KIPP ELLIOTT WATSON

 

OBJECTIVE               

·              I seek work as a Drupal website developer

 

DRUPAL DEVELOPMENT BACKGROUND

 

·              As the sole proprietor of a software/web development consulting firm, Whistling Cow, I have developed numerous websites which use the Drupal Content Management System (CMS) Framework.

 

·              www.whistlingcow.com is a website which distributes a software program using ecommerce modules providing for payment through credit card and Paypal payment gateways.

 

·              www.kippwatson.com is a video blog website with image and video capabilities.

 

·              www.ewbc1953.com is a website that allows wheelchair basketball players to participate more fully in the activities of the Eastern Wheelchair Basketball Conference.

 

·              www.belleetlesbijoux.com is an ecommerce (using ubercart modules) website using image galleries and taxonomy modules for the distribution of beaded jewelry. 

 

·              www.riveredgerotary.org is a social group site that enables members of a Rotary club to coordinate and publicize their activities.

 

·              Local development is done in a WAMP environment, and facilitated by the use of an Eclipse IDE using an XDebug plug in, as well as Firefox, with Firebug and Web Developer plugin.  FTP transfers are accomplished with the use of Firefox and Filezilla. 

 

·              Remote development is done on Linux and Windows environments.

 

EDUCATION

 

April, 2006 – June, 2006         American Infoserv, Inc.                                            South Plainfield, NJ

·              Successfully completed a training course to master the J2EE/WebSphere environment

 

1980                                        Benjamin Cardozo School of Law                           New York, NY

·              Juris Doctorate

 

1977                                        New York University                                                New York, NY

·              Bachelor of Arts (majored in Philosophy with a minor in Physics)

 

 

TECHNICAL SKILLS

 

                ·              Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, Linux (Red Hat and Ubuntu), MS-DOS, Visual Basic 6, Java, WebSphere 4.0, 5.1, Rational Application Developer, Eclipse, NetBeans, Jbuilder, JBoss, Dreamweaver MX 2004, Front Page 98, Crystal Reports, Borland Paradox, Excel, SQL, MS Access, MySQL, Cloudscape, Derby, Oracle 10g, Assembly, Basic, CBasic, MBasic, C, Prolog, VBA, PHP, XHTML, HTML, DHTML, DOM, CSS, XML, EJB, DOM Scripting, JavaScript, AJAX, JMaki, Dojo, JUnit

 

 

ADDITIONAL PROGAMMING BACKGROUND                                                                  

 

2003 – Present                        Whistling Cow                                                          River Edge, NJ

 

Lead Developer

 

·              In November, 2003, I set up a company, Whistling Cow, and two web sites (www.whistlingcow.com and www.kronolog.com)  for the purpose of distributing two Visual Basic products, Whistler’s List (“go ahead, organize your day”) and KronoLog (“the information manager for the information age”) that I had developed during the course of my prior career as an attorney.  These two sites are presently attracting about 80 unique visitors each day.   They were originally created using Front Page 98, but more recently with Dreamweaver MX 2004 with server-side includes for maintenance.  JavaServer Pages and CGI scripts are used in www.kronolog.com and www.whistlingcow.com is now set up as a Drupal CMS web site.

 

·              Primarily using Visual Basic 5 and 6, I coded a series of three versions of my two award-winning productivity enhancing commercial applications, Whistler’s List and KronoLog.  I designed these programs so that individual professionals could enter data and retrieve information with a minimum of effort.  In KronoLog, the user is given the option of saving data in text form, graphic form or by the use of embedded OLE objects.  These products rely on MS Access databases (DAO and ADO objects) for persistence and Crystal Reports for viewing.   In order to ensure copyright protection, keys are created during purchase and installation stages using a Blowfish encryption algorithm, which are persisted in the Windows registry.

               

·              Because of the development of my Whistling Cow product line, I developed a practical understanding of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and focused on methods of debugging and product enhancements that were primarily driven by user feedback.  Newer versions of KronoLog were more modularized, while maintaining comprehensive functionality.  Indeed, the spin-off product, Whistler’s List, is essentially a modular unit of KronoLog.

 

·              Secured and executed a contract with a Jersey Shore hotel to provide an application based on MS Access 2000 to monitor quality improvement practices.  The delivered product utilizes eleven tables, ten forms, two reports and dozens of VBA code modules.  Requirements were determined during an extensive interview with hotel employees and the product was timely delivered within a schedule of two weeks.  Iterative enhancements were provided on schedule in a subsequent six month phase.

 

·              At the request of AS Software, I developed Visual Basic 6 modules that encapsulated other VB 6 class modules, as well as data obtained from an MS Access database.

