Hi, My name is Channing Norton; though you may see older references to me and my work by the name Channing Helmling-Cornell, or variations thereof, as not all services liked how long my old last name was, or the hyphen.

This GitHub account serves as my portfolio as a software developer and IT professional. This document was last updated on 2023/11/26

I pride myself on being a technology generalist that can learn how to produce quality work in a variety of areas quickly, with a solid base of fundamental skills.

This document will outline the projects I have done, the technologies I have worked with, what I'm looking to learn, and what I'm working on right now. Not all of my repositories are public, and not all the code I've produced is mine to share or showcase. Furthermore, smaller projects like one off scripts may not ever get entered into version control, though anything spanning more than a day or two's work for me does end up here now that github finally has private repos for free. Final note is, to avoid making academic dishonesty easier, the code for my coursework at RIT or other institutions is ONLY in private repos, if its entered here at all. Throughout much of university I actually used Mercurial rather than Git, purely because, for one person projects, git is a bit overkill.

• Introduction
• Key for This Document
• Skills
• Skills I'm looking to learn
• Completed Projects
• In Progress Projects
• On Hold Projects
• Open Source Activity
• Soft Skills
• Professional Experience

Expand

Level	Symbol	Description and Criteria
Exposed	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	Exposed skills are those that I have toyed with briefly, or worked with tangentally on a project. I would not be confident in immediately producing work relying on those skills, but would have a head start on learning them quickly by virtue of the familiarity gained. This is equivalent of 1 to 5 hours of working with the technology, possibly more for particularly large technologies with lots to learn.
Explored	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Explored skills are skills I've worked with briefly, say as a single use on a project. They aren't skills I'd be comfortable say, putting on a resume, but I've certainly worked with the technology in question in a more than insignificant way, I simply haven't gained a high degree of experience or expertise with the skill in question. I know enough to be dangerous, but not necessarily a ton of nuance. This is equivalent to about 5 to 20 hours of work with the technology in question. I've perhaps started a project in it, but not finished it for one reason or another, or I've completed a project that relies on it, but not TOO heavily. I'm confident in my ability to learn this skill far faster than learning from nothing, but I also feel I need more time with it to truly understand it.
Proficient	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	Proficient skills are those I've worked with heavily. For most skills, this is at least 20 hours, but larger skills (especially large libraries with lots of classes and large tomes worth of documentation) may require well over 100 hours of work to reach a level of skill that I would consider profiecient. I might not know about every nook and cranny of the technology in question, but I am deeply familiar with the important elements of it, and know where to best find more information. If there's a problem to be solved with this technology, I can get it done, even if it takes a bit of research here and there. I've done at least one project that significantly applys this skill, be it in industry, academia, or personal projects, possibly several.
Highly Proficient	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	Highly proficient skills are those which I have worked in extensively. There is not a single skill that I put this badge on that I have not worked in for at least 200 hours in one form or another. I've worked with this skill in multiple projects, and it is typically going to be a weapon of choice for me for the problems it is good at solving. I know how to use it, I know when to use it, and I know when NOT to use it in favor of the alternatives. I could likely write a rant or three on the flaws present in this technology. I've not used every corner of it extensively, but I know where they all are. If given a problem that this technology can solve, I will know what tools it provides for solving said problem without having to research, but I might need to scan some documentation in order to figure out how to best utilize some of them. The core tools within the technology I've made use of the most I know like the back of my hand. I likely have a version that I'm more familiar with, and my familiarity is suficient that that actualy matters.
Mastered	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Mastered skills are those I consider myself truely complete in. There's always more learning to be done, of course, but either the technology in question is small enough that its possible to truly understand every single feature, configuration, and syntax quirk, or, for larger technologies, this usually implies hundreds and hundreds of hours of work in it, at least, to the point where if there's a type of problem the tool can be used for, I've likely used it that way, and misused it in several others. This is likely a go to tool of some kind for me. I usually keep up to date with the updates to the tool to maintain this level of skill, or list a specific version that I am up to date on. I also consider a tool mastered if my wife reports me talking in my sleep about it on more than one occasion.

Computer Languages and Shells

Note that I've divided languages into categories by their use. You may find languages that are not exclusively or primarily used for the development of desktop applications in other sections below.

