Myles Skinner's Development Portfolio

I've been programming for 29 years now; I got my start writing BASIC programs on a Commodore PET 2001 and quickly graduated to 6502 machine language. Hand-assembling machine code from a very early age has given me a level of comfort with low-level work—what is sometimes referred to as "heavy lifting" programming. I enjoy working behind the scenes and under the hood to help talented designers bring their visions to life. The languages and technologies with which I am most familiar include: PHP, C, C++, Java, JSP, Perl, Strict HTML, CSS, MySQL, and SDL, however, I have fun learning new languages and technologies and will happily tackle the unknown.

Amazon Consulting

I've been contracting with Amazon Consulting since January 2008. The techonology team at Amazon Consulting develops and maintains two major web applications, PartnerPath and RegPoint. In my time with Amazon Consulting, I have worked on close to 1,000 tickets—tickets can range in scope from minor copy edits to substantial revisions to our application workflow. I have also taken the lead on several development projects, ensuring that our code is built to specification and delivered on time.

"The best praise I can give Myles is that I can give him a task with minimal direction and know it will be done correctly the first time with a solution that is both effective and creative. Myles never hesitates to roll up his sleeves and get to work. No task is too small or too large for him to take on. I never have to worry about his productivity—he is self-motivated and takes pride in his finished work."
—Christopher P. Smith, Manager of Technology & Automation, Amazon Consulting

Training Paths

As a former teacher, I was enthusiastic about taking the lead role in developing a training system to integrate with PartnerPath. What we created is a flexible system that allows clients to create and manage all their training content. With the Training Paths administrative tools, you can track and compare student progress through each path. The Training Path overview is represented visually by a subway map metaphor where each curriculum is represented by one of the stations; the display to the left was designed and implemented by Scott Collins. The training system is composed of the following components:

Training Path: an organized collection of training courses that make up a complete unit of training, usually targeted at a specific certification, and often organized by job function, solutions, technical expertise, etc.
Focus: a collection of curricula organized into subject matter groupings or themes.
Curriculum: a collection of training classes or training units that make up a specific course of study. A focus is the subject matter's "theme", while the curriculum is the collection of actual courses contained in the Training Path.
Training Unit: refers to a single section of training such as a training video, an exam, a training document, or any other single unit of training that can be taken by a partner and evaluated for success.
Skill Assessment: a quiz or questionnaire that can be used to assess the retention of a given training unit.

Widget PDF Export

The PartnerPath and RegPoint Dashboard project was one of the most challenging things I've ever worked on, but also one of the most rewarding. The dashboards are composed of several reporting 'widgets' that provide real time, graphical reports based on live application data inside the PartnerPath and RegPoint portals. The PartnerPath Main Dashboard is configurable; users can choose which reporting widgets will appear on their dashboard. My most significant contribution was making the dashboard reports exportable as PDFs; the PDF files are built on-the-fly from up-to-date data (including graphs), with the various layout elements—pagination, headers, footers, and column breaks— derived from each specific dashboard configuration.

This sample PDF demonstrates the output; I am very happy with the way it turned out. There's something very satisfying about writing code that will generate a full-colour, printable document that you can hold in your hands.

Informatica's Partner Directory

I was asked to develop an enhanced partner directory to replace the original "A-Z Partner Directory" that used to appear on Informatica's website. Each entry in the directory includes information on Informatica's network of partners worldwide; the data displayed in a partner's profile on the directory is dynamically updated from the information each partner puts into their profile on beINFORMed, Informatica's Partner Portal. This improved directory offers customers, prospects, and field personnel the benefit of being able to search Informatica's worldwide partner network by country, vertical focus, product and solution specialization and locate a contact at any partner.

The beINFORMed portal is only available to registered Informatica partners, but Informatica's partner directory is publicly accessible. You can also see an example of an enhanced partner directory listing.

RPGme online store

RPGme was a start-up company founded by Christopher P. Smith. Chris designed the site, wrote the site copy, populated the catalogue, filled orders, and set up and maintained the site forums. I was brought on board to develop an online store application capable of secure transactions. This was a challenging project because in the beginning, I was completely unfamiliar with the necessary tools and anguages. In two weeks, I learned enough Java, JSP, and MySQL to begin development; within two months, I had written a fully-functional online store application from scratch that was modular, configurable, and scalable.

Features:

User registration and secure login
Shopping cart capable of persisting across separate sessions for registered users
Search engine that allowed users to restrict searches of the store catalogue by combining multiple search criteria (keywords, product category, price)
Product recommendations derived from shoppers' browsing history
Administrative tools to maintain the MySQL database for users, the catalogue, and shopping cart transactions
Credit Card handling over secure connection to VeriSign
Secure model for the purchase and delivery of eTexts and PDFs

The RPGme online store application was sold in 2003 and subsequently dismantled by the new owner. I have created mockups of the original RPGme home page and a typical catalogue page that show how the store looked when it first opened in June 2002.

Cornerstone

My first exposure to WordPress. Design by Jewel. IE/FF CSS work. Custom contact form. Browsable on Blackberry.