Presentation of Qualifications

Kevin Porter

NPS, Inc. PO Box 53068, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87153-3068 (505) 250-8445 Email (kporter@roux.com)

In brief:

I started NPS (Network Programming Services) in 1992, and incorporated the company in 1994. I have been involved in programming and network design and maintenance for over ten years. My experience includes communications programming, extensive network and process troubleshooting, statistical and graphical analysis software development, and various software solutions to handle background tasks and maintenance ("glueware").

My current focus is using Windows 2000, Windows NT, and Windows 95 to distribute mission-critical information to the desktop. The challenge lies in getting data into these operating systems in a reliable and timely fashion, and ensuring the necessary security and data integrity.

As an independent consultant, I do a great deal of my work remotely. Not only have I completed large tasks to the customer's expressed satisfaction without visiting the client site, but I have designed and co-authored software with contractors whom I have never actually met face to face.

The need to communicate remotely led me to the Internet, and I have developed a familiarity with messaging protocols such as SMTP and POP3. Over the past five years I have become very familiar with the tools and resources available through the Worldwide Web and Usenet, as well.

Experience Highlights

Consultant

Through NPS, I have developed a close working relationship with a major oil company. Over the past five years I have developed many software solutions for specific complex problems. My accomplishments for this company include:

Network Management

My customer has an ongoing need for products to manage audit logs, to monitor network performance at both the server-side and the client-side, and to filter packets at the Netbios layer in order to segment network traffic. Some of my software solutions to these needs supported a Graphical User Interface, while others used the command-line.
I produced applications which manage file permissions and system registries. This functionality exists in Windows NT, but is available only through the Graphical User Interface, and is therefore not usable for automation via batchfiles. To address this situation I wrote the applications to operate from the command-line.

Scalable Data Analysis

I developed a program which monitors a satellite commodities feed and exports the data to various formats to be used by client programs. This application is completely extendable and multi-threaded. Each program that processes the feed runs concurrently with the others as an independent process on one or many different computers. Data moves between the processes using "auto-pipes;" that is, it uses named pipes, but the pipes are named and created dynamically. This ensures that if one process fails, the processes immediately before and after it will connect. When the failed process restarts it can pick up at the end of the chain. This expandability also records the raw feed in both a machine readable and human readable format to provide traceability and accountability when incorrect data is introduced from any source.

End User Applications

Text Reader: I created a front end to the Verity Topic text retrieval and search engine to provide a more friendly and streamlined interface to the customer's news feed. This is a character-mode, DOS-based application that supports mouse input.
Alphanumeric Pagers: Pagers use a standard protocol to send alphanumeric messages directly to them from the paging terminal. I wrote a command-line based program that will provide all the necessary handshaking as well as recover from common error conditions that develop. This permits users to alpha-page field personnel with detailed information, and also allows automated processes to send out status and error reports without human intervention.

Senior Programmer

For the six years prior to starting NPS, I worked as a senior programmer for a DOE-subcontractor semiconductor test facility. Significant achievements during this job include:

Statistical and Graphical Data Analysis

I worked closely with test technicians, production management, and documentation staff to develop a software package to collect and analyze test data. The application analyzed output ranging from one data point to over one million data points. My proprietary data format supported archiving of the analysis parameters to ensure repeatability and accountability. This information also served as a script using which the operator could simply point to the data to produce the analysis automatically.

Production Control and Contract Billing

I designed and co-authored a shop floor control and billing system to track components through all test phases. In addition to tracking the components, the system was used to produce accurate employee timecards and contract billing report data which automatically updated the accounting system.

Skills/Capabilities

Operating Environments

Network Operating Systems

Programming Languages

Messaging Protocols