Higher level programming languages

Language	Proficiency	Notes
C	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	C is my goto language for anything that it makes sense for. Most of my experience is using the GCC compiler configured for C99. I love the speed, power, flexibility and control C offers. I recognize that it certainly falls off in programmer efficiency for large scale applications, so for anything that doesn't need the level of control that's going to be a large codebase, I typically default to C#
C#	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	C# is a beautiful language. It's everything I love about java, with 90 ish percent of the flaws of java fixed, and some nice, new features. While I may have learned Java first, C# feels like the language it was trying to be. While I have a bit less experience in it, it is my go to tool.
C++	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	My experience in C++ is limited, and a lot of my knowledge comes from the similarities with C, rather than C++ specifically. I've had a few small dabblings with it, but nothing to write home about.
Java	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Of any language, Java is the one I am most experienced in, by far. The only thing that begins to rival it in that respect is C. My familiarity is with Java 8 and before primarily. It's a solid language, but the JRE has... issues, and working in it feels antiquated to me compared to other, newer languages that fill a similar niche. There's just too much redundant code to be written, and I feel like my life is nothing but getters and setters.
JavaScript	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Not a fan of Javascript. I can hack it, but I avoid it at all costs. Typescript looks like a solution to my hatred of it, but I've not looked into it. I'm looking to expand both my proficiency and tolerance of Javascript with my "Foundry Accessibility Toolkit" project, featured further below on this page.
Python	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I primarily use python for scripting, OS automation, and data processing. More recently, I've built some tools based around Rest APIs in Python, along with a few GUIs using tkinter.
PHP	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I picked up PHP as part of my work with the University of Rochester. I was replacing a developer who worked primarily in PHP, we were, at the same time, replacing many of the systems he worked on. As a result, I had to familiarize myself with existing codebases, but the amount of new code I wrote was limited to band-aids and tweaks while we worked to sunset the associated systems. Therefore, I've read quite a bit of PHP, but written only a little.
Ruby	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I've worked with Ruby in particular for development of plugins for ArchivesSpace, a tool based on the Rack web framework. While my total time in Ruby is limited, I've had to dive deep into its internals to diagnose a few highly specific issues related to that project.
Smalltalk	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I worked with smalltalk a little bit in university. It taught me a lot about solid OO programming. While its age shows, it's purity appealed to me, and I'd like to work in it more
SQL	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	H2 dialect, but it's SQL, to say its easy to switch between is an understatement.
VBA	🔵 🔵 🔷 🔹 🔹	This goes without saying, but VBA is an abomination. There are, however, some things that probobly should not be done in excel, that if you want to do in a spreadsheet, VBA was your only option until 2023. As such, I've worked a little in VBA, including a few small glue scripts to move things between systems.

Shells, Scripting languages, and OS automation systems

Tehcnology	Proficiency	Notes
AutoHotkey	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I love autohotkey as a means of expanding what I can get done on Windows, and addressing some of the shortfalls in customization and functionality of the OS. I haven't gotten too crazy with it, but I have worked with the MS office library for AHK to automate some functions in Outlook, such as the creation of rules.
Bash	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	If I could have one shell, bash would be it. Most of my bash experience comes from living on Arch linux for several years, and my current position as a software support specialist for software that runs on CentOS 7. While for most automation tasks I'm more likely to open up python for bash, for quick and dirty text manipulation, bash is very usable.
CMD	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	As a Windows admin first and foremost for larger environments, CMD is my bread and butter. While powershell is nice, for most maintence tasks, CMD is just... easier, with less picky syntax, even if it is living in the past a little bit. Its often also just easier to get a CMD shell in half functioning windows environment, so I don't consider the proficiency a waste.
Powershell	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	Powershell is a skillset that I've picked up bits and pieces of. It's a powerful tool, but there's a LOT there. I've used it primarily for writing scripts to automate active directory bulk operations. I've looked a little bit at Powershell's integration with the .Net ecosystem, and, while it looks very powerful, that's a rabbit hole of learning I have not yet had time to go down. I love working in powershell, I just have a preference for CMD due to years of comfort in it.
WMIC	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've explored WMIC/WMI briefly as a solution to the specific technical problem of uninstalling certain programs via Connectwise Control's "Backstage" environment, with the goal being to perform these operations without end user interruption when scripting out an install was not possible due to limitations by the installer package. While I know it's primarily used as a Powershell utility, I actually have primarily interacted with WMIC via CMD. I recognize that there's a LOT more the tool can do than forcing program installations, I've just not run into cases where I've needed it.
Zshell	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I'm capable in zsh, and, if it were sufficiently popular as an embedded alternative to bash, I could see myself loving it more. As is, it's niche, but nice, I guess. I wouldn't say that, beyond the customization and color features that I've explored much of the areas it has a leg up on bash all that much. From what I've seen, it looks nice

Markup, Notation, and Text Processing Languages

Obviously, with a good portion of these languages/ filetypes, there's not a TON to them. As such, the hourly specifications in the "Skill levels" portion doesn't really apply. The proficiency level relates to the amount I've worked with files in the format, and my overall level of comfort with the syntax. There's a lot more to RegEx than YAML, for instance, so more work for RegEx to reach a similar level of comprehension.

