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00 <?php
01 include_once ('webcore/init.php');
02
03 $Page->title->subject = "Marco Von Ballmoos - Curriculum Vitae";
04 $Page->template_options->title = "C.V.";
05
06 $Page->location->add_root_link ();
07 $Page->location->append ("Marco", "../");
08 $Page->location->append ("Curriculum Vitae", './');
09 $Page->location->append ("May 2002");
10
11 $Page->start_display ();
12 ?>
13 <div class="main-box">
14 <div class="text-flow">
15 <h1>Marco Von Ballmoos</h1>
16 <p>120-12 85th Avenue, Apt. 2E<br>
17 Kew Gardens, NY 11415<br>
18 718.441.6949 (Home)<br>
19 212.529.3913 x150 (Office)<br>
20 <a
21 href="mailto:marco@earthli.com">marco@earthli.com</a>
22 </p>
23 <h2>Skills</h2>
24 <dl>
25 <dt class="field">Experience/Expertise Matrix</dt>
26 <dd>
27 <p>This matrix shows a detailed list of programming languages, libraries and
28 APIs that I have used.</p>
29 <p class="notes">A <span class="reference">level</span> of 1-3 signifies beginner,
30 4-7 intermediate and 8-10 expert. <span class="reference">Experience</span>
31 is measured in years.</p>
32 <table class="basic columns left-labels numeric-data">
33 <tr>
34 <th>Programming</th>
35 <th>Level</th>
36 <th>Experience</th>
37 </tr>
38 <tr>
39 <td>OO Design</td>
40 <td>9</td>
41 <td>8</td>
42 </tr>
43 <tr>
44 <td>C++</td>
45 <td>9</td>
46 <td>6</td>
47 </tr>
48 <tr>
49 <td>MFC</td>
50 <td>8</td>
51 <td>6</td>
52 </tr>
53 <tr>
54 <td>STL</td>
55 <td>7</td>
56 <td>3</td>
57 </tr>
58 <tr>
59 <td>Object Pascal</td>
60 <td>7</td>
61 <td>4</td>
62 </tr>
63 <tr>
64 <td>VCL</td>
65 <td>6</td>
66 <td>3</td>
67 </tr>
68 <tr>
69 <td>Win32</td>
70 <td>9</td>
71 <td>7</td>
72 </tr>
73 <tr>
74 <td><span title="Metrowerks MacOS Framework">PowerPlant</span></td>
75 <td>6</td>
76 <td> 2</td>
77 </tr>
78 <tr>
79 <td>MacOS Toolbox</td>
80 <td>7</td>
81 <td>2</td>
82 </tr>
83 <tr>
84 <td>Eiffel</td>
85 <td>6</td>
86 <td>5</td>
87 </tr>
88 <tr>
89 <th>Database</th>
90 <th>Level</th>
91 <th>Experience</th>
92 </tr>
93 <tr>
94 <td>MySQL/SQL</td>
95 <td>7</td>
96 <td>2.5</td>
97 </tr>
98 <tr>
99 <td>SQL Server/T-SQL</td>
100 <td>7</td>
101 <td>1.5</td>
102 </tr>
103 <tr>
104 <th>Web</th>
105 <th>Level</th>
106 <th>Experience</th>
107 </tr>
108 <tr>
109 <td>PHP</td>
110 <td>9</td>
111 <td>2.5</td>
112 </tr>
113 <tr>
114 <td>ASP</td>
115 <td>8</td>
116 <td>1.5</td>
117 </tr>
118 <tr>
119 <td>JavaScript</td>
120 <td>8</td>
121 <td>6.5</td>
122 </tr>
123 <tr>
124 <td>CSS</td>
125 <td>9</td>
126 <td>5</td>
127 </tr>
128 <tr>
129 <td>HTML</td>
130 <td>10</td>
131 <td>6.5</td>
132 </tr>
133 <tr>
134 <td>DHTML</td>
135 <td>7</td>
136 <td>2</td>
137 </tr>
138 <tr>
139 <td>Graphic Design</td>
140 <td>6</td>
141 <td>8</td>
142 </tr>
143 <tr>
144 <td>Apache/MySQL Admin</td>
145 <td>6</td>
146 <td>2.5</td>
147 </tr>
148 </table>
149 </dd>
150 </dl>
151 <dl>
152 <dt class="field">Systems</dt>
153 <dd>Windows 3.x - 2000; MacOS 8.x - OS X</dd>