 

·              At the request of a small financial consulting group, Classical Capital, I examined the manner in which it stored critical data in Excel files.  Based on my recommendations, it was estimated that the increase in the group’s productivity was enhanced by a value well in excess of $1,000.

 

·              At the request of a real estate consulting group, Sculti Properties, I developed an application, using Visual Basic 6 and Access, which allows for the maximally efficient input and display of data related to court foreclosure records.

 

·              As the lead developer of Whistling Cow, I have assumed responsibility for the migration of two products (Whistler’s List and KronoLog) from the Visual Basic 6 format to the Java desktop format.  After extensive review of various IDEs including the .NET framework (Microsoft Visual Studio), WebSphere, Rational Application Developer, Jbuilder, Eclipse and NetBeans, I made the decision to pursue this migration using NetBeans.  This decision was primarily based on the fact that KronoLog is structured using an MDI framework (Multiple Document Interface) and the plug-ins available in the NetBeans IDE provide similar functionality in a web application context.  Additional decisions were made to use MySQL as the open source database for KronoLog’s storage and retrieval operations.  Using the MySQL Migration Toolkit, Version 1.1.1 Beta, I successfully migrated data accumulated over the course of several years from MS Access (DAO and ADO) databases to MySQL databases.  In the course of this migration project, I acquired a working knowledge of JUnit testing and profiling.

 

·              In a joint project between Whistling Cow and American Infoserv, Inc., I was the team leader on a training project to develop an online shopping cart application.  I led a team of four developers in a WebSphere 5.1/Windows XP environment.  I had the primary responsibility for developing the requirements of the application, and I was charged with oversight over code design, creation and deployment.  The application was deployed on an Apache Tomcat server with Derby database connection pooling via JNDI.  A Model View Controller design pattern was implemented using Java Server Faces, Tiles (integrated with a Struts framework), Hibernate and EJBs.  XML was employed to build and make files using Ant, Struts, Tiles and Hibernate configurations.  XML was also used for purposes of validation.  Web pages were developed using JSP, EL and tag libraries (including custom tags).

 

·              Also in conjunction with American Infoserv, Inc., I was a developer in a team of four on a training project to develop a bug tracking application suitable for the continuing maintenance of a product line.  I developed code for this project, which also utilized a WebSphere 5.1/Windows XP environment.  Database connection pooling was implemented using JNDI and Derby.

 

·              At the request of Unstandardized Design, a web design company, I successfully migrated a Drupal website from  www.professionalbaseballtraining.com to www.professionalsportstraining.net.  This request was fulfilled on an expedited basis in one day.   

 

·              I have successfully worked one on one with a number of individuals who have sought tutoring in topics such as Java, VBA, Excel and Visual Basic.

 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DRUPAL COMMUNITY

 

April, 2006 – Present               Northern New Jersey Java Meetup Group

                ·              I founded this group, which now has over 100 members

                ·              I gave a presentation before this group “Under the Hood of an Online Shopping Cart Application,” which outlined the use of JSP technology, together with Hibernate, Struts, Tiles, JNDI and MySQL in a J2EE commercial application

                ·              I also gave a presentation before this group “Using AJAX with the NetBeans IDE,” which described features of AJAX technology, the use of mashups, and the use of XMLHttpRequest objects driven by JavaScript code

                ·              I also gave a presentation before this group “Widgets,” which reviewed the nature of its architecture, and used working samples of HTML, CSS and JavaScript coding

                ·              I participated in SYS-CON events, such as AjaxWorld 2009, for purposes of continuing education regarding the latest Java technologies 

 

February, 2006 – Present       Northern New Jersey MySQL Meetup Group

                ·              Member  

 

February, 2006 – Present       New York City Java Meetup Group

·              Member

 

December, 2006 – Present     New York City Java Special Interest Group

·              Member

 

February, 2007 – Present       http://drupal.org (http://drupal.org/user/114188)

·              Member

 

August, 2007 – Present           Northern New Jersey HackFest Meetup Group

·              Assistant Organizer

 

February, 2009  – Present      Northern New Jersey Drupal Group

·              Member and Co-Host of March 31, 2009 and May 21, 2009 group meetings

·              I developed and am currently maintaining a website that teaches people how to set up a multisite Drupal IDE with debugging capabilities at http://sites.google.com/site/drupaldebugmultisite

 

February, 2009  – Present      New York Drupal Meetup Group

·              Presenter on “Stepping through a Drupal site step by step: using Eclipse and Xdebug” at NYC Drupal Camp held February 28, 2009 at Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, New York