Tehcnology	Proficiency	Notes
CSS	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've worked a little with CSS. I'm very much a backend guy; my visual design skills are lacking, so I don't have a ton of need for CSS. That being said, I've made a few websites here and there, and have picked up some knowledge in CSS as a result. This is also an area wherein my knowledge is actively expanding as I coordinate more and more closely with my frontend team.
HTML5	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	See the above. Typically, if I'm making a website, its a utilitarian thing, so I can stick with HTML5 as a relatively pure platform, hence my additional experience with it.
JSON	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I've used JSON files as a means of storage and serialization for a number of smaller projects. I'm familiar with the format and writing parsers for it.
Markdown	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	See: This document. I feel like it's at least REASONABLY nice at time of writing.
Regular Expressions	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	While I won't claim to have the entire language of RegEx memorized, I do have the basics sufficient for most searches down without reference, and I can construct an expression to check what I need to quickly. I've used it frequently as a tool for data sanitization and to clean up files full of messy data that I want to process. I'm most familiar with Java's scanner dialect of Regex, followed closely by the Perl implementation.
XML	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	It's XML. It's not fancy. I've written a few parsers here and there, but not used it extensively, But it's also human readable.
XSLT	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Gross. I don't Like XSLT, but I've worked with it, a little bit at least. I'm sure I'll hate it less if I am ever unfortunate enough to get more practice.
YAML	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Everyone's favorite XML/JSON alternative, I've used a LOT of YAML over the years. I've written parsers, configured systems that consisted of hundreds of YAML files for configuration, and generally gotten down and dirty. It ain't a markup language, but it's my favorite markup language. That said, despite my familiarity with it, if I'm doing a new project, I'll do XML or JSON, because that's the direction the industry is going.

Assembly Languages and ISAs

Tehcnology	Proficiency	Notes
MIPS	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I've worked as extensively in MIPS as one can bearing in mind that hardware implementations of the ISA are few and far between. I'm not an expert on any particular implementation, but I've written software in it, and tutored in it.
Arm Cortex M0+	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	My exposure to the Arm Cortex M0+ ISA is limited, but more than nothing. I mostly used it for a course in college to a limited capacity.
PowerPC 1.10	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	My Power PC knowledge comes from attempted submissions to the Dolphin GameCube Emulator project. As such, my knowledge is limited to early 2000s versions of the ISA, and are VERY limited in use case.

Hardware Description Languages

I originally was exposed to Hardware Description Languages in college. While I picked up VHDL fairly well, I did not pursue things further as computer engineering simply was not my cup of tea. I do not anticipate pursuing VHDL further, though, if I had to work on projects using HDLs to a limited capacity, I would be comfortable. I have neither the experience, nor the skillset to design hardware or FPGAs. I can read and understand the work of others, however.

Tehcnology	Proficiency	Notes
VHDL	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	VHDL is my greatest enemy, and the main reason I looked to move higher in the abstraction stack than computer engineering. I hear Verilog is better. Personally, I think that assembly is a much better option. Leave the circuits to the electrical engineers.

Operating Systems and Hypervisors

As a whole, for the desktop, I typically prefer Windows for most purposes, but for software development, I typically prefer Linux OSes for the flexibility of other window managers and customization options. For server uses, I opt for the correct tool for the job. For small and medium businesses, that is usually windows, but for anything performance intensive, or for larger networks, Linux servers are the way to go.

Notably, different skews of operating systems such as the different Linux distros, or Windows editions have an immense similarity. As such, I've used the skill ratings to reference experience with that particular skew exclusively. If I have extensive experience with similar OSes, I likely know my way around others that have lower listed experience levels quite well purely by utilizing all of the commonalities between versions.

Desktop Operating Systems by Vendor and Version

Refers to proficiency BOTH with using the OSes personally, and supporting users using the OS in small to medium business settings (defined here as having a fileserver, directory server, cloud or onprem email, DNS and print server may or may not be present, with fairly homogenous enviornments of OSes, save Mac, for which I assume windows servers.)