154 <dt class="field">Tools</dt>
155 <dd>Metrowerks CodeWarrior for C++ 4.0 - 7.0; Borland Delphi 1.0 - 6.0; ISE
156 Eiffel 4.5 - 5.1; Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 - 6.0; Visual Parse++ 2.1 - 4.0;
157 DreamWeaver 2.0 - 4.01; Photoshop 4.0 - 6.01; Perforce 99.1 - 2001.1<br>
158 </dd>
159 </dl>
160 <h2>Work Experience</h2>
161 <h3>
162 Logicat Inc., New York, NY <span class="detail">Aug
163 1994 - Present</span></h3>
164 <p><span class="field">Logicat CE Manager</span> <span class="detail">Apr
165 2001 - Present</span></p>
166 <p>Designed and developed a web product that tracks continuing education credits
167 for attorneys in New York and California using IIS 5.0 and SQL Server 2000.
168 CE Manager includes:</p>
169 <ul>
170 <li>Validation for all data entry (users, courses, etc.).</li>
171 <li>A user search and reporting tool that lets administrators create customized
172 reports.
173 </li>
174 <li>Reminder and statement services for all licenses.</li>
175 </ul>
176 <p><span class="field">Logicat Online Testing</span> <span class="detail">Feb
177 2001 - Apr 2001</span></p>
178 <p>Worked with another developer to create a testing and test-authoring solution
179 for web sites using Microsoft IIS 5.0 and SQL Server 2000. This was used later
180 to build online learning solutions for clients.</p>
181 <p><span class="field">One-on-One with the SAT 2.0</span> <span class="detail">Jan
182 1999 - Feb 2001</span></p>
183 <p>Led a team of three developers to port the Logicat Test Engine to the MacOS
184 using Metrowerks CodeWarrior 5.0.</p>
185 <ul>
186 <li>Designed and developed a cross-platform library with a listener/broadcaster
187 event structure.
188 </li>
189 <li>Ported the ELF library to a custom cross-platform graphics library.</li>
190 <li>Implemented a cross-platform file-format with endian support.</li>
191 <li>Created new features such as arbitrarily nestable framesets and script/event
192 driven controls.
193 </li>
194 <li>Added support for dynamic/downloaded content.</li>
195 </ul>
196 <p><span class="field">Logicat Test Engine</span> <span class="detail">Nov
197 1997 - Dec 1998</span></p>
198 <p>Led a team of three developers to design and develop a system to create tests/tutorials
199 for multiple users for network or CD deployment on Windows using Visual C++
200 6.0.</p>
201 <ul>
202 <li>Test items and pages are created in an RTF-capable word processor with embedded
203 meta-tags.
204 </li>
205 <li>Item text can contain WYSIWYG text, paragraph and table formatting.</li>
206 <li>Items are compiled and assembled in a database using improved ELF technology
207 from the CPA software.
208 </li>
209 <li>Items can be scripted together with an event-based script language.</li>
210 <li>Tutorials can be enhanced using sounds, images and videos.</li>
211 <li>Tutorials can also gather and display user input and answers and can print
212 or e-mail results.
