Career Information

The studying years…

When I should have been studying hard, I tended to spend most of my time writing articles and programs for some the hobbyist computer magazines in the UK.

The programming years…

After studying, I started working as a Real Programmer, developing applications for broadcast teletext.

Some of the things that I got involved with were:

Developing the SDK for a PC-based teletext receiver
Developing a PC-based subtitling workstation
Co-developing a PC-based teletext editor

The technical writing years…

After all that programming, I wanted to get back to writing. Thanks to all that programming, I’ve tended to write very technical documentation for programmers.

Some of the things that I’ve written about:

Private Banking (functional specifications, user references)
Risk Management (configuration and user manuals)
ICC/Smart Cards (requirements for Credit/Debit cards)
Corporate Sales and Marketing system (user guides)
Networking (LAN to multiprotocol network connectivity installation and configuartion guides)
Workflow Management (SDK for system core OO langauge)
Messaging Systems (installation and configuration guides corporate and financial clients)
Speaker Systems for Dealing Rooms (installation, configuration, and maintenance manuals)

And now, for something completely different…

When I was a technical author I was constantly frustrated by the ‘DTP’ software that I used to write and publish my books. The software always lacked the features that I needed as a professional writer and publisher. The problem was, and still is, that ‘DTP’ software is developed by people who seem removed from the day-to-day requirements of technical publishing. So, I have now gone back to programming, and am developing applications for professional writers and publishers, under the project name of ‘Zeberdee’.