OS	Proficiency	Notes
Windows XP	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I've supported XP in critical legacy applications, as well as, in my limited pentesting experience, worked to exploit XP a few times. It's not my favorite windows OS, but I still miss elements of it to this day.
Windows Vista	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Okay, but does this actually MATTER to anyone. Vista is where I really started digging in depth into Windows. It has a special place in my heart, even if it's not popular.
Windows 7	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	7 remains my favorite OS for management and general day to day use. I don't use it or deploy it anymore, of course, but I do wish there was a 7ish skin of windows 10 that brought back some options that got removed, some registry settings that got changed, and killed off windows 10 settings in favor of control panel. It has its quirks, and I know as many of them as one perosn reasonably can.
Windows 8	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	See notes for vista. Does anyone care about 8? It has no special place for me, other than perhaps the trash can. I know how to work with it, though. A lot of my proficiency comes from server 2012 crossover.
Windows 10	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	It's 10. Everyone's on it, and has been for years. I've supported it for years. I still don't like certain aspects, but I know how to live with it. Overall, 10 is the most stable windows yet, which is a very good thing, even if it does take a lot of control away from admins.
Windows 11	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I've built several windows 11 virtual machines to confirm compatibility where needed in my job, as well as trialed it for larger scale rollout in the PC Solutions customerbase. My personal take on it is that the changes vs 10 are largely iterative in nature, but the system appears to be easier to manage than 10 in a few subtle ways. The continued effort to consolidate configuration information to the unified "settings" panel is much appreciated.
Linux (Arch)	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I fulltimed arch for several years, which was a learning process, to say the least. I'd never run Arch as anything but a hobby; that said, it makes the control freak in me very happy
Linux (Debian)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've worked with Debian, mostly on the desktop. While I like the package management system more than the Redhat side of the house, overall, it's far from my favorite distro. It's rock solid, though, so I don't mind using it too much.
Linux (Fedora)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Fedora (or OpenSuse) is likely to become my goto desktop linux distribution over the next few years. I may not be the biggest fan of Gnome, but I dislike it less than the other desktop environments that come by default on the major distros. RPM isn't my favorite package system, but that's largely unimportant at this point, and I'm very familiar with Yum. Fedora just... works in a way that most other distros don't.
Linux (Mint)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've used Mint to teach people needing to know Linux basics to serve as a transition into Linux for Windows users. It is effective in that role, but I feel that it handicaps most of the good of Linux in terms of customizability for ease of use. I wouldn't run it long term for anything, as I'd either put a more flexible distro in place, or use windows, depending on use case.
Linux (OpenSuse)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I like OpenSuse a LOT. Having a central "Control Panel" for system configuration addresses one of the most important usability pitfalls of Linux, in my opinion. Package management is a bigger pain on OpenSuse, due to the incompatible RPM format, and Suse being a smaller distro. If it were more compatible with either of the two major families, I'd like it even more. I've also run into serious performance concerns on some hardware that I haven't for other distros, but that was also running the Tumbleweed variant, so I don't fault OpenSuse for it. If I could pick one distribution for further development and deployment by the Linux community, it would be OpenSuse. I fulltimed Tumbleweed on the desktop for about 2 months.
Linux (Ubuntu)	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	Ubuntu is... Ubuntu. It's stuck between being a serious, powerful distro, and being a transitional, beginner distro. It serves the role of "Powerful, but with setbelts" quite well. I full timed it for about 6 months, before switching to OpenSuse after trying to entirely replace both Xorg and the Desktop Environment with Wayland and i3 broke a lot of Ubuntu's internals. The Deb package system is easily the best within the Linux ecosystem, however, and I feel that Ubuntu's implementation is fantastic. Ubuntu is a VERY solid tool for the right uses.
MacOS (Versions < 10.7)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Prior to OSX Lion, I was using OSX as a user to a relatively high degreee, and did some basic administration work as well. I am extremely rusty, but the underlying knowledge and principles are still there.
MacOS (Versions 10.7 - 10.13)	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	During the Lion to High Sierra era, I was doing more in depth administration work on Macs, but using them far less as a user. Most Macs I supported were in Microsoft dominated environments, with onprem active directory, and no Mac device management software like JAMF. As such, I am well enough versed in the idiosyncrasies of such environments.
MacOS (Versions > 10.13)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	After High Sierra, I know that Macs fundamentally changed, and the number I had to support, and therefore my frequency of interaction declined dramatically. As such, I am not especially confident in being able to support the modern Mac ecosystem in large numbers. My proficiency is such that supporting individual Macs is well within my abilities, but supporting a primarily Apple Centric fleet would require more experience on my part before being comfortable.