213 </li>
214 </ul>
215 <p><span class="field">Logicat CPA Review Software Update Release</span> <span class="detail">May
216 1997 - Nov 1997</span></p>
217 <p>Led a team of three developers to design and develop a study plan and calendar
218 to integrate the CPA software with a live course using Visual C++ 5.0. Used
219 Delphi 3.0 and OLE/COM to show PowerPoint presentations from the course.</p>
220 <p><span class="field">Performance Transfer Utility/Installer/Technical Manual</span> <span
221 class="detail">Feb
222 1997 - Apr 1997</span></p>
223 <p>Designed and developed a utility to manage a hardware copy protection library
224 using Delphi 2.0 and incorporated it into an installer using Wise 5.0. Created
225 a 100-page manual using HTML and CSS for the Technical Support department.</p>
226 <p><span class="field">Logicat CPA Review Software</span> <span class="detail">Aug
227 1996 - Jan 1997</span></p>
228 <p>Incorporated ELF into the <span class="reference">PassMaster</span> code base
229 as the main presentation and data storage engine. Created customized components
230 descended from the ELF object library.</p>
231 <p><span class="field">ELF</span> <span class="detail">Feb 1996
232 - Aug 1996</span></p>
233 <p>Designed and developed ELF, an object-oriented interactive document system
234 in Borland Delphi 2.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 4.1. Created EML, an HTML-like
235 language, an RTF parser and a compound document format to convert existing data
236 from RTF to ELF.</p>
237 <p><span class="field">PassMaster CPA Review Web Site</span> <span class="detail">Dec
238 1995 - Jan 1996</span></p>
239 <p>Developed a web site for <span class="reference">PassMaster</span>, Logicat's
240 CPA test preparation product. Used JavaScript to present a 40-question demonstration
241 of the test preparation software.</p>
242 <p><span class="field">One-on-One with the SAT Counselor Utility</span> <span class="detail">Sep
243 1995 - Nov 1995</span></p>
244 <p>Created a management and reporting utility for One-on-One with the SAT for
245 multi-user networked school distributions using Borland Object Pascal 7.0.</p>
246 <p><span class="field">One-on-One with the SAT</span> <span class="detail">Aug
247 1994 - Sept 1995</span></p>
248 <p>Designed and developed a test preparation program for the SAT in conjunction
249 with The College Board using Borland Object Pascal 7.0.</p>
250 <hr>
251 <h3>
252 earthli.com, New York, NY <span class="detail">Oct
253 1999 - Dec 2001</span></h3>
254 <p><span class="field"><a href="http://www.earthli.com/projects">earthli Projects</a></span> <span
255 class="detail">Mar
256 2002 - Jul 2002</span></p>
257 <p>Developed a project manager based on the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>.
258 Includes changes to record work completed and jobs to indicate work to do. Generates
259 formatted changelists and tracks revisions.</p>
260 <p><span class="field"><a href="http://www.earthli.com/news">earthli News</a></span> <span
261 class="detail">Jan
262 2001 - Feb 2001</span></p>
263 <p>Rewrote the <span class="reference">Forums</span> as a <span class="reference">WebCore</span>
264 application called <span class="reference">earthli News</span>. Once again,
265 a large amount of code reuse helped create a stable, full-featured news service
266 quickly and easily. Includes a subscription service.</p>
267
268 <p><span class="field"><a href="http://www.earthli.com/recipes/">earthli Recipes</a></span> <span
269 class="detail">Jan
270 2001 - Feb 2001</span></p>
271 <p>Created a second <span class="reference">WebCore</span> application to manage
272 recipes. Most of the functionality for this application was incorporated unchanged
273 from the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>, like the user/security model,
274 comments and full-text searching.</p>
275
276 <p><span class="field"><a href="http://www.earthli.com/albums/">earthli Photo
277 Albums 2.0</a></span> <span class="detail">Oct 2001 - Dec 2001</span></p>
278 <p>Rebuilt the <span class="reference">earthli Photo Albums</span> to include
279 many of the ideas developed in the <span class="reference">Forums</span>. Most
280 of the actual technology was reworked and incorporated into a general-purpose
281 back-end called the <span class="reference">earthli WebCore</span>. The <span class="reference">WebCore</span>
282 is a content management system written in PHP that can be extended to serve
283 many purposes. The Photo Albums are one such extension and they inherit many
284 of their new features directly from the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>,
285 such as enhanced security, nested albums, content management, anonymous users
286 and comments.</p>
287 <p><span class="field"><a href="http://www.earthli.com/settings.php">earthli
288 Themes</a></span> <span class="detail">Jun 2001 - Sep 2001</span></p>
289 <p>Redesigned the web site using only one set of styles, converting all existing
290 content to a uniform namespace. Implemented several themes on top of this
291 system that completely change the look (though not the layout) of the site.</p>
292 <p><span class="field">earthli Forums</span> <span class="detail">Oct
293 2001 - Dec 2001</span></p>
294 <p>Designed and developed a bulletin board system using PHP 4.x and MySQL 3.x.
