coded data-driven websites using ASP, HTML and JavaScript Liased with and defined requirements for customers

Southampton Institute (1996 - 1999)
BSc (Hons) Computer Studies

Bournemouth & Poole College of FE (1994 - 1996)
AEB Computing, BTEC Computer Studies

Bournemouth Grammar School (1988 - 1994)
UCLES The Sciences (Double Award), SEG English Language, SEG English Literature, SEG History, SEG Geography, ULEAC Mathematics, UCLES French, UCLES Design, ULEAC Business Studies, ULEAC Religious Studies

Invented the elastic tabstops mechanism for handling tab characters in text files. Implementations have been developed using GTK+ in C and Python, and with Java Swing
Developed the WindowLab open source window manager for the X Window System on Linux/Unix using Xlib and C
Coded numerous games (in C, M68k assembly and Blitz Basic) for the Amiga range of computers which made use of the platform's unique video hardware to do some interesting visual effects (techniques used the copper, blitter, sprites, dual playfields, planar and "chunky" graphics). One of these, BombBloke (from 1993-1996) is available as a zip file or as an adf file. There are screenshots here, here and here
Playtested the commercial games "Worms" (1995) and "Worms - The Director's Cut" (1997) - see screenshots here and here