Server Operating Systems by Vendor and Version

OS	Proficiency	Notes
Windows Server 2008 and before	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Server 2008 was my introduction to Windows Server. While I've worked on earlier, the latest and greatest when I started was 2008. There's really not much to say here. It's Windows Server, It's Vista based. I love Vista, but 2012/7 came out right after I started working on servers, and I didn't have a position with legacy deployments at that point, so as soon as I cut my teeth, I stopped really seeing it.
Windows Server 2012	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I love Windows 7. I therefore loved Server 2012. I haven't seen it in prod in a long time. The industry kinda got stuck between the servers still running 2003, and the servers that could be reliably updated that moved to 2016 and 2019. When I see it, I don't think of it as any different than the other modern Windows Servers, other than the tweaks to AD since then, like the AD trash can. So far, this approach has not failed me.
Windows Server 2016	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	When I went from working with servers occasionally to working extensively, Server 2016 was the latest Windows Server. At the time, I was in school, and worked extensively with server 2016 VMs, understanding the underpinnings of modern IT, and Cybersecurity. From there, I moved to the managed services space, which had me supporting hundreds of Server 2016 deployments with a variety of configs, workflows, hardware, needs, and so much more. I have an intimate understanding of Server 2016 that can only come from installing it hundreds of times, and troubleshooting issues with deployments I was not familiar with for years.
Windows Server 2019	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	When 2019 began to replace server 2016, I was still in managed services. At this point, IT was my vocation, so, similar to the Windows 7 and 8 replacement by Windows 10, the knowledge transfer occurred through active use. I love 2019 far more than 2016 for its sensible UI and improvements to tools like Powershell and Task manager. While a part of me still longs for 7 on the desktop, there is no such misgivings for Windows Server.
Windows Server 2022	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I've got limited experience with 2022. From what I've seen, it's more of the same for Windows server. That said, my experience is limited. I am not intimately familiar with the new changes. It's also been out less than 7 months at time of writing, so.....
Linux (RHEL/CentOS/Rocky)	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	My former position at Rochester Software Associates had me as part of a team supporting software running on RHEL and CentOS 7, across hundreds of deployments, both in public clouds, and on hypervisors running on local hardware (Note: RSA does not manage any of the hardware, and my department was not generally involved in the management of the public cloud side of things). I am therefore very familiar with these OSes, especially CentOS. I use Rocky in my personal work when I need a RHEL based OS at this point.
Linux (Ubuntu)	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I have years of experience working with Ubuntu in desktop and server contexts going from version 11.04 onwards to modern versions. In my role at the University of Rochester, I am partially responsible for the maintenance of 74 Ubuntu servers with various applications installed on them. This responsibility is split with a dedicated sysadmin and another department, so I don't do EVERYTHING, but I have quite a bit of visibility.
Linux (Debian)	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've used Debian sparingly as a Server OS. That said, I've worked with its package management a little bit. The foundation is there for quick learning. Considering my extensive Linux experience, building more familiarity with Debian will be quick.
Linux (OpenSuse)	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I want to like SuSE on server. I love it on the desktop, in theory. Software support is a pain, but it is VERY nice. I wish I had more experience here.

Hypervisors

Hypervisor	Proficiency	Notes
Hyper-V	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I've run several small deployments on Hyper-V, and supported quite a few others. I fundamentally find it to be good at what it does; a great, packaged answer for minor virtualization needs in windows environments, that lacks the features of the larger hypervisors, but is not in a market position to need them either, as it's not TRYING to be the engine behind an entire datacenter.
VirtualBox	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Virtualbox is a good piece of software for what it does. Like hyper-V, it's limited, but strong in its limitations. For lab work as opposed to full deployments, it's fantastic. I wouldn't use it for anything else, though, even with a firm understanding of basically all its features.
VMWare VSphere/ESXI	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've not created new deployments with VMWare, but I have maintained smaller deployments (~20 VMs or fewer). Fundamentally, the licensing cost of VMWare is hard to justify vs the Xen ecosystem, as there is feature parity, though the ease of finding talent familiar is a factor.
VMWare Workstation	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I've used VMWare workstation as a lab hypervisor pretty extensively. I like it quite a bit more than Virtualbox, but also find it hard to justify the cost vs free software, seeing as it is for a lab environment, unless, of course, one's prod is VMware as well.
XCP-ng / Xen	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I run a production environment of 35 VMs, archiected and deployed from scratch on XCP-ng. I am the only engineer involved in this project, which is used to power my small business, run on a dell poweredge r720. As such, XCP-ng is my hypervisor of choice, as I am most familiar with it in production environments.

Niche/Other

OS	Proficiency	Notes
ChromeOS	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I have managed a deployment of a few dozen Chromebooks given to students and teachers. Overall, I like the OS. What it lacks in remote management tools is made up for by the lack of a need for remote management. It's very easy to train people on, and very hard to screw up by the end user. I would absolutely consider using it again, especially in educational settings, or other places where workloads could be done entirely in SaaS applications.
FreeBSD	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I spent several weeks, years ago, trying to set up FreeBSD as a firewall and gateway for my home network. In the end, my frustration with FreeBSD resulted in my switching to PFSense for this purpose. That said, I learned quite a bit in my attempt about a variety of subjects.
OpenBSD	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	OpenBSD was my first foray into the the BSD ecosystem, learning from a book of exercises in OpenBSD. With my additional experience in Linux that I have gained over the years, I recently returned to OpenBSD to learn more about the platform, as it seems to have some good, niche uses. I appreciate the depth of its documentation.
PFSense	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	PFSense is a quality operating system for network devices. Between my own personal explorations with it, my work within networking classes that relied on it, as well as my implementation of it in my home lab, I can certainly get things done in PFSense. That said, I recognize that it is a platform with substantial depth that feels impossible to master without exposure in larger scale environments with more complicated security and network segmentation needs.
QubesOS	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	QubesOS is... interesting. I've worked with it a little, and it's piqued my curiousity. Using it invokes the kind of security-paranoia that I would love to have time and mental bandwidth for, while not serving much purpose outside of VERY niche usecases.

