David Singleton

Technical Expertise

Server Side

Extensive working knowledge of PHP and MySQL – Two years commercial experience of building database driven sites on LAMP systems. Advocate for the importance for separation of content from logic and the use of MVC structure.

Experience using the PEAR library and Smarty templating system. Comfortable working with Web Services and APIs.

Strong interest in Web Security issues, in particular the process behind, and prevention of, Cross Site Scripting and Cross Site Request Forgery attacks.

Some experience working with Java Servlets/JSP and Tomcat for web applications and Ruby for simple scripting.

Client Side

Expert knowledge of XHTML and CSS. To build semantically coded HTML and tame browser quirks in CSS to produce flexible sites that work in a variety of browsers.

Good working knowledge of Javascript, AJAX and Unobtrusive techniques, to allow pages to function without Javascript. Strong understanding of practical use of XML, XSLT and DOM manipulation.

Strong advocate for the importance of Web Standards, Accessibility and Progressive Enhancement techniques. Interested in the Semantic Web, Microformats and Machine Tagging.

Systems

Comfortable working with OS X, Windows and Linux systems, including Debian and Red Hat.

Good working knowledge of the unix command line for basic server administration. Familiar with Apache, httpd.conf and .htaccess files, able to install and configure from scratch.

Work Experience

Spring Digital – Senior Web Developer (Aug 2005 – Current)

30 person Web Design Agency in West London – http://springdigital.co.uk

Main role was PHP/MySQL developer, but also did front end development. Capable of switching between roles easily.

Built custom PHP/MySQL website. Including basic E-commerce, Recruitment, Mecical Surveys and website for a Savile Row tailor where you can create a full customisable shirt. Developed standard re-usable code templates used by the entire development team.

Ran code reviews within the development team to improve code quality and security. Trained other developers and documented best practice and coding standards.

Converting Photoshop/Fireworks designs into valid, semantic and accessible XHTML/CSS web pages. Included the use, and introduction, of Progressive Enhancement techniques and unobtrusive Javascript/AJAX.

PHP developer in a 2 man team building a OpenLazlo web application to manage DVD Libraries. The flash communicated with the back-end system through a RESTful API and XML responses. Also interacting with the Amazon API to gather movie information and artwork.

Built and maintained an internal web application for 18 months; Used to monitor project progress, time tracking, produced complex reports and invoices. Central to the day to day management of the company and used daily by ~20 people.

Worked with designers to improve the accessibility and usability of designs and teach HTML/CSS.

PureFM.com – Web Designer (Dec 2004 – Jul 2005)

University of Portsmouth Student Radio Station.

Took the role of front end developer/designer as part of a small 5 person team creating a brand new station website. Also included setting up a dedicated server as a web server and provide streaming audio for internet broadcasts.

Ran a weekly radio show with another student, playing and promoting music we were passionate about.

FFGurus.net – Web Developer (Aug 2000 – Sep 2003)

A large gaming website, with high traffic and a busy community

Unpaid work as an administrator – Responsibilities included developing dynamic content (in PHP/MySQL), a complete HTML re-design, managing the community and developing new features of the site.

Education

University of Portsmouth (Sep 2002 – Jun 2005)

Studying Internet Technology BSc achieving a First Class degree with honours.

Course Covered

Final Year Project

Developed a web based system to manage and syndicate news for the my University department. Multiple levels of users could use the system to manage news items, which were then available via the web and syndicated with RSS and ATOM.

Built around a LAMP server with a custom framework written in Object Oriented PHP, based on an MVC architecture, using Smarty and Mod Rewrite to generate Clean URLs.