Resume - Fred Curtis

• [2001] Planar Maps in 4 bits/edge [http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0104147] - not written in relation to any employment; a by-product of an interest in the mathematical theory of knots.

Singtel-Optus is the second-largest Australian communications company. I work in OptusNet, the large Internet Service Provider division of Optus. Web applications are written in Mason, a mixture of HTML & Perl code, not unlike PHP. My work at various stages included:

• Liaising with Customer Service staff over day-to-day requests (DNS mods, email config, web sites).
• Maintaining existing Perl applications & documentation.
• Developing new customer- and staff-facing Mason web applications.
• Automating Customer Support procedures.
• Developing ad hoc reports for Optus business units.

Currently, I work in a team managing the OptusNet pre-production environment. Tasks include

• Scrutinizing developer Perl code released into the environment.
• Analysis & debugging of developer Perl code.
• Developing test strategies for projects.
• Writing Perl code to test developer applications.
• Writing Perl code to monitor the pre-production environment.

Voxson produces wireless devices (mobile phones, PDAs etc.). My work was developing a test-logging system. It involved:

• Analysis and specification of project scope & requirements.
• Coding the test-logging system.
• Perl scripts were used to automatically generate SQL schemas & DB access C code from TestStand object data types.
• C-language DLLs were written to insert/retrieve TestStand objects in database.

Astracon produces the CoreConnect family of network management systems which abstract over vendor-specific network hardware. My work included:

• Optimization -- mechanising intra-thread/process control flow trace; automating generation of graphs to locate bottlenecks and verify performance improvements.
• Performance/stress tests -- test design/coding ; automating collection/graphing of trace data to detect long-term degradation / memory leaks.
• Self-assigned tasks, e.g. automating tedious trial-and-error search through .a/.o files for long C++ identifiers which caused Solaris QA tools to crash
• Wrote a portable pre-install ksh-script to check for the presence/version of resources (OS libs, Oracle, Rogue Wave, Orbs) etc. required for CoreConnect. Reports in ASCII / HTML / Tbl.
• Extending CoreConnect's 2-ended path functions to multipoint ; coding an operation-trace interface allowing selective function trace & storage / retrieval of trace information.

QM is a large printing house. My work included maintenance of existing (undocumented) applications; new applications to turn ad hoc client data into printable reports; automating tedious print-operator tasks.

My work was the co-design & coding of a multithreaded PC-based end of an internet advertising application. I wrote several project support tools, including a JavaDoc-like tool, written in Perl.

Commercial Dynamics are the publishers of The Trading Post. My work included report program maintenance / debug / upgrades; analysis & coding of new applications ; modifications of applications to cope with changing standards, e.g. Austel phone no. changes; some low-level systems programming including a (C-language) tape backup / generic tape copy programs.

Developed the Tabular Data Control Active-X control initially used in IE 4.0. Considerable liaison was undertaken with US staff over shifting project specifications. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/database/tdc/tabular_data_control_node_entry.asp

Developed a phone-driven application to navigate editions of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper & read aloud articles, voice-mail etc; deevloped support applications to analyse newspaper SGML; developed phone-driven administrative applications.

Relief system administrator work, including user support & liaising with Chemistry School staff.

This contract was for the design & coding of tools to index & quickly query a large CD-ROM-based relational DB.

My research work was on a persistent object store supporting multiple models of concurrency; translating annotated C code into RPC-like calls; & an experimental persistent language (Napier target code); course-related work for departmental academics included writing a reference compiler with a RISC target instruction set for a compiler course. A personal project was writing a web-based interface to Jim Breen's "EDICT/KanjiDICT" database of Japanese characters.

Dendrite developed applications for Pharaceutical & other companies to assist & manage their mobile sales workforces. My work included writing visual tools to maintain an abstract data model (including inheritance) and translate the model into into concrete DB schema & machine-readable data dictionaries for use by applications running under UNIX and DOS; writing an MS-Windows spreadsheet control to provide flexibility and reusability missing in 3rd-party spreadsheet-control products; writing a library to translate local PC C/ISAM-like DB requests into SQL on UNIX host via TCP/IP; modifying C libraries to cope with Japanese laptop screens and printers; liaison with staff in US & Japan offices of the company.