Profile Summary

Involved in client/server database systems since 1988.

Dan Langille has extensive experience in the information technology arena. He has been involved in all phases of application system design and development ranging from PC applications to mainframe systems. His area of expertise is PC systems and database development. The bulk of his experience has been in PowerBuilder, C, C++ but he has recently cross-trained into Java.  He has spent the majority of his career using OO designs and methodologies.  For the past four years he has been heavily involved with website/database interfaces working with HTML, XML, PHP, and ASP.

Dan has been involved in teaching and mentoring. With Synergy he provided a mentoring role to National Bank on their Branch platform project and more recently he acted as mentor to a Synergy development team on the use of PFC. At University, he worked as a Teaching Assistant.  He also runs several websites including The FreeBSD Diary (http://www.freebsddiary.org/) and FreshPorts (http://www.freshports.org/).

Dan completed a Bachelor of Computer Science degree with High Honours at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

 

Employment History

May 2001 - present - Ponte Communications, Software Engineer

Dan worked on various parts of the nsControl system including:

• loadbuild - creating the final product and ISO
• creating solaris packages (for Apache/mod_ssl and Control Panel)

The work involved varied from week to week as the workflow changed.

March 1994 - May 2001 - Synergy International Limited, consultant

Dan has been working at Department for Courts developing PowerBuilder-based applications. Much of the work involved creating Oracle stored procedures and tables to fulfil user requirements for additional reporting facilities.

Prior to this, Dan was working on research and development projects within Synergy. Most of his work has centred around the Java framework being developed for use within Synergy and for sale to third parties. The work has involved JavaBeans, JSP, and TopLink and the objective was self-managing business objects suitable for use within web sites.

Dan worked at the Ministry of Fisheries to convert an existing system from PowerBuilder 4 to PowerBuilder 5. In the process, an existing class library was removed and PFC was introduced to make use of existing and well-known class objects.

Dan worked on a Wholesale Pool simulator for a major New Zealand utility using PowerBuilder 5 and PFC. This system calculates the half hourly price of electricity based on different simulation models.

Dan worked at New Zealand Post with a small team, which created a workflow management system. This software is designed to make the management of work centres easier and allow managers to supervise resources efficiently. The system uses MTS and Microsoft SQL Server. The work was in Visual Basic and was OO by design.

Dan worked on the PowerBuilder Branch Platform project at a major New Zealand bank. This project incorporated many complex systems in a single GUI front end. Initially a PowerBuilder 3 system running under Windows 3.11, which replaced 3270 screens, the code was later migrated to PowerBuilder 4 and Windows NT. At the same time, the database was converted from Microsoft Access to Oracle.

Dan has developed a PowerBuilder system to enable a Government unit to track project and film developments, produce accounting reports, and maintain mailing lists. He recently returned to enhance this system to include additional mailing list features including audit trails.

Dan worked at New Zealand Post with a small team which created a work flow management system. This software is designed to make the management of work centres easier and allow managers to supervise resources efficiently. The system uses MTS and Sybase SQL Server.

During his current project Dan has been providing mentoring to the Ministry of Commerce on PowerBuilder 5 and PFC.

Dan’s previous project was the development of an Educational Framework for a Government Department. This project used PowerBuilder 4 and Sybase SQL Server 10.

1986 - March 1994 - Bank of New Zealand - analyst/programmer, team leader

Dan spent five years working with a bank in the Treasury Systems Development area. A major function of this department was the development and maintenance of Microsoft Windows applications.

Dan worked on a marketing system incorporating MIS information for a major New Zealand bank. The system made extensive use of reusable code and simple user interfaces to present complex information in an easy to use format.

June 1985 - March 1986 - JP Scott and Associates - consultant

Worked for New Zealand Racing Conference designing a computer system to replace existing manual systems.

Other work

In his spare time, Dan has developed a real-time system for producing race results and a sales sub-system for tracking race competitors' purchases. This system was developed in two versions, one as stand-alone using SQL Anywhere; the other being a multi-user system using Sybase under Windows NT. The system has since been expanded to cater for a wider range of events and has been used at World Cup races and sold internationally. Dan has also developed a PowerBuilder system using SQL Anywhere for tracking and reporting on special effects for the film industry.

Dan created and runs The FreeBSD Diary (http://www.freebsddiary.org/), a very popular website containing how-to guides for Unix. This site combines his years of experience with FreeBSD with his passion for teaching. His experience includes website design, server setup, and system administration. The site is the largest collection of how-to guides for FreeBSD on the Internet.  He also wrote FreshPorts (http://ww.freshports.org/) which automatically tracks software updates and notifies registered users of any changes.

 

Key Experience

Management

Dealing Systems - Banking Industry

Money Market Systems - Banking Industry

Technical Analysis

Security Manager Interface - Banking Industry

Change Management

Version Control

Production Procedures

LAN - AS/400 Communications

Requirements Analysis

Information Systems - Wholesale Organisation

Information Systems - Entertainment Industry

Review of all systems associated with the Treasury functions - Banking Industry

Software Design and Development

Marketing System - Banking Industry

Base, Common, and Private object libraries - Banking Industry

MailReader - Banking Industry

MailLogon - Banking Industry

Enhancements for loan calculations via C++ DLL - Banking Industry

Worked with MAPI applications to provide document transportation via eMail - Banking Industry

Evaluation of PowerBuilder 4 - Banking Industry

Box Office - Government Unit

Race Results System - The Kennett Bros

FiXer - WETA

Service Station Network - Oil Industry

Brokerage System - Banking Industry

Point of Sale - Retail Sector

Enhancements to Financial systems - Retail Sector

Bonds Deal Capture System - Banking Industry

Foreign Exchange Deal Capture - Banking Industry

MIST - Security Manager Interface (Access)

Bonds Repo - Banking Industry

TDS Archiver for TDS (The Dealing System) - Banking Industry

TDS Print for generic centralised ticket printing - Banking Industry

TDS Batcher for batching and transmission of deals to back office system - Banking Industry

TDS Backup to backup databases online - Banking Industry

Wrote a library of common database procedures for TDS - Banking Industry

TDS Table Maintenance - Banking Industry

TDS Limits System - Banking Industry