Manager Project

Nigel Horne, M. Phil., B. Sc., B. A. (Open), B. A. (Shef), PgDipCCI, LDBBA

Address Telephone

**** ********** **. **** 301-***-****

Silver Spring, MD 20910 Cell 301-***-****

E-mail Citizenship Status

*****.*****@*******.*** H1-B sponsorship required

Qualifications

Post Graduate Diplomas

2000: Open University

Postgraduate diploma in Computing in Commerce and Industry

Degrees

1992 Open University B. A. Physics/Music (Upper Second

Class)

1980 Westfield College, B. Sc. Computer Science (Lower Second

London Class)

City & Guilds

Radio Amateurs' Examination

Summary

. Senior systems programmer with multi-platform experience across the

entire SDLC

. Knowledge of security, Linux, UNIX, systems administration, kernel and

embedded programming

. Main programming abilities: C, Linux, UNIX, TCP/IP, Perl, shell

programming

01/10 - Present Localstars (Contract)

Advised on testing strategy for a website, including common sources for

security vulnerabilities and exploits.

Proofread and edited end-user documentation.

Advised how to avoid emails they sent from being delivered to customers'

spam folders. Reconfigured the Linux and DNS servers and made

recommendations to the PHP programmers.

05/09 - 12/09 Pursuing outside interests

Working toward an M. Phil in music composition at the University of Leeds

in the UK which will be completed in April 2010.

Worked with the Sanesecurity project to create scripts written in Perl to

provide samples of spam, phishing and malware for use in the Sanesecurity

anti-spam plug-in for ClamAV.

Tested Perl add-in modules on a wide variety of read, virtual and

emulated hardware and operating systems. As a result, I am in the top 12

testers for the CPAN Perl testers' group.

08/07 - 04/09 Sourcefire Inc (Product Manager)

Maintained and tested ClamAV, an open source anti-virus project for UNIX,

Linux and Windows that is written mostly in C, that I had been working on

in my spare time since 2002 prior to the acquisition of the project by

Sourcefire.

Primarily I worked in the areas of file format handling and unpacking

(emails, SMTP, PDF, Microsoft Office, TNEF etc.) throughout the entire

software development life cycle. Worked on portability and regression

testing and development (especially from Linux to Windows and various

flavors of UNIX using virtual machines such as VMware and emulated

machines such as QEMU, SIMH and GXEMUL).

Wrote a TCP/IP based load-balancing and fault tolerant middleware

application between ClamAV and Sendmail to scan and decode MIME messages.

Researched the market place and latest malware techniques to design

algorithms that enhance the product. Encoded these algorithms, primarily

on Linux using C.

Worked with the Open Source community to raise awareness of ClamAV and to

understand the Open Source community's needs and expectations of the

company. Chaired and programmed on-line speeches and seminars.

Liaised with the internal IT organization to ensure that the business

needs of the product, such as the website, were understood and met.

Designed and tested web pages.

09/04 - 08/07 Various

Ji-tu Ltd (based in the UK): designed and tested web based multimedia

application focusing on TV, audio and video portal delivery, e-commerce,

on-line and digital media and publishing, and distribution over the

Internet. The Windows client was written in C++ using Visual Studio

using object oriented design methodology. The web back-ends used Perl

and MySQL and other open-source technology to host forums and video based

chat rooms and booking systems.

ClamAV Foundation (based in Poland): member of the not-for-profit

governing body of the ClamAV project, an open-sourced anti-malware and

anti-virus project.

10/06 - 12/06 Ocean Blue Software (contract)

Ported a set top box application written in C to Linux. Implemented a

hard disc driver and debugged the recording software.

05/06 - 10/06 Unnamed customers (freelance)

Provided commercial support for the ClamAV and SpamAssassin and Apache

suites for a web hosting service, working as a systems administrator and

systems programmer to optimize the email throughput on the server.

Wrote a program (written in Perl with an HTML front-end) to allow a music

publisher to upload CSV files from Microsoft Excel and to translate these

into HTML files suitable for an E-commerce site that I installed

(www.prima-arts.co.uk).

02/06 - 05/06 Peek Traffic (contract)

Worked as a Linux programmer adding existing functionality to a fault

tolerant system written in C, and ported the software to a 64-bit

environment. Implemented a protocol over TCP/IP, and used the Ethereal

packet analyzer to monitor the traffic over the network watching real-

time events to ensure the protocol was correctly implemented and honored.

