Brent Scheffler

About me

My name is Brent Scheffler and I have been working with computers since I was 12. At age 12.5 I had my own 2400 baud BBS running. Times have changed, but my interest and passion for all things computers has not. I began working with BSD and Linux in 1997 and continue to be an open source junkie. Although I prefer my desktop workstations to be Microsoft, I use and recommend nothing but Linux for backend technologies.

A large part of my career has been in web development - mostly in an open source environment. I have also worked quite closely with hardware and networking and am completely comfortable setting up Apache in a terminal shell. I am completely capable and fluent in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and of course PHP and MySQL. I strive for newer more complex projects and need an opportunity to explore and learn new languages and systems. Some may cringe at the thought, but I thoroughly enjoy API programming, development, integration, and deployment.

Outside of computers, I enjoy working on and restoring vintage Vespas or meeting up with other scooter enthusiasts for a rally around Seattle. I love traveling and have studied (and worked) abroad in Germany for a year. Although not a native of Washingston state, I consider the Seattle area to be my home.

Education

Humboldt State University [5/2000 - 5/2003]

B.S. Computer Information Systems

Victor Valley Community College [8/1996 - 5/2000]

General education and lower division requirements for transfer to state college.

Technical Experience

• SQL (MySQL in particular)
• PHP (OOP and MVC in particular)
• Zend Framework
• HTML & CSS
• Javascript & jQuery
• SVN
• Memcache
• API programming
  • UPS
  • USPS
  • PayPal
  • Flickr
  • Mozes
  • Twitter

Professional Work Experience

ground(ctrl) [6/2008 - Present]

Position: Lead Developer
ground(ctrl) is a social media and community engine for artists and their fans with features like fan accounts and profiles, blogs, discussion forums, commenting, event & concert calendars, photos & videos, and online store. I lead the developers and direction of development of all company projects fueled by open source technologies like MySQL & PHP. Significant recent projects include:

• Complete review and overhaul of company order fulfillment process
• Venue and box office will call management software
• Code base audit for effenciency and high load resiliency

WindowsSecrets.com [6/2005 - 6/2008]

Position: Program Director
The Windows Secrets Newsletter is a weekly e-mail newsletter about security related issues, especially in Microsoft products, including reviews of the latest patches from Microsoft. Maintain and manage web site, e-mail servers, as well as develop new applications and automate day-to-day business practices. Web server is RHEL5 with Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Current projects include extracting static archived HTML content into indexed searchable dynamic content. Parsing of HTML files to extract data using regular expression pattern matching.

KEXP 90.3 FM [5/2005 - 6/2005]

Position: Webmaster Intern
Assist the webmaster with all aspects of web development on KEXP.org, both external and internal sites. Site developed in ASP, SQLServer, and JavaScript. Last project included developing content for wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs. This mobile content page is now used by KEXP.

Humboldt State University / ITS Department [5/2002 - 5/2003]

Position: IT Assistant
Administered and maintained lab servers and workstations for the College of Natural Resources and Sciences. User profile management via Windows NT PDC and Linux file servers via SMB and NFS. Built dual boot (XP and Linux) workstation prototypes and imaged using Ghostcast. Various hardware upgrades and installations when needed. Responded to faculty and student troubletickets.

Humboldt State University / CS Department [8/2001 - 5/2003]

Position: Internet Teaching Lab T.A.
Installed, configured, and prepared labs for instructors. Lab contains enterprise networking equipment (Cisco 7000 series routers and 3Com, Cisco, and HP switches) for student and faculty use. Lab is isolated from campus backbone allowing students a hands-on approach to networking and faculty a chance to design labs that would otherwise compromise security. Administered RedHat Linux DNS, DHCP, and SMB file servers as well as dual boot workstation image management. Repairing and reconfiguring equipment after each lab session.

Personal Experience

CafeRadius

CafeRadius is a Linux OS image (based on Slackware 10) that integrates a radius server (Freeradius), captive portal (Chillispot 1.0), and user friendly web interface to successfully manage public wireless hotspots. It allows the hotspot owner to control per user logins, connection times, bandwidth, and total allowed transfer (both upload and download.) It is designed to work with embedded appliances based on the AMD Geode series processors and fits on a 256MB flash card.

Artmockerz.com

Artmockerz.com was an on-line community site similar to, yet pre-dated, MySpace and Facebook. Started as a senior-year "fun" project in the winter of 2002, the site went live in the early spring of 2003 and served as a social hub for Arcata and Eureka, CA. The site was completely built and maintained by me and was, at first, hosted on a server running from my studio apartment. After several redevelopments and three-years of maintenance, I decided to shut the site down. At its height, Artmockerz.com had over 2,000 users world-wide and was responsible for at least one marriage. Vestiges of the site can still be retrieved via http://web.archive.org.

References