SerSo.com

SerSo.com has been upgraded again. At the speed and frequency new releases of WordPress are made available, this is a bit crazy, but one thing I am happy with: their “upgrade” feature. The 5 minute install, the export and the upgrade features do make a lot for WordPress.

In a certain way, it compensates for many other shortcomings of the engine itself. I still am not completely accomodated to the idea that one doesn’t have any simple way to get the page slug, for instance, and there are many more like that.

I’ll stop complaining because I realize that this is community development driven, and I, for one, haven’t contributed anything to it. I will, I will!

I was already tired of winter. And spring came, the “fever” came along, and here am I updating my blog / site. This new look has a lot to do with the selected WordPress Theme (find more about it at the About page) and a renewed commitment to actually do stuff for myself, for a change. The selected template was fiercely customized and integrated by me, but to its merit, it really gave the site that particular look I was seeking.

In the future, I’ll select, customize and publish the site with other Themes chosen from the bounty of excellent free WordPress themes available. This is also my way of giving credit to whom made them.

So, this site now has a new look and feel, new content, new organization, new ideas and new areas of interest. I can point some new things that might be of interest:

• A new, revamped, Personal and Professional info area;
• An area for Game Development, a hobby of mine that includes modding and mapping for Half-Life 2;
• The Mobile Development area, and interest that is becoming more than a hobby for me;

And, to top it off, these new areas aren’t just looking the same as the rest of the site. Oh no, not necessarily

I can advance that I do have plans to open the Game Area to external participation, and definitely we will have downloads, code samples, how-to’s, maps and mods to share. The sharing of code and how-to’s extends to Mobile Development as well.

Of course, there is the usual content, posts and articles about several themes, that now include Living stuff such as Food and Drinks, Movies, Books, etc.

All in all, I hope you find this site useful, entertaining or, simply, enjoyable.

Welcome and have fun. Yours truly,

-Sergio

Banco Espirito Santo – Lisboa (Portugal)

Jun. 2006 – Mar. 2007

Responsible for the Implementation of all Customer Communication Services (Statements, Advices, Confirmations) regarding the activities in the Trade Floor, using the API of Calypso Software (developing Java, J2EE) and integrating with Tibco (EAI), SWIFT and other external systems such as Mailtec.

Being the first area to enter qualification, delivered on time all advices and confirmations completely integrated;

PT Comunicações – Lisboa (Portugal)

Nov. 2005 – May 2006

Responsible for the Design en Architecture of the solution for Blogs Sapo, integrating hardware resources with LiveJournal, MySQL replicated and fault tolerant databases. Also responsible for coordination and leading of the Perl Developer Team of eight.

Designed and Implemented a fully load balanced, fault tolerant and horizontally scalable system capable of handling more than 300,000 simultaneous users and a capacity for 1,000,000 compounded growth per year. Delivered 1 month ahead of schedule; (MySQL, Perlbal, Altion, HP/UX, Debian, LiveJournal)

Developed, using PERL, the whole Comments Management system, thus participating hands on and helping the development team;

Sep. 2002 – Nov 2005

As a Consultant since September 2002, managed, developed and implemented several systems in Visual Basic, Java, PHP and PERL, integrating SQL databases, delivered to clients from Canada and the United States:

MyNEtSchool Inc. – Cupertino, CA (USA)
Project, From Feb 2005 to November 2005

Development of the online system and backend of this online collaboration and management system targeted to schools and educational institutions. The system is a complete content management and collaboration application developed in PHP, PERL, MySQL, Flash. It features online registration, webmail with automatically generated real email accounts, system provisioning of Unix accounts, email, quotas and other resources, strict security and authentication and collaboration sub applications such as messenger, agenda and assignments delivery.

Online Music Promotions Inc. – Los Angeles, CA (USA)
Contract, From Mar 2005 to Jun 2005

Website and Online store backend development. Delivered interactive Macromedia Flash map, database of resources navigable and broke down by Locations and type, registration form and integrate online payment system. Used PHP, MySQL and xHTML standard programming.

Guia Comercial (Portuguese Phone Directory) – Toronto, ON
Project, From Nov 2002 to Jan 2005

Complete application (Visual Basic) to handle production of the phone book, its customers, sales people, accounts receivable, distribution lists and residential listings with a report engine developed in Crystal Reports.

Migrated complete Legacy database (Dbase) and integrated data in SQL server (MySQL), preserving all relationships and data accuracy, including accounting and financial data;

Created application to automate collection of phone numbers, addresses and names from the on-line 411 directory, saving three (3) months of manual work by publishing it automatically, with highly accurate alignment, into Ventura Publisher.

Mundial Travel Agency – Toronto, ON
Project, From Aug 2004 to Nov 2004

Developed Travel Agency software to support day-to-day operation with Invoicing and automated Payments and commision deduction to Tour providers; reports developed in Crystal Reports, front-end is Visual Basic and Database is MS Access, deployed on client-server architecture, 100/T LAN.

Bensaude Group S.A., Azores – Portugal

Jan. 2001 – Aug. 2002

Responsible for systems management for the Transportation and Sea Line group of sub-companies. Main tasks were to Analyze business and processes, reengineering them, and design solutions. I prepared RFPs and managed software and systems acquisition, as well as Development, Implementation and Deployment.