Reviewed the software design, test specifications, and MMI of the

Windows based client. I suggested techniques for integration testing

that is more rigorous. I advised enhancements for usability and how to

approach UI design.

Bug fixed the watchdog driver of a data-gathering device running embedded

Linux.

Designed and implemented proof of concept code driving a box that

converts from Serial to Ethernet and vice-versa. The code was written in

C under Linux.

06/05 - 12/05 Devoteam (contract)

On site at France Telecom. Researched into the possibility of modifying

Linux (kernel, device driver and a user level daemon) implement the

proposed SyncServ protocol for 802.11b. Debugged the user and kernel

level software, implemented fixes and discussed the fixes with the

authors. Tested and documented the results with and without the kernel

patch. Bug fixed the Wi-Fi device driver and modified the software to

intercept and honor IPv6 router advertisement packets by intercepting the

packets and writing a simple decoder.

Took over the development of existing middleware of a new project for the

integration of 3G, GPRS, Bluetooth and other roaming technologies.

Rectified problems with the software design and implementation, optimized

the current code, and fixed incorrect assumptions with the Wi-Fi

bandwidth algorithms. Made changes to the system to make better use of

the multi-threading capabilities of Linux.

Wrote front and back ends in Perl, to send XML to the QoS server.

Wrote a multi-threaded server application in C++ on Linux to read and

parse XML data read from a TCP/IP socket and, using embedded SQL, save

the data on a PostgreSQL database.

Designed and implemented an automated test suite to drive the database

client and to verify the results. The suite, written in C and Perl on

Linux, parsed a command file containing information on how to drive the

client, what data to expect, and how to handle exceptions.

02/04 - 09/04 Tadpole Technology (contract)

Integrated Wi-Fi into the Linux kernel advised on test strategies and

modified the ACPI code for a laptop running the Java Desktop System.

Wrote the installation programs (Shell Scripts, Perl and C) and device

drivers (C) for the hardware not supported by the generic Linux

distributions, especially laptop related ones such as multimedia keys,

battery, ACPI and hibernate mode.

04/03 - 01/04 Global Security One (Global Development Manager)

Product manager for an Internet security device and a Windows based

network security manager and analysis program, managing, and reviewing

the work of, the teams that were working in all parts of the SDLC. The

technologies covered areas such as VPN, anti-virus, bandwidth management,

embedded Linux with a Windows GUI and content filtering for anti-virus

and other unwanted data.

Set up an offshore company that was an amalgamation of the companies

outsourced to by GSEC1. Oversaw the office and company creation in India.

Ran departments working on various technologies including embedded Linux,

Windows GUI, C, C++, QT, kernel modifications, test case analysis,

design, UI design and system daemons, driving the various procedures

needed to meet the needs of customers and quality control across the

various teams.

Kept abreast of the latest security issues with a focus on a technical

understanding, assessed the company's need to address them, and worked

with the chairman to ensure that a roadmap for the future of the product

was put in place.

Responsible for:

. Setting the goals for the project managers and team leaders and

ensuring that requirements were met without compromising quality, by

advising on testing, documentation and procedures; market

leadership, technical features and how best to implement them; or

usability, by organizing user trials and overseeing the user

documentation.

. Introducing a company software development strategy based around

industry best practice and the V model and put in place a team to

verify that the model was being adhered to.

. Setting objectives and appraisals: responsible for employee

discipline for all projects.

. Introducing programming standards and a code review process,

including analysis of the impact of incorporating changes to the

system.

. Delivery and specification of the products, devices for Internet

security (web and e-mail content filtering and anti-virus) based

around embedded Linux configured by a Windows GUI, and a Windows

based network security package.

. Setting the quality process of hardware, software and third level

support with the use of formal methods. Created a development

lifecycle and worked with the project managers and team leads to

monitor adherence and risk assess when issues arose.

. Setting and scheduling the test strategy, procedures, goals and

identifying tools. Set the metrics with the QA manager that these

had been met. This covered white and black box testing including

stress and vulnerability tests. Championed the use of automated

testing using scripts where possible.

. Identifying likely security risks to the firmware and recommending

internal and external solutions.

. Providing the leadership and co-ordination for the technical

resources of the company.

. Setting the timetables and resource requirements for the company.

. Designing the GUI.