295 It includes a flexible security system that describes rights for anonymous
296 users, registered users, groups and individuals. Other standard features include
297 full-text searching, nested replies and user profile pages. In 2001, the system
298 was updated to integrate with the <span class="reference">earthli Themes</span>.</p>
299 <p><span class="field">earthli Photo Albums 1.0</span> <span class="detail">Oct
300 1999 - Jul 2000</span></p>
301 <p>Designed and developed an online photo album using PHP 3.x and MySQL 3.x.
302 The system included multiple users, albums, pictures, journal entries and
303 a calendar.</p>
304 <h2>History</h2>
305 <h3>
306 Cross-Platform Content Engine </h3>
307 <p>I was first introduced to object-oriented programming in August of 1994 when
308 I started working at Logicat. I had been hired straight out of college and was
309 in charge of designing and programming an SAT test preparation program that
310 would later become known as <span class="reference">One-on-One with the SAT</span>.
311 I wrote the program in <span class="reference">Borland Object Pascal 7.0</span>
312 with the part-time aid of another programmer. The final product was only part
313 of the project, which also included a parser to convert RTF documents to a proprietary
314 format and several indexing tools for building the content database that the
315 program used. Soon after, I also wrote a utility for multi-user installations
316 that allowed an administrator to maintain the user database and print progress
317 reports. The utility was much easier to write because I was able to re-use much
318 of the code from <span class="reference">One-on-One</span> itself.</p>
319 <p>Early in 1996, with <span class="reference">One-on-One</span> shipped and most
320 support issues addressed, I wanted to focus on building software that wasn't
321 so project-specific. I began to write a new document renderer which would be
322 much more flexible and would concentrate only on displaying content and handling
323 events. I wrote the initial prototype in <span class="reference">Borland Delphi
324 1.0</span> and christened it <span class="reference">ELF</span>. The prototype
325 supported arbitrarily nested tables, images and multiple text styles.</p>
326 <p><span class="reference">ELF</span> would see use in the next incarnation of
327 Logicat's CPA test preparation software. First, I converted the prototype to
328 <span class="reference">Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0</span> to ease integration
329 into the existing code base. I also developed a very HTML-like document description
330 language called <span class="reference">EML</span>, complete with a parser and
331 an import filter for RTF documents. The RTF importer allowed content designers
332 to use all of the sophisticated editing capabilities of Microsoft Word to arrange
333 text. <span class="reference">EML</span> tags describe the structure, layout
334 and display properties of document data. Some tags break a document into separate
335 objects, whereas others describe the display properties of those objects. This
336 would form the core of the program.</p>
337 <p>The <span class="reference">CPA Software</span> also extended the <span class="reference">ELF</span>
338 library with objects that provided customized event handling. Much of the <span class="reference">CPA
339 Software's</span> program logic was still based on existing code from previous
340 versions of the <span class="reference">CPA Software</span>, but the content
341 creation, file format and data rendering/event handling were all based on <span class="reference">ELF</span>.
342 This project was also where I began using preconditions and postconditions,
343 which I simulated in C++ using assertions.</p>
344 <p>Towards the end of 1997, the <span class="reference">CPA Software</span> had
345 undergone more changes, but the <span class="reference">ELF</span> library was
346 still the only truly reusable portion. Seeing a need for a more flexible tool
347 that could address many different testing and training needs, Logicat set out
348 to build a <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>. It was to serve as a
349 development environment for building tutorials and testing materials and would
350 have to be more flexible to cover a broader range of needs.</p>
351 <p>The first step in making a more general <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>
352 was to move the content-specific program logic out of the executable. To this
353 end, I designed a simple scripting language and built a compiler and interpreter
354 for it. The language supports conditionals, loops and user-defined routines
355 and has an easily extensible library of built-in routines to access engine
356 functionality. Most of the user-defined routines serve as event handlers called
357 by other components of the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>. There
358 were also some routines for manipulating the database of items created by
359 the content creation tools. Combined with support for sounds, images and movies,
360 a content designer could put together sophisticated presentations that varied
361 widely.</p>
362 <p>All of the code for the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span> makes
363 extensive use of preconditions and postconditions to ensure program correctness.
