Resume - William Dicks

Located in Pretoria


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Background

Birthday – 11 January 1963 (in Springs)

Schools

- Primary – Laerskool Morewag

- High – Hoerskool Stoffberg (Matric 1980)

 

Military Service – July 1981-June 1983

 

 

Family

Married, and have two teenage children.

Objective

Providing expert assistance in developing systems, with proven experience. I would like to move into the Project Management arena and my 20+ years of experience in software development will add greatly to this. Further, I have completed a Project Management course in Aug 2013. With my extensive experience of over 20 years on different projects, I believe I have the experience to provide you with strong project management knowledge from an insider’s point of view.

Work experience

Sep 2010 ->   Telemetry software - Boksburg, South Africa

Senior Software Developer

 

§  My responsibilities are as follows:

Design/maintenance of system/modules.

§  Developed a web application that receives and displays information on the well-being of power generators. Windows services collect the info, sort and inserts it into a MS SQL database, while the web application displays the info after extracting it from the database.

§  Currently redeveloping old legacy system in C#.NET for the business to keep track of rental equipment with regards to GPS position, company rented to, equipment condition via telemetry, mapping, etc.

§  Development and maintenance of software done in Visual Studio .NET 2010 /2012 using C#.

§  Done a lot of MS SQL work from database design to stored procedures and the like.


 

Dec 2007 -> Sep 2010    eCommerce - Pretoria, South Africa

Senior Software Developer

 

§  My responsibilities are as follows:

Design/maintenance of system/modules.

§  All projects are Webservice related, or making use of webservices.

§  Development and maintenance of software done in Visual Studio .NET 2003/2005/2008 and 2010(for new projects) using C++.

§  Our development is in the Digital Rights Management arena in securing software in preventing unauthorized use.


 

Jun 2004 -> Nov 2007   SIM Card on cell phone - Woodmead, South Africa

Senior Software Developer

 

§  My responsibilities were as follows:

Design of system/modules (mostly with the use of UML).

Documentation of the designed system using a modified form of the MIL-STD-498 standards (brought into the company at my suggestion), including the following documents:

Operational Concept Description, Interface Design Description, Interface Requirements Specification, Software Design Description, Software Requirements Specification, System/Subsystem Design Description.

Development of respective modules.

Research on relevant project issues.

§  All projects were SIM card related. Accessing SIM cards to either retrieve data or write data, including repairing of the SIM card OS by loading OS patches onto the card.

§  As clients demanded to have certain SIM card applications (cell phone banking, information retrieval, etc) added to their SIM cards, it was my responsibility to design, develop and add these STK (SIM ToolKit) applications to their SIM cards.

§  All access to SIM cards in projects were done via the PCSC standard.

§  Development and maintenance of software done in Visual Studio .NET 2003 using C++. New projects will be and are currently developed using C#.

§  Interface with clients (across Africa and Madagascar) on technical issues related to communication between cell phone network and SIM card either by way of email, telephone calls or actual visits to their premises.

§  Troubleshooting to find problems with interface between cards and network.

 

 

Feb 2001 -> Jun 2004    Military/government secure software - Pretoria, South Africa

Senior Software Developer

 

§  My responsibilities were as follows:

Design of system/modules.

Documentation of the designed system according to the MIL-STD-498 standards, including the following documents:

Operational Concept Description, Interface Design Description, Interface Requirements Specification, Software Design Description, Software Requirements Specification, System/Subsystem Design Description.

Development of respective modules.

Research on relevant project issues.

§  Heading up a small team within a larger project. This project facilitated the encryption of files on local or network drives. Authentication for reading/writing/encryption/decryption was done via PKI certificates and PINs.

§  Worked on a system that upgrades any tcp/ftp connections to a secure level of 128-bit encryption. Uses PKI to verify certificates. Based on SSL. Running on Win95/98, WinNT, Win2K. Developed using MS VC++ 6.

§  Worked on a government system that will give government ministers the ability to work on machines that are secured by smart cards/thumb readers. Via this logon process they will then be allowed to work on their own PCs and also on a secure network. My involvement is to create secure passwords using the SHA1 hash algorithm and also to write the private keys, public certificate and CA certificate to a smart card.