Job function details included:

Successfully Lead the project to integrate several systems and business units into a common accounting, operations  and business system to implement the EURO in the group of companies that are part of Bensaude Group.

Defined technical and business requirements, wrote RFP and designed specific solutions, including process modeling and reengineering the Operational System, as well as validating the acquired software;

Conducted group sessions for requirements discovery, interacting with end-users, senior and junior management and the software vendor from Norway; Successfully and timely implemented and deployed the system prior to the January 2002 EURO deadline, project planning, and lead the project with a team of 12 members and over 300 users;

Upgraded, migrated and distributed Oracle database, including stored procedures and triggers, into a Data Center to serve several sites through WAN, LAN and wireless connections.

Amdocs (after acquisition of  Solect Technology Group), Toronto – Ontario

Jun. 2000 – Dec. 2000

Prepared high and detailed level design to implement Customer Care & Billing solutions for Telco customers and the development of specific solutions, preparing final packages for production at customers’ sites.

Some notes:

PRTC (Telefonica de Puerto Rico): Delivered complete migration of IAF’s CCB system to a newer version, having prepared, adapted and compiled all necessary code, ensuring reverse compatibility, delivering final Solaris packages ahead of schedule. Passed Acceptance Testing with 100% precise success. (SQL, HTML, Perl, Java).

Wrote High Level Design, (HLD) and Specifications for PRTC, to migrate a system from an acquired subsidiary company, to integrate IAF Billing and CRM for wireless services. Designed the architecture integrating Amdocs/IAF Horizon with the existing backoffice and billing systems (Scheduled for production in April 2001).

Solect Technology Group, Toronto – Ontario

Nov. 1998 – Jun. 2000

As a Prime Technical Contact, ensured 24/7 technical support for several Telco customers worldwide, including Ameritech, Teledanmark, AT&T Canada, USXchange, RedUno Mexico and others. Responsibilities were to provide technical and managerial leadership and expertise to the TSS team of Engineers in resolving complex and challenging Unix, Networking, Oracle and other system and application related problems in a timely and effective manner.  Acted as mentor and provided training for the group in general, including other senior members.

Highlights:

Designed and implemented nuclear system to resolve tunnelled address authentication, provisioning to Cisco (AAA) servers and Oracle (IAF) databases. Sprint Internet, US.

Programmed triggers and stored procedures (Oracle) to facilitate correct data population into a large billing database (250.000 users), resolving critical production problems. USXchange, US

Lead the project to migrate MSN data from MS SQL servers, including full customer base, to AT&T servers (Sun Solaris); provided automation scripts for data validation, data collection and population into the Oracle database, used shell scripts, PERL and SQL. Delivered to Technical Services, AT&T Canada.

Designed and implemented an innovative and automatic, Web-based, application licensing system that authenticated customers, license data and provisioned a stats database (Oracle, CGI with C, PERL, Solaris);

Having pioneered the idea, prepared and delivered weekly “lunch-and-learn” events to teach Java, PERL, SQL and specific techniques to address issues with the Billing and CRM application ensuring that TSS engineers would have transferred knowledge and skills; though voluntary, attendance usually arrived at 100%.

Sprint Canada, North York – Ontario

Mar. 1997 – Nov. 1998

Responsibility included the day-to-day System Administration of The Most On Line Internet Service. This comprises Solaris 2.5/2.6 system administration and maintenance (Unix), Fourth Level Tech Assistance, provided support for the Tech Support group and produced daily reports relative to system performance and usage.

Highlights:

As per regular duty, ensured daily system administration at a central, nation-wide level, monitoring the network, enforcing security, maintenance of backups, installing, upgrading and updating systems and software, maintenance of Cisco and Sun equipment and Operating Systems (AS5200 & AS2500 routers, Catalyst 2820 & 1900, Sun’s E 3000, 5000, Ultra 1 & 2, SPARC storage arrays, SPARC stations and other Server Room equipment);

Participated in the design of the Network and System topology for the server farm and back-office systems, producing the Department’s official start-up Server and Network Plan; Successfully wrote the first System Administration Handbook as well as several Policies and Procedures still in use at the Internet Centre.

Through analysis of the Sybase database, TACACS data and logs, server logs and by the collection of data from interfaces and network services, cross referenced all data, produced analysis report about Authentication failures and CiscoSecure, facilitated the ability to pinpoint and resolve a critical production problem by the increase of authentication efficiency to normal, vendor benchmarked levels. This was done at c.500% more than the former state;

Having participated in the project team that implemented the ISP as a Technical Analyst (Project Fiji), obtained a special, written mention for the quality of participation and results achieved.

Soon after deciding to stay in Toronto, I spent a few weeks working as a car salesman. In fact, the owner of the car lot did like me because I could drive standard cars, whereas most people in Canada only drive automatic transmission. He specialized in luxury european cars such as BMW, Mercedes Benz and had a penchant for sports cars like Ferrari or Lamborghini.

So, I was a kind of savior for him for I could drive those cars, safely and without destroying their transmissions!

The pay was almost absent, because most of the commissions for sales I did at the stand did revert to more senior salespersons, and that was the actual reason why I gave up after 3 weeks there. Of course. I was working for peanuts and others were getting my money… typical!

But I did get to take those sport cars home and drive them around, so I had some fun, at least!