364 The two other developers on the project would build layers of more specific
365 objects atop the basic engine and the assertions answered many of their questions
366 before they were even asked. Since the engine was composed of so many components,
367 I implemented a subscriber/publisher system that connected them together using
368 abstract interfaces and kept them as separate as possible.
369 <!--Of course, in this
370 case, a system based on Eiffel's agent technology would have provided an even
371 more elegant solution, but a template-based version was acceptable.-->
372 </p>
373 <p>In January of 1999, Logicat began work on <span class="reference">One-on-One
374 with the SAT 2.0</span>. The <span class="reference">Test Engine</span> was
375 about to take its next step as they wanted this version to work on both Windows
376 and Macintosh. Starting in January of 1999, I spent several months reworking
377 the Windows version of the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span> to function
378 as a cross-platform version with Windows extensions. At this point, I was developing
379 in <span class="reference">Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0</span>. There were innumerable
380 dependencies on Windows or library-specific classes and functions that had to
381 be changed or eliminated. The MFC CString class was replaced with a version
382 based on the C++ Library string class. Direct calls to determine screen size
383 or amount of memory available were replaced with DISPLAY and SYSTEM classes,
384 respectively. At each juncture, I put as much functionality as possible into
385 cross-platform code and designed my classes so that the platform-specific version
386 was as thin as possible.</p>
387 <p>Once a rudimentary version of the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>
388 was functioning in this way, we moved the code to the Macintosh using <span class="reference">Metrowerks
389 CodeWarrior 4.0/5.0</span>. With the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>
390 using only platform-independent interfaces for system components, it was simple
391 to develop Macintosh versions of system objects and snap them into place. Very
392 quickly, the Macintosh version caught up to the Windows version in functionality.
393 The final product had most of the code in a cross-platform <span class="reference">Test
394 Engine</span> that encapsulated all of the program logic, with platform-specific
395 plugins filling in functionality. In the end, we had to write classes to handle
396 much of a common GUI program's functionality: file handling (based on C++ Library),
397 file system, 2-D graphics, sound, movies, printing, timers and window manager.
398 The data format was made compatible across platforms. </p>
399 <p>To support the feature set of a large program like <span class="reference">One-on-One</span>,
400 the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span> was expanded to support an arbitrary
401 number of windows, frames within frames (like HTML) and much more dynamic content.</p>
402 <p>The final product is a very web browser-like product that runs on both Windows
403 and Macintosh natively, with no performance advantage on either platform and
404 about 90% code shared. Most importantly, the <span class="reference">Test Engine</span>
405 has no code customized to <span class="reference">One-on-One Version 2.0</span>.
406 All functionality and content of <span class="reference">One-on-One</span> is
407 defined in RTF data files, a script file and supporting media like pictures,
408 sounds and movies and is completely separated from the <span class="reference">Test
409 Engine</span> code. Thanks to assertions, there was far less of a need for debugging
410 than on previous projects and the completion of <span class="reference">One-on-One
411 Version 2.0</span> was far easier than <span class="reference">One-on-One Version
412 1.0.</span></p>
413 <hr>
414 <h3>Web-based Content Management </h3>
415 <p>I started writing web applications in October 1999 on my own web site, <a
416 href="http://www.earthli.com">earthli.com</a>.
417 After some research, I chose the now familiar Apache/PHP/MySQL development environment.
418 My first real application was a photo gallery to share vacation photographs
419 online. Each photo album belonged to a user, who was able to edit it when logged
420 in. The public could browse through the entire album with read-only access.
