| Resume | | | Most Significant Accomplishment | | | Questionnaire |
I have been successfully employed for about 2½ years. However, although the company I currently work for is an excellent company, my professional development has reached a dead end in terms of utilizing my abilities and skills in content management, helpdesk support, network maintenance, and especially, website development.
I have a two-year diploma from BCIT in Computer Systems Technology and a one-year CASS certificate from Vancouver Community College. I am currently working on my BCIT Bachelor Degree practicum to be completed by Dec/09. At which point I will have completely met all BCIT requirements to be granted a full Bachelor's Degree in Computer Systems Technology specializing in Human Computer Interface.
The Computer Application Support Specialist (CASS) program at VCC gave me my basic foundation and understanding of web development in terms of creation, design, & maintenance. I then went onto advanced studies at BCIT, in email configuration, TCP/IP, packets, xml, data communication, advanced web building and design, security, and more. We studied Business Applications with Database Connectivity using ASP, PHP, JavaScript, and the .NET Framework. We completed projects using Perl, SQL server, ER diagramming, and VisualStudio.NET integrated with IIS, including preparation of technical documentation.
Interactions with fellow teammates in projects, beginning in school environments and then in real world situations, have allowed me to develop interpersonal skills, superb technical writing skills, and the ability to work under pressure. I am familiar with the Linux operating system, Macintosh operating systems, and windows XP/Vista,2003 server.
I changed careers about fifteen years ago and went back to school to find a new direction in life, which turned out to be the best move I have ever made in terms of personal development, maturity, and the ability to seek excellence in all endeavors. This translates into what I can bring into any organization or bring to a client.
My profile is listed on the BCIT Aboriginal Programs & Services website under 'Student Success' at: www.aps.bcit.ca/alumni/ron.shtml. I was formally the web master for a non-profit society at: www.bcyukonaa.org. My personal website is www.hinksmanweb.com, where my portfolio can be viewed at: www.hinksman.com/Archive.htm. I plan to developing a VS.NET project at: www.hinksman.com/Projects.htm using aspx & C#, but it is still in the planning stages.
My most recent contract is meeting the immediate needs of a local Vancouver based Salon and Spa establishment, "Axiom Salon & Spa", by developing their web site at: www.axiom-beauty.com.
Thank you for your consideration. I can be reached by cell: 604-616-4357.
As a website developer, every website and every project has its own set of difficulties and challenges; however one contract in particular proved to be a turning point in my career, and ultimately the establishment of where I was going in terms of my abilities and skills. I received a phone call from a potential client in the spring of 2004. He had received a reply I had sent to a position opening he had placed through the BCIT Ejobs web site.
We met and he presented me with a website he couldn't get to work using VS.NET. Even though he knew VB extensively, he had reached a dead end, and could not get past a particular spot in the design of the website. He asked if I would be able to help him master it, and we agreed on a fee. I asked for the code and database design he had developed up until then, and went to work on the issue. He had a huge relational database integrated into the website, composed of about 14 tables, complete with foreign key integration. The web site had to be able to carry user information supplied at the login page, access the database, perform authentication, and carry that information to the rest of the site along with the user, depending on the user information supplied. I spent about three days and nights struggling with the problem, and after much trial and error, patience, and research, I finally got it to work. Unfortunately, once he saw how it was done, I never heard from him again. Although, a blow to my expectations, he did pay me what we had agreed on, and it was a tremendous boost to my self-esteem.
The retelling of this incident may seem to be insignificant and inconsequential to the reader, but to me, my ability to surmount the tremendous obstacle that was placed in my path at that time, was my moment of triumph and freedom from self-doubt and uncertainty. I was just starting out after spending 4 years at BCIT. I had a lot of debt and was trying to obtain clients and income any way I could. This project was using the .NET framework and Visual Studio, which I was just learning at the time. There was a huge amount of complexity into the inner workings of the code and db design that had to be overcome and understood. It amounted to me reaching an inner resource that I never knew was there before, and growing from the experience to meet an uncertain future.
My hope is to keep the door open to advancement within the organization, therefore salary is open to negotiation but should be in line with current industry standards. My research indicates that $45,000 to $60,000 per year is a good entry level starting point that would also reflect my knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Web development requires a strong knowledge of raw HTML, that means working with HTML code itself (like this), not with a WYSIWYG program (like FrontPage) that creates HTML for you.