§  Headed up a small team to rewrite the GUI of our own in-house developed firewall. I was responsible for meeting target dates and ensuring that the members of the team had everything they needed in assisting them with meeting their targets.

§  Developed a new smartcard DLL in VC++ (v6.0) for the government system. The system, at that time, was using a DLL provided by a
vendor and we had decided to develop our own to have all the functionality we need.

§  Using UML in all cases to design systems. I was also responsible for writing System Requirements Specification (SRS) and System Subsystem Design Documents (SSDD).

§  All development of software done using Visual C++ 6.0.

 

 

1999 - 2000                 Insurance - Columbus, Ohio, USA

Staff Consultant

 

§  Worked at Nationwide Financial Systems (http://www.nationwide.com/) in Columbus, Ohio in the USA.

§  Converted a 16-bit Windows 3.1 Structured Settlement system developed in Visual C++ 1.5 to a 32-bit Win95/NT system in Visual C++ 6.

§  A lot of controls had to be taken out of the 16-bit system due to incompatibilities with 32-bit architecture, and then replaced with new code.

§  The system had to interface with the software of several other Life Insurance companies.

§  I was responsible for liaising with their development people to ensure a smooth interface with their software.

§  I also had to development COM interfaces with one of these companies’ DLL software.

§   I also had to design additional work on this system when new needs arose. Therefore, I had to analyze the needs and then finally develop the extras associated with these needs.

 

Accomplishments

I was “Consultant of the Quarter” for the 3rd quarter of 2000. Due to hard work and the complete redesign and re-implementation of the old software system, I was able to deliver the package to the user on time to enable its use with new quotation structures.

 

 

1998                            Postal services - Pretoria, South Africa

Consultant

 

§  July 1998-January 1999

§  Developed a financial reporting program for the South African Post Office after all the claims of corruption. The information would be collated from files that were deposited on a network server by mainframe programs.

§  We made use of Borland C++ Builder.

 

 

1996 – 1998                 Military Software - Pretoria, South Africa

Systems Analyst

 

§  February 1996-February 1997

§  Helped with some of the design and development on NT using Visual C++ 4.1 on an Air force Intelligence system that gathered and communicated information across SA.

§  The system consisted of a front end (developed in Visual Basic), middleware (Visual C++), and backend (ORACLE database).

§  For the complete period I helped develop the middleware, and for 4 months at the end I helped speed up the development and analyzing of new needs on the front end using Visual Basic.

Accomplishments

I was incorporated into the VB team to provide leadership in order for them to meet their target dates. The team that worked on the VB front end was running behind schedule. As a result I was brought in to provide leadership and technical assistance to bring the project up to speed. At this time I had to learn VB first. As a result the project was delivered on time within specifications.

 

§  March 1997-June 1998

§  After above project I joined another project that in the end interfaced with the above project.

§  This project was wholly developed in Visual C++ on NT for the SA Air force.

§  It was a RADAR system display getting information from physical RADAR systems and displaying and tracking movement of any flying objects, whether friendly or enemy.

§  It will also display information gathered by the system above.

 

 

1995 - 1996                 Banking - Sandton, South Africa

Analyst Programmer

 

§  April 1995-January 1996

§  Maintained existing system on OS/2 in Borland C++.

§  System was a relay and converter in an International Forex system. Using TCP/IP the OS/2 machine had to communicate with UNIX, MVS and CICS.

§  I did some minor work on UNIX too in C++ and also some SQL work.

§  I headed up the PC development of the International Treasury Department and liaised with the developers and team leaders of the mainframe and UNIX teams.

 

Accomplishments

When I was brought onto the team, the project was going slow and the OS/2 side of the project was in disarray. Due to great effort and proper design I was able to ensure that the project was delivered on time for live employment.

 

 

1990 - 1995                 Antivirus - Pretoria, South Africa

Senior Programmer

 

§  January 1990-July 1991 - Started as security guard at this company.