421 Later, a list of editors was added to albums to allow collaboration between
422 users.</p>
423 <p>My next project was a project manager for keeping track of change lists, revisions
424 and build history for various projects. It occurred to me that this project
425 and the previous photo albums shared many similar characteristics, which would
426 be required of almost any collaborative web application. Each required user
427 accounts, user validation and rights management, support for user comments and
428 so on. I began creating these shared components with the goal of building the
429 project manager on top of them.</p>
430 <p>From this work grew the <span class="reference">earthli Forums</span>, which
431 implemented a robust security model, nested folders, nested comments, anonymous
432 user tracking etc., but still wasn't built generically enough; it didn't allow
433 easy adaptation to other applications. Late in 2001, I began work on the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>,
434 which would incorporate the code from the <span class="reference">Forums</span>,
435 but adapted to a more generic framework and whose API would be defined by a
436 class-hierarchy.</p>
437 <p>The <span class="reference">WebCore</span> has several properties:</p>
438 <ul>
439 <li>Content is treated as contained within a nested hierarchy of folders. Folders
440 can inherit rights from their parents. Any application can define multiple
441 types of objects.
442 </li>
443 <li>Anonymous browsing is supported seamlessly with logged-in users.</li>
444 <li>The security model is enforced within the library, returning only data that
445 the browser has been validated to see. Users can be granted individual rights
446 to create, modify, delete, purge content or modify rights within folders.
447 </li>
448 <li>Folder level rights can be granted to anonymous user, registered users,
449 to a group of users or to individual users.
450 </li>
451 <li>User level rights can be granted or denied regardless of folder to ban users
452 or create administrators.
453 </li>
454 <li>Every piece of data in the system is exposed as an object. Each object records
455 its creation and modification information. Objects are retrieved using query
456 objects that handle pagination and rights enforcement.
457 </li>
458 <li>Proper separation of code and display logic is emphasized. The web pages
459 themselves deal only with PHP objects; queries are made through an object
460 layer, so the pages themselves are not only unaware that a MySQL database
461 is used, they are unaware that an SQL database is being used at all. In many
462 cases, other PHP objects, like grids and trees, handle display and HTML generation
463 as well, .
464 </li>
465 <li>Full-text searching is supported in the query object.</li>
466 <li>Several other classes are available, including a browser class for determining
467 the user agent, a text formatter class for displaying HTML data and a grid
468 class that works with the query classes to paginate objects into a grid.
469 </li>
470 </ul>
471 <p>Version 2.0 of the <span class="reference">Photo Albums</span> was built on
472 top of the <span class="reference">WebCore</span> at the same time as the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>
473 itself was being developed. Soon after, the second application to be built with
474 the <span class="reference">WebCore</span> was <span class="reference">earthli
475 Recipes</span>, which was ready for testing and demonstration in just over a
476 week. During development of the <span class="reference">Recipes</span>, I created
477 a set of pages that handled setting user and folder rights and creating, editing,
478 deleting and viewing comments that could be used 'as is' if no customization
479 was required by the application. This would help bring future application up
480 to speed even more quickly.</p>
481 <p><span class="reference">earthli News</span> followed soon after and allowed
482 me to retire the old <span class="reference">Forums</span> software and use
483 only applications build with the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>. The
484 fact that the <span class="reference">WebCore</span> handled the bulk of the
485 processing, validation and querying left me free to focus on designing a better
486 interface for presenting news. Also, fixed bugs and new features are applied
487 to all earthli applications simultaneously because of the large amount of
488 shared code. My latest <span class="reference">WebCore</span> application
489 is creating the project manager I started over a year ago. Once again, it's
490 off to a quick start because so much of the functionality is already available
491 in the <span class="reference">WebCore</span>.</p>
492 <h2>Education</h2>
493 <h3>Hamilton College, Clinton, New York</h3>
494 <p>Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in May, 1994<br>
495 Major: Mathematics; Minor: Physics</p>
496 </div>
497 </div>
498 <?php
499 $Page->finish_display ();
500 ?>
501