Question 1: How and when did you learn HTML, and how would you rate your HTML skills?
Answer: I first learned my HTML skills while obtaining my certificate in Computer Applications Support Specialist at Vancouver Community College in 1999. I would rate my HTML skills as above average in the advanced catagory
Question 2: What's wrong with the following HTML code?
LINE 01<table BORDEr=1 cellpading=0 cellspacing0>
LINE 02 <tr>
LINE 03 <td>1</td><br>
LINE 04 <td>2</td><br>
LINE 05 <td>3<td>
LINE 06 <td> row-span="2>6</td>
LINE 07 </tr>
LINE 08 </tr>
LINE 09 <td copslan="two">4<td>
LINE 10 <td>5</td></tr>
LINE 11 </tr>
LINE 12</table>
Answer:
--In line 01, html is not case sensitive, so although it doesn't look very good, it's okay to have mixed capitals with small letters. Also, you can use double quotes, single quotes, or no quotes to encase literals, but you must use an equal sign. But, an attribute value must be quoted if it contains any character other than letters (A-Za-z), digits, hyphens, and periods; use quotes if in doubt, therefore, after cellspacing, you could have cellspacing=0, cellspacing="0", but not cellspacing0. Plus the attribute cellpading is spelled incorrectly. It should be "cellpadding"
--Line 02 is OK. This opens the first row of this table.
--In lines 03 and 04, element br not allowed here.
--Line 05 is missing the forward slash"/" for the closing tag of the tag element td.
--In line 06, the attribute row-span for the td tag element is spelled incorrectly, as there is no hyphen, and is missing the closing double quotation marks for the literal element 2. Also, it is not within the opening tag of td where it needs to be in order for the browser to recognize it, because of the extra greater than sign directly after the tag element td.
--Line 07 is OK. This closes the first row of this table.
--Line 08 opens the second row of this table, so it shouldn't have a forward slash within its tag.
--In line 09, assuming this is meant to be colspan, it is spelled incorrectly, and wouldn't be recognized by any browsers as a result, plus the value of "two" cannot be a string here. It must be expressed as a literal such as 2. Also, the closing tag element td is missing its forward slash that would indicate to the browser that it is indeed a closing tag.
--In line 10 the closing tag element tr is legal to be here, but not when there is another closing tag element "/tr" directly after it. There cannot be two in a row. Normally, for easier reading, each opening tag would begin its own line and be indented slightly, in a nested fashion. But, the real problem with the second row, is that it has two extra table data items in it, which will cause the table to appear in the browser out of alignment. Each table data element acts as a column, so if there are four td's in the first row and only two td's in the second row, it won't display as intended. What is needed, is to have the attributes rowspan and colspan rewritten correctly within their respective tags.
--Lines 11 and 12 are OK. Line 11 closes the second line, and line 12 closes the table.
One possible solution to this incorrectly written html code would be as follows:
LINE 01<TABLE border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
LINE 02 <TR>
LINE 03 <TD>1</TD>
LINE 04 <TD>2</TD>
LINE 05 <TD>3</TD>
LINE 06 <TD rowspan="2">6</TD>
LINE 07 </TR>
LINE 08 <TR>
LINE 09 <TD colspan="2">4</TD>
LINE 10 <TD>5</TD>
LINE 11 </TR>
LINE 12</TABLE>
This is how it might display in a typical browser, such as IE 6.0
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| 4 | 5 | ||
Question 3: Most customers are friendly, on the rare occasion, some aren't. How do you deal with unfriendly or hostile customers?
Answer: I deal with unfriendly or hostile customers in a quiet and cool fashion. I avoid falling into an argument or conflict by staying focused with the matter at hand and continuously waiting for the right moment to edge forward in a respectful and understanding manner, away from the problem and into the appropriate solution.
Question 4: How did you hear about this job?
Answer: I regularly scan the BCIT Ejobs site as well as receive employer opportunities from the BCIT Ejobs network daily. This was one of the postings that attracted my attention, as I am very interested in this position.
Question 5: Any final comments?
Answer: Thank you for your time and consideration. I will do my best in a creative, original, user friendly way, to meet your business objectives, by reflecting your product line by presenting a suitable web presence on the World Wide Web.