§  July 1991-March 1995  - Was trained by the company in C. We developed anti-virus and PC security software primarily for the Defence Force. By the time I left, I was a Senior Programmer, and also the head programmer of the anti-virus software, and was also involved in helping with the PC security software. We developed primarily for DOS, and then some for Windows 3.1. Developed primarily in C, but also did work in Pascal and PC assembler. Started developing in Borland C++ by the end.

§  I took leadership of the technical design and development of the anti-virus software to ensure proper standards and functionality.

 

Accomplishments

I was the first to isolate the EXEBUG_A virus after travelling to the Louis Trichardt air force base to investigate a possible virus complaint. I investigated the behaviour of several PCs, and after several hours of contemplation was able to isolate this virus. Upon my return to the office I was able to analyse the virus and provide a solution for its removal and the repairs of a computer’s Master Boot Record and the boot sector of a floppy. This solution was provided within 24 hours of isolating the virus. As a result of this we were able to send a copy of the virus and the removal code to Scotland Yard in the UK and to the developers of the F-Prot Antivirus system in Finland.

 

While still working at this comany, I totally revamped the code base of our antivirus product to be more modular in its approach which helped for a much speedier addition of code for the removal of viruses and the repairs of files or hard disk sectors.

 

I also headed up the coding standards committee for Pascal and PC Assembler at the company during the time they sought to become ISO9001 compliant.

 

Programming Languages

Language

Time used

Last used

Objective-C/C++

2009

2010

C#

Since 2005

current

C++

Since 1994

2010

C

Since 1991

2010

VC++

Since 1996

2010

Java

Training only (May 2002)

2002

Java on SIM

Since 2007

2007

MS SQL

2010

current

Education

1985 - 1989                 Hatfield School of Theology                Pretoria

BA degree in Bible/Theology

 

§  Hatfield School of Theology (now Hatfield Training Center) is a Bible school that is affiliated with Global University in Irving, Texas.

§  I did two years of practical pastoring as student pastor/intern.

 

Accomplishments

I was student leader in my final year of study.

 

 

1994 - 1996                 UNISA                                                 Pretoria

 

§  Diploma in Datametrics (Computer Science major)

 

 

§  Completed a Project Management course in August 2013 through MySkills Online at http://www.myskills.co.za in conjunction with Mind Leaders. Subjects covered are:

-          Project Management Overview 

-          Understanding the Project Manager's Role 

-          Defining the Problem 

-          Determining the Strategy 

-          Developing the Work Breakdown Structure 

-          Estimating and Scheduling Resources 

-          Understanding Scheduling Computations 

-          Tracking Project Activities 

-          Closing Out the Project 

-          Formalizing Project Management Standards 

-          Developing Project Teams 

-          Ensuring Your Own Effectiveness

 

§  I have also done several courses to enhance my abilities in C, C++, UML and Java.

 

Microsoft Courses

§  Feb 2012 - 6232B: Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Database

§  Nov 2012 - 10267A: Introduction to Web Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

§  Apr 2013 - 10265A: Developing Data Access Solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

§  May 2013 - 10266A: Programming in C# with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

§  Jun 2013 - 10264A: Developing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Extracurricular Interests and activities

 

Church

§  Actively involved in church.

§  Led a Bible study group from 1986-1998.

§  While in the USA from Jan 1999 – Dec 2000 I was a Sunday School teacher together with my wife at our local church there.

§  Headed up a theological study group from 2001-2004.

 

Issues

§  I am still involved in writing theological articles for the WEB.

§  The writing of theological articles helps me to think in a coherent manner to ensure professional documents.

§  I maintain two BLOGs (Web Log) in which I tackle issues on theology and write cultural and political commentary.

Community Interests

 

§  Elected to serve on the Ward Committee of Ward 47 of the Tshwane City Council. Finished 5 years of service here in March 2011.

Languages

 

§  English

§  Afrikaans

Security clearance

 

§  “Secret” during time at Infoplan (SITA) and Isis.

Hobbies

 

§  Reading

§  Music

§  Movies