Biography

Harry is a fifteen year veteran marketing professional, who has worked in a wide variety of sectors and sizes of organisation. After helping take an Internet security start up from 3 employees to acquisition by Sun Microsystems, he worked firstly in their global trade finance team, then in product marketing for their meta-directory product. Since leaving software marketing, he’s been helping organisations define how they use the Internet, mainly in the education and charity sectors, and managing the resulting projects.

Key Skills

• Marketing, planning and strategy
• Social media
• User-centered design
• Software requirement gathering and specification process
• Project management

Interests

Food and drink, specifically the beers of Timothy Taylor, offal in all its many and varied forms, pork scratchings, military history, environmental issues, and improvisational theatre.

Biography

Rupert began working with the Internet and open source technology in 1998, bringing skills from previous careers in theatre and education. Since then he’s built applications and devised strategies for a wide range of client organisations – usually with an emphasis on supporting educational initiatives and building communities. An abiding interest in the social aspects of Internet usage and a willingness to theorise informs his thinking and leads our development as an organisation.

Key Skills

• Software specification and design
• Application programming in Python
• Linux system administration
• Internet presentation layer coding in Javascript, HTML and CSS

Interests

Open source software philosophy and advocacy, racing Norfolk Punts, building puppets, and cooking.

Biography

Neil’s degree in geophysics led to initially a career in the oil industry. After too many trips to out of the way places, he left in favour of resurrecting a deep interest in technology. For the last ten years he’s been involved in a wide variety of IT projects, focussing on open source software development and deployment.

Key Skills

• Software specification
• Application programming in Python
• Linux system administration
• Database design and administration
• Internet presentation layer coding in Javascript, HTML and CSS
• Server-side scripting in Shell and Perl

Interests

Gaming, vile liquers from around the world, cross-country pantomime.

Biography

Toby trained in computer science and psychology, and has been working on Internet projects since 1996. He authored the first Java strong cryptographic implementation outside the USA. After helping take an Internet security start up from 3 employees to acquisition by Sun Microsystems, he worked in global professional services for 3 years before leaving for self-employment. As well as working for Neontribe, he teaches web design part-time at Anglia Polytechnic Universtity.

Key Skills

• Application programming in Java and Python
• Unix system administration, Linux and Solaris
• Internet presentation layer coding in PHP, Javascript, HTML and CSS
• Server-side scripting in Shell, JSP, ASP, and Perl
  Internet security programming – Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), On-line
• Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) Client Server Architectures.
• Database administration for MySQL
• IT teaching and training
• Carrying heavy weights
• Conflict resolution

Interests

Rugby union, childcare, the various sub-genres of heavy metal music, and poor quality science fiction films of the 1970s.

Biography

Heydon went to university in the salubrious Hatfield where he intended to study art and things but ended up helping to form a fake marketing agency and posed as his own degree show’s corporate sponsor. At his first job he hoped to learn web design but spent much of his time in a small room photographing ladies’ halter tops. Later, he discovered CSS and cut his teeth coding e-commerce sites for the Guardian and Telegraph. He has written about web typography for Smashing Magazine and his blog is called HeydonWorks.

Key Skills

• Semantic/accessible HTML
• CSS
• Web typography
• Making little icons
• Making little jquery plugins
• Procedural PHP and using .txt files as databases
• Selective naysaying

Interests

Punky blues music, skiing, sea life

Biography

Matt comes from a Game Development background but he’s also a precociously brilliant front-end developer. He came to us on a placement from Derby University and has become an invaluable team member. We even sent him to Vegas for a couple of weeks! His portfolio and blog are found at mattlayton.co.uk..

Key Skills

• PHP
• HTML/CSS
• Drupal
• UnrealScript
• C / C# / C++
• MIPS Assembly

Interests

Sketching (portraiture)

Biography

Made the mistake of believing that a science based education meant forgoing creativity and has been forging an uphill battle out of the ‘arts’ towards her childhood ambition of becoming a creative technician. Having the belief that the TV/Film industry will one day merge with the computer/internet world, she has planted a foot firmly in each camp (in the hope of taking over the world – or perhaps saving it). She occupies her spare time, with producing TV series’ about musical theatre (for no other reason than that she can and has been asked to). And is eking towards completion an OU degree in computer science.

Key Skills

• Wordpress
• Drupal
• can usually decipher php, Java, python, HTML and CSS
• saying ‘Yes, I can do that.’

Interests

Would like to have a cunning plan to retire by the age of 45 and sail around the world a few times with her husband, meeting up with her children at random intervals, and writing a novel or 2 whilst filming a ground-breaking documentary about the social ails of the world.

Biography

When Frank got a copy of Purple Saturn Day for his Amstrad CPC as a young boy, he saw what could be achieved even within extremely limited contraints, and began creating his own games. Later, his attention turned to the web, despite his best attempts at going down a more literary route. Passionate (and pedantic) about both back- and front-end design and development, he now has a positively rude number of web projects under his belt. Still he continues to hunt for new, exciting technologies, better user experiences, and interesting tea flavours.

Key Skills

• Application development in Javascript and PHP
• Structured Markup, CSS, Typography, Graphic Design
• Database architecture
• Digital media platforms

Interests

Photography and videography, writing, recording, and listening to music, gaming, the demo scene, day-dreaming about replacing his home with a mini-castle.