Low code / IPAAS / no code platforms

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Microsoft Power Apps	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I have some exposure to PowerApps as a means of bringing data into Power Automate. Beyond that, my experience is fleeting.
Microsoft Power Automate	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've worked with power automate slightly, in attempting to pull data from Dynamics CRM and process it. I like it quite a bit, and, as I'm already a heavy m365 user, I will likely continue to integrate it where I would otherwise use Zapier.
Zapier	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	of all the IPAAS platforms, I am personally most experienced with Zapier due to its depth of integrations with the tools and platfors I've needed to work with. Overall, I do prefer Power Automate to Zapier in terms of features and ease of use.

Frameworks, APIs and Libraries

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
CImg	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I worked briefly on CImg with a student I was tutoring. I learned the basics of the library to assist him with some homework. Overall, my time with it was fleeting, but I'd certainly be willing to come back to it, it was a fairly intuitive library.
CUnit	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	My CUnit familiarity comes from its overlap with JUnit. I've looked to integrate it into some of my own projects as well, but I tend to flit from project to project, and haven't had anything stick yet.
.Net Core	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	If I were building a desktop application in the modern era, I would be building it in C# using .Net core. In fact, one of the projects I started and abandoned, as it was FAR more than I could chew (I knew it at the time, but blazed on anyways), YANTA, is just that.
.Net Framework	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	Through my experience in Unity, as well as working with YANTA, I've worked in the .Net framework quite a bit. As far as massive utility libraries go, I like it better than Java's assortment of libraries.
Glade	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	Glade was the pagebuilder I intended to use for YANTA, as I wanted GTK to be my UI Toolkit. I got it working, then abandoned the project shortly after.
GTK	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	See abovoe. Most of my interaction was with glade iteslf, rather than GTK properly. Overall, YANTA was shaping up to be overengineered for the scope of the project.
H2	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	H2 was the database drive foisted upon me for a major group project in College. As a result of an absentee group member, I performed most of the work to get said project working, and became intimately familiar with H2 in the process. At time of writing, I am preparing SOME of this code for release, as I want to ensure I do not make academic dishonesty easier for students that come after.
JUnit	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	RIT's coursework is, for most classes, in java. JUnit is taught as part of the standard curriculum, and its use in all projects of any scale after that point is expected. I usually was not the one on teams who was writing tests, but I still wrote my fair share, and debugged plenty.
Lanterna	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	For the same project that led to my familiarity with H2, I chose Lanterna as our frontend, as it didn't have to be pretty, it just had to work, and be easy. I appreciated its similarity in structure to JavaFX. I would certainly use lanterna again if I needed to create a UI for something in a CLI environment. If I were creating something without the CLI constraints, though, I'd likely use something else. Its almost as much work as a true native GUI, and doesn't exactly look nice.
Matplotlib	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've used Matplotlib sparingly in undergrad, as well as with a few tutoring students. It's not that it's bad, just that data visualization is far from a focus of mine. For most purposes, I'd prefer excel.
Mono	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	While exploring candidates for Yanta, I looked at developing on mono, and dismissed it in favor of DotNetCore. I am also exposed to it when building cross platform projects for Unity.
NumPy	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've used NumPy quite a bit when tutoring students in introductory python courses. If I had to handle and process more data than Excel can really be useful for, it would undobtedly be my first choice. While I've not used the deeper features of it at all, using it to handle basic analysis is well within my grasp. Most recently, I used NumPy and Pandas to process data for a personal project correlating US income by zip code with a number of metrics attempting to define happieness.
Pandas	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	My experience with Pandas is near identical to that of NumPy. Typically, I've used the two in conjunction. Primarily, I use Pandas primarily to parse data, and process it in Numpy.
SciPy	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've interacted a little bit with the SciPy section of the Numpy ecosystem. Not very much though. What classes I have worked with have been used primarily for utility functions.
Swing	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	As part of my work at RIT, I worked with Swing on a variety of projects. I've also tutored students in Swing and built small UI elements in it. Overall, while I don't particularly LIKE working in it, I do know it well, and can get stuff done in it.
TinyDB	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	My abandoned (hopefully soon to be resurrected) mediaDB project was built on TinyDB. For small, disposable projects, I like it far more than trying to set up SQLite or another lightweight database.
Unity	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I have a particular interest in games programming. My tool of choice has been Unity. In the 2021 GMTK game jam, a game for whom I was the sole programmer was entered. The code for this incomplete game will be added to this github eventually. I also participated as the only developer on a 3 person team in the 2023 GMTK Game Jam, with a graphic designer and 3d artist assisting. I have an active game project under development, with more information to be linked here when it is available.