. Advising the programmers on how best to make use of Linux in an

embedded environment and performed ad hoc code reviews to mentor and

advise the programmers.

. Setting the defect tracking process using Bugzilla and CVS.

. Chairing various project and management meetings.

. Drawing up the job specification, and heading the appointment of,

the QA manager.

Managed resources and teams in various locations worldwide including

offshore development (India) that totaled around 20 staff. Established

the strategy for the future, reviewed risks and created the company's

development procedures and processes. Drew up job specifications,

appraised CVs, conducted interviews, and advised the Managing Director.

Repositioned the technical teams to be customer rather than technology

focused especially in the approach of MMI design and user documentation

by introducing a scheme of user trials of prototypes. Oversaw the

results of these trials and reviewed the strategy for dealing with

problems that were raised and the procedure for verifying the results.

Mentored, organized training and provided technical guidance for the

project managers, team leaders and junior staff and helped with their

career development.

04/02 - 07/02 TfL (contract)

Managed the user acceptance of various products including document and

code reviews, problem tracking and writing installation and integration

black box test documents. Located problems with software deliverables and

managed solutions with suppliers and customers. Mentored the Integration

Manager with an emphasis on quality control. Liaised with the

configuration manager and data centre to determine their requirements and

ensure they were met.

Wrote test programs in C and Perl on Solaris UNIX.

01/02 - 04/02 Tadpole Technology (contract)

Wrote a device driver for Solaris 2.8 to support the Adaptec range of

SCSI cards for PCI and CardBus using the CardBus bridge driver I

developed for Tadpole last year. Used the BSD and Linux kernels and

drivers as references allowing for the differences between Intel and

Sparc, the SCSI transport layers, DMA and memory allocation between the

operating systems.

Ported, debugged and tested the Adaptec firmware assembler to Solaris and

built and tested the embedded BIOS code that uses it. Used a SCSI

protocol analyzer to verify the data along the bus.

Provided pre-sales advice to the sales team. Wrote performance-testing

scripts to measure the throughput of the driver against comparable

alternatives.

7/01 - 9/01 CrossLee (contract)

IT Manager, providing support of the Visual DBase client software and

database and some hands on work including system administrative tasks on

the Linux server (shell and Perl scripts) and maintaining a bespoke

Borland C++/SQL system on their Windows 98 clients.

Wrote a proposal for the IT strategy of the company, and suitable job

specifications for the positions.

1/01 - 07/01 Tadpole Technology (contract)

Worked as a senior systems programmer designing and modifying the kernel

to support a hot-pluggable device driver in C for Solaris version 2.8 to

support Cardbus devices, and providing changes to the existing memory

mapping software as needed. The device driver was based around the

existing PCI, PCMCIA and other drivers that are standard with Solaris,

comparing with the relevant Linux drivers and kernel where necessary to

verify the hardware was being correctly driven. Tested with combinations

of graphics, Ethernet, SCSI, USB and PCI cards in various configurations.

Before 2001:

10/00-12/0 ERA Technology

0

4/00 - First Direct Bank

10/00

10/99 - Marconi Communications

4/00

9/99 Oracle (contract)

5/98 - ERA Technology (contract)

8/99

7/96 - Nortel (analyst)

5/98

5/88 - Softcare Media Systems Ltd. (technical director)

5/96

1/83 - UniSoft Ltd. (Formerly ROOT Computers Ltd) (divisional

5/88 director)

6/80 - Westfield College, University of London, Computer

1/83 Science Dept. (Systems Administrator)

Miscellaneous

I was the technical reviewer for the O'Reilly book on the Java Desktop

System, reviewing for the accuracy, completeness and consistency of the

language used.

I hold a Class A amateur radio transmitting license.

I enjoy working with people from other cultures, and actively seek

opportunities so to do in my musical as well as my business activities.

I have a keen interest in learning about other cultures and in spending

time and working in many places across the globe, especially in Asia and

North America.

I have a B.A. in band studies from The University of Sheffield (graduated

in 2003), have an undergraduate diploma in Musical Adjudication from the

University of Salford (2007) and an M. Phil in music composition at the

University of Leeds. I am currently the musical director of Rockville

(MD) Brass Band. I have conducted and run many musical groups at a

variety of levels in a number of countries.

I was a member of the organizing committee for the 2006 Research Students

Conference of the Royal Musical Association.

I am in excellent health and I do not smoke.

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