Ben Allfree :: Painless Programming

Guaranteed results for your micro-startup from a web designer who knows the difference.

Resume

Experience

Expert consultation and software construction for micro-startups is who I am.

Yes, I am Real

People sometimes ask if this resume is me or if it is maybe a rollup of me and all the people who work for me. When I tell them it's just mine, then they ask how I can possibly have any depth of skill.

This resume is mine alone. It's real and true. I have in-depth knowledge. I started young. But ask the people who work with me, they will all tell you the same.

The thing to realize about technology is that there are no new ideas. Once you see "the matrix" for what it is, you see that everything new is really the same recycled ideas. The only variables are time and available computing power. Learning becomes a process of mapping old to new. Once you do that, you find out that you already deeply understand something that is superficially different.

But listing each derivative skill makes a resume look really good.

Projects

I program solo and also lead team development projects. Teams of 2-3 work best. You have to start layering up after that, and cost curves hit hard. Stay with small teams.
  • Physical Therapy Portal, 2010, 2 members
  • Home Care Portal, 2009 - 2 members
  • Medical Patient Portal, 2007 - 9 members
  • Social Video Site, 2006 - 5 members
  • Social Networking Application, 2005 - 5 members
  • Satellite Insurance Software, 2004 - 4 members
  • Medical Claim Processing Application, 2003 - 9 members
  • HR Software, 2002 - 3 members

Special Engagements

Special engagements consist of extended on-site consultation.
  • Father of Two - 2006-present
  • Director of Engineering, introNetworks - 2005
  • Professor of Computer Science, Indiana Institute of Technology - 2000

Skills and Technologies

I have in-depth knowledge of each of the things listed here. This is not an exhaustive list because technology continues to change.

As a rule, technologies have more in common than not. Working with a new technology is simply an exercise in mapping the familiar underlying concepts to a new means of organizing.

Very rarely (never) is technology "new". Instead, new frameworks are merely focused to a particular problem domain. The important thing to see from this list is the variety of problem domains I have covered.

  • Operating System Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft DOS, Sun Solaris, Apple MacOS, iPhone, Newton, Linux, Atari TOS/GEM, Java, Windows CE, PalmOS
  • Database Platforms: Microsoft SQL Server 7, 2000, 2005, 2008, Oracle 10G, MySQL 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, PosgreSQL, SQL Lite, XML data stores, YAML data stores
  • Web 2.0 APIs: google, Facebook, Amazon AWS, mySpace, Flickr, eBay, Buy.com, and about a zillion more
  • Web services: SOAP, REST, XML-RPC, COM
  • Application Platforms: Ruby on Rails, cakePHP, ASP/ASP.NET/IIS, Mobile devices / WAP, Windows Forms (.NET), PHP/Zend, Python/Zope, Perl/Apache, Java, J2EE, J2ME, and about a zillion more
  • Content Management System (CMS) frameworks: DotNetNuke, php-nuke, PostNuke, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress...and about a zillion more.
  • Languages: C, C++, C#, Objective C, BASIC, QBASIC, Visual Basic 4, 5, 6, Visual Basic .NET, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Embedded BASIC, Assembly (8080, i960, x86/Pentium, 68K, PPC, MIPS, Java Virtual Machine), PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, Perl, Shell and batch languages, Java, JavaScript/JScript, Modula-2, Fortran, Common Lisp, Clarion, Flash ActionScript, whitespace, more

Education

You should know how I feel about education. I usually leave this section off. I almost dropped out several times. I've met a lot of college grads who still don't get it. Yes, it proves I can stick with something. Yes, it's better than not having it. But there's a bottom line to education: can you think and solve problems, or not? Do you cling to what you know and try to jam reality into your memorized models, or do you open yourself to see a situation for what it is? It doesn't matter to me how you acquire that skill. It shouldn't matter to you either.

Working Man's PhD
University of Hard Knocks, 1995-Present
Still trying to graduate.

Master of Business Administration
University of St. Francis, Fort Wayne, IN, 2002
Emphasis in Entrepreneurship and International Finance

B.A. Music
University of Nevada, Reno, 2000
Vocal Performance

B.A. Computer Science
University of Nevada, Reno, 2000
Embedded Systems