Development Tools, Build Systems, and Version Control

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Git	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I feel I know just about all there is to know about Git. I've been using it for nearly a decade now.
Mercurial	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I expirimented with Mercurial in college, to see if there were any major benefits in terms of ease of source management vs git for small, 1-5 person projects. There were not. At this point, I'd use git for one man projects over Mercurial. In situations where Git is unsuitable, mercurial COULD be a good tool for a small team, but I'd really question if there is such a situation where source control is needed, git is unsuitable, and Mercurial is.
Visual Studio	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I have some exposure to the Visual Studio ecosystem by virtue of being a programmer in the modern era. That said, while I've expirmented with VSCode as an alternative to other tools for a bit here and there, I will still make a JetBrains tool work if at all possible.
JetBrains IDEs	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Since 2015 my goto toolkit for any programming project I can use them for has been Jetbrains' suite of IDEs; I know how to use just about all of their options to greatest effect in the languages I am familiar with, and have even expirimented briefly with plugin development. I love them, and will likely continue using them until the end of time. I've worked with these tools in Visual Studio centric environments, and am very familiar with converting project configurations between the two ecosystems.
Docker	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I have some exposure to Docker through my work at the University of Rochester, specifically on our internal development for ArchivesSpace, which requires Docker to be built for further development. Getting this particular project building in docker was quite the pain, as a result, I learned a ton about the system, that said, my exposure comes primarily from this limited use case.

Development techniques and methodologies

Methodology	Proficiency	Notes
Test Driven Development	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I was trained in Test Driven Development when I was taught to program at RIT, but have struggled to implement the ideas in practice. That said, I've begun taking active efforts to reemphasize better testing in my code.
Agile	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	I was trained in Agile development at RIT, specifically implemented using Scrum. I am now attempting to bring further agile methodology to my existing team at the University of Rochester, with the assistance of my project manager.
Scrum	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	On one of my largest fully software development projects, the code for which can be found in this GitHub (TODO: ADD LINK), I was the Scrum manager. It's a nice system.
Waterfall	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	Waterfall has served as the default project management method for many of my projects. As I am not particularly a fan of it as it applies to software and technology, I have made an active effort to emphasize agile principles on the teams I work on, with great success.

Software Engineering Core Concepts

Concept	Proficiency	Notes
SOLID Principles	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹
GRASP
Documentation writing	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I have worked in pretty documentation-light environments, and served to push towards writing greater docs. They always save time, even for the author, within a matter of weeks or months. They are an essential component of any functional organization, but are often ignored.
Design Patterns	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹
Testing	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹

Service Delivery Software

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Connectwise Platforms	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	Participated in data entry for a connectwise migration for Capstone information Technologies, plus used it during my tenure there. I explored the guts of Manage pretty thoroughly, love Control like no other remote control application, and worked a little bit with automate. Did not use sell. I could likely get certified quickly if needed.
Kaseya Platforms	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Fully set up BMS+VSA+Live Connect for PC Solutions. Used ITGlue with Capstone Information Technologies. I prefer VSA to Automate, and Manage to BMS. Control kicks LiveConnect's butt.
Atlassian Suite	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹
Microsoft Dynamics 365	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹

IT Platforms and Tools

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Domotz	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	I used Domotz as a key tool for service delivery with PC Solutions. It's extremely powerful, and well priced. I like it a lot.
WireShark	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	I took an entire course on packet analysis in Wireshark at RIT. I have used this knowledge several times since to troubleshoot difficult networking problems. It's not a tool that gets frequent use, but it's irreplaceable where it's needed.

Important Unix Administration Utilities and Windows Server Modules

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Grep

Enterprise Networking Ecosystems

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Cisco	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	When I was taught routing and switching in university, I was taught on cisco hardware. I haven't seen too much Cisco out in the wild, but when I have, my knowledge of it has often been a boon due to how... different Cisco equipment tends to operate.
FortiNet	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	When I co-founded PC Solutions, I picked FortiNet as our preferred networking vendor, despite no experience at the time in their product stack. Their pricing, market positioning, and performance were simply too good to pass up for the client sizes we were targeting. I therefore recieved training directly from the vendor to become a qualified reseller, and bought a unit to use as a lab unit to explore. After this, I deployed about a dozen firewalls to production, each hand configured, as well as several switches and APs.
Meraki	🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹	I like Meraki products; they're simple to use. I hate the preadatory pricing model they foist upon their users, but I could see the appeal of placing one in a cybersecurity hostile organization to ensure the support contract stays paid.
SonicWall	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	My first 2 jobs had me working with Sonicwall firewalls to varying degrees for configuring, migrating, monitoring, and, reviewing logs. I never set one up from scratch, so I can't claim full proficiency here, but I did just about everything shy of this.
WatchGuard	🔵 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹	I've worked with a few Watchguard firewalls and switches. I can't say they appeal to me on any front; I would avoid working with them again if I could make that choice.

