Christopher John Bray

Personal Details

	Date of Birth	24-August-1980
	Address	15 Brotherton Ave Webheath Redditch Worcestershire B97 5SA
	Mobile Telephone	+44 777 9333 938
	Home Telephone	+44 1527 544049
	Email Address	chris@chrisbray.co.uk
	Website	http://www.chrisbray.co.uk
	Driving License	Full British (since Jan-1999), Clean

Key Skills

Development

Extensive use of:

• Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2 to 2005 inclusive
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (C# in server, desktop and embedded situations)
• Microsoft Compact Framework for development of .NET applications in C# on PDA's
• Microsoft Visual Basic 5 and 6,Microsoft Access and Excel VBA/COM
• XML, XHTML, HTML, WebServices and Javascript
• MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005, Oracle 10g XE and SQLite (on embedded system)
• PostgreSQL, PostGIS and OGC spatial technolgies
  
• PHP and Microsoft ASP.NET
• UML modeling for the design and development of both software and XML Schema
  

Operating Systems

Extensive experience of:

• Fedora Linux 6, 7 and 8 for desktop use.
• Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and 8.04 for both server and desktop use.
  
• CentOS Linux 3, 4, 5 and 5.1 (RedHat Enterprise Linux clone) for server use.
  
• Gentoo Linux for both server and desktop use.
• Microsoft Windows 95/98, 2000 Professional and Server, XP Professional and Home, Vista and Windows Server 2003

Computer Aided Design

Extensive experience of AutoCAD (Release 12 to 2008 inclusive) use in both 2D and 3D and development in C++ (ObjectARX), AutoLISP, .NET (C#) and VBA

Publications

Bray, C., Chandler, R. J, Walthall, S., Hoit, M. and Lefchik, T. (2008) "Extending the Geotechnical Dictionary. Best practice for customizing the international framework for Geotechnical Data", The Proceedings of GeoCongress 2008, March 9-12, New Orleans, LA. - Buy From Amazon

Career History

May 2005 - Present - Lead Software Engineer - Keynetix Ltd

In May 2005 Key Systems Geotechnical merged with it's sister company KeyGIS and their child company Keynetix Ltd to become Keynetix Ltd, my role as chief software engineer continued as did development on the existing projects as all products were carried on across the merger. I continued working on embedded systems, AutoCAD based visualization systems and a laboratory information management system. I also develop and maintain the corporate anti-piracy system, a non-central software and hardware based user licensing system that is in active use in hundreds of locations all over the world, and is as yet un-broken and secure.

Since that time my work has included the design and implementation of C# web services, accessible from everything from PocketPC's to full Windows desktop computers.  I have implemented both FTP and SMTP sending capabilities on PocketPC devices in the C# language, using Sockets and both Synchronous and Asynchronous communication. I spent time researching Binary and XML Serialization of .NET objects for their transmission via web service, this research facilitated the design, implementation, testing (which led to the implementation of an NUnit based unit testing procedure throughout the company) and maintenance of a company-wide object modeling framework. This framework allows objects to be modelled in C# and persisted to and from a SQLServer, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite or Oracle database or even an XML file, and transmitted over the Internet via a web service.

I have recently been heavily involved with the DIGGSML project to internationally standardise transfer of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental data in an GML Application Schema (XML based file format) and in addition to publishing research I maintain a well respected blog on this topic located at www.diggsml.com

Sep 1999 - May 2005 - Software Engineer - Key Systems Geotechnical

As I studied at University I was putting the theory into practice in the workplace and rapidly gaining confidence as a Visual Basic developer. I wrote a laboratory information management system residing within Microsoft Excel inter-operating with Visual Basic using COM, which then managed all the data and testing requirements of a soils laboratory inside a collection of Microsoft Access databases accessed using DAO.

Recently I have been involved in large scale systems for government bodies in the UK, principally the Highways Agency, where we developed a system called the Highways Agency Geotechnical Data Management System in partnership with Mott MacDonald. A national GIS system for managing geotechnical data. In the early days my responsibility in this project was implementing a C++ COM component that inspected the database of UK roads conducting shortest path searches down routes. After this component was deemed successful my skills were turned to developing an embedded system running on Microsoft PocketPC based PDA's.

My first minor role in the system was implementing an interface to NMEA compatible Bluetooth GPS systems, to allow for accurate positioning and placement of features within the embedded system, this was implemented quickly and effectively allowing me to move onto the more important aspects of the project. My second responsibility was mapping on the device, implementing a system allowing the user to download hundreds of megabytes of aerial photography, to a PDA with limited resources and making it usable in the field. The limitations of the PocketPC architecture are huge when it comes to graphics and manipulating large amounts of data, so this was a very challenging project, a third party component was used for the actual drawing itself to avoid re-implementing something that could be purchased, but this C component still needed to be integrated to our Embedded C++ and C# system. Extensive use of P/Invoke and various other .NET techniques saw the system implemented successfully.

Qualifications

Programming AutoCAD in .NET

A two day course presented by Autodesk teaching the development processes involved in developing for AutoCAD using .NET.

Systematix SQLServer 2000 System Administration and Database Design

A four day, Microsoft Certified course about using the Transact-SQL language to query, program, install, configure, administer, and troubleshoot Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in a Windows 2000 Server environment.

1999 - 2004 BSc (Hons) Computer Science (Software Engineering) Second Class (Upper Division) 2:1

I studied Computer Science at Wolverhampton University whilst on day release from Key Systems Geotechnical, modules studied included Requirements Analysis, Specification (both formal and non-formal), Design, Estimation, Development and Implementation and Testing. We did extensive development work mainly using the C++ language, however other development work was conducted using Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, PHP, Python and Oracle PL/SQL. For my dissertation I wrote an Internet based mapping system, using dynamically generated and generalised Scalable Vector Graphics produced from both PHP and Python scripts to draw interactive maps on-screen in an SVG capable browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

Leisure Interests

I am a keen participant and observer of motor sport with my main pastime being the driving of my Volkswagen Golf GTi in the Volkswagen Drag Racing Club's Sportsman championship, I am also currently sitting on the committee of the club itself.

My interest in computing and computer science continues out of work as I am an experienced Linux and UNIX user on my own desktops, laptops and servers. I also manage and administer my home wireless network and the associated remote access systems.

I am a keen follower of music, particularly live music, attending concerts and I have been an amateur performer in the past having successfully produced my own CD.

Referees

References and exam certificates / further educational history are available upon request.

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