Business Software

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
Asana	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹	The team I currently work on uses Asana rather than Trello as a project management tool. I like it quite a lot. It's heavier weight than Trello, but I like the added featureset.
Microsoft 365 Administration	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Several of my positions have had a component of, or been primarily composed of, O365 Administration tasks. Additionally, my wife spent eighteen months working as a cloud support engineer for a major reseller of the product, and so we built on each others' knowledge through sharing work stories.
Microsoft Office Suite	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹	There's too many little pieces of software in the office suite for me to claim proficiency in every corner of it, however, the major titles excluding Access, are tools I've worked with since the 2003 edition of the products. If the software can do it, I can do it. Excel still has depth for me to learn, but I know enough to get anything done in it that I need to.
Trello	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	Trello is one of my core organizational tools. I use it constantly, and would not survive without it or a similar tool. As such, I'm intimately familiar. Of course, there's also not a lot to Trello...

Other Software

Platform	Proficiency	Notes
ArchivesSpace	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	In addition to serving as the application admin for the University of Rochester's ArchivesSpace instance, I worked on the implementation project for the PUI at the insitution as we moved from an in house PUI to the provided PUI on 4.2.1, Finally, I have worked to develop a plugin, UR-CodeInject, with the frontend developer on my team, to add additional function to the system. This was done as part of a project to meet stakeholder goals.
Omeka Classic	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹 🔹
Omeka S	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔹
WebCRD	🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵 🔵	WebCRD is a platform for Web2Print implementation and commercial printshop management. A prior position of mine was to serve as vendor support for WebCRD. As such, I am proficient in it to the greatest degree that would ever be necessary for other roles. I served as a line of communication between development and our customers in identifying, diagnosing, and resolving issues of all sizes and natures.

I may have exposed myself to these skills very, VERY briefly, but not enough to put above. I also may have them listed above but am doing a deeper dive into them to improve my own knowledge. I am actively learning and engaging with content in the subjects ticked as of time of writing.

• Erlang
• Go
• Haskell
• Lisp
• Prolog
• Rust
• Scala
• Typescript

• TKinter

• Amazon Web Services
• Docker

• ArchivesSpace Bulk Edit UI - As a side project for work, I've been creating a user interface for performing resource-level/ collection level updates to records in ArchivesSpace conditionally, functionality that is not provided out of the box. This is made possible through the ArchivesSpace Rest API. To make this accessible to our Librarians, I am building it with a GUI using TKinter. You can view the WIP code for project in this repository.

• Foundry Accessibility Tooklit - Foundry accessibility toolkit is a project of mine to take Foundry Virtual Tabletop, which I use in my hobby as a roleplayer, and adapt it for better use by low vision users, as I noticed such options were extremely lacking, and one of my players is herself sight impaired.
• GMTK Gamejam 2021, 2023 - In 2021, I was the sole programmer for a game. While it was initially planned that 2 other programmers would join our group of 5, both dropped out of the jam midway through due to personal reasons, without code contributions. As such, while we were unable to submit, due to a number of bugs, I still learned a lot about Unity by attempting. In 2023, I had a similar result of being a sole programmer and DNF'ing, though with a much more complete project. This time, scope creep and UI programming being timeconsuming for me caused the project to fail.

Expand

As a note, the tenure of some of these positions overlap. That is intended. Near the end of my tenure, I had automated Cornerstone Bread to require infrequent attention, and moved to a consultancy basis with them while I continued with my education. PC Solutions became part time when I picked up Rochester Software Associates, and Tutoring has always been part time. I like to maintain multiple streams of income for stability reasons.

Company	Position	Tenure	Duties
Cornerstone Bread	IT Manager	2013-2020	Served as the sole IT personnel for the business as it tripled in headcount over my tenure. Managed multiple IT and CyberSecurity implementation projects. served to train individuals on software, maintained software and hardware, managed hardware and software acquisition and deprecation.
Capstone Information Technologies	Co-op Helpdesk Associate	2019-2020	Assisted clients of headcounts in the 5-100 range with technology needs, serving as tier 1, and later tier 2 support for users with a 450:1 user to technician ratio utilizing connectwise ecosystem of products. Served primarily to support office 365, active directory, and windows 10 environments.
PC Solutions IT Consulting	Co-Founder	2020-2023	Served as technical lead of business. Developed end to end support and product stack, supported clients.
Rochester Software Associates	Technical Analyst	2021-2022	Supported client environments consisting of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS running our custom software (WebCRD). Maintained both operating system and software for these clients, who were cybersecurity concious firms, often in the fortune 1000 size range, with a wide variety of complex IT ecosystems to be mindful of.
University of Rochester - River Campus Libraries	Senior Programmer Analyst	2022-Present	Worked using a variety of programming languages to maintain legacy systems and construct new systems. Served as both a programmer and an application administrator
Independent Technology Tutor	Tutor	2016-Present	Worked to tutor students, develop curricula, and learn student technology stacks on tight timelines to provide aid to students at a variety of levels, from high school to masters level and career programmers. Primarily worked in Python, Java, and C#. Developed full Python 1 course materials in the process.

##todo go through lists, populate Add an education and certification section