David Summer
54 Riverbend Dr - Groton, MA, 01450
(978) 448-1254
david@summersong.net
Summary
Experienced software designer/developer and technical communicator. Concentrating on the effective use of technology in business communications and applications. Deep technical background combined with exceptional communications and creative skills. Adept at SEO, marketing and multi-media eLearning initiatives. Also, experienced educator and published author.
Technical Skills
Web
HTML, CSS, XML, RSS, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Ajax, Adobe Flash/ActionScript, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Audition, Adobe Dreamweaver, Sony Movie Studio, Section 508 Compliance, Bugzilla, Oracle, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl), SEO
Windows
Visual C++, STL, .NET Visual Studio, MFC, Windows GDI, Win32 API, ActiveX, COM, ATL, Visual Basic, SQL, Adobe FrameMaker, Camtasia, CamStudio, IBM ClearCase, Subversion, CVS
 
Education
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Cum Laude, Framingham State College
Bachelor of Music in Education, University of Lowell
Employment Background
Founder, SummerSound (summer 2007 - Present)
Provide web development, marketing and technical communications services to companies and individuals. Specializing in business communications, website and web application development, instructional materials, technical consulting, SEO, podcasting and other multi-media web development, www.summersound.net.
Clients Include:
GlassHouse Technologies - Technical Consultant responsible for developing documentation and multi-media training materials. These learning tools enabled the integration of Clearspace enterprise collaboration software into the Glass House office environment. This collaboration software integrates common web communication methods including Wikis, Discussions and Blogs, document sharing and revision control. Produced documentation consisting of User Guides and Style Guides that showed software managers and other users how to setup and configure the software.
Created a series of video tutorials explaining how to use the features available in the software. These tutorials were created using a combination of audio/video production tools including Adobe Audition, CamStudio and Sony Vegas Movie Studio.
3Com Corporation - Worked with 3Com’s marketing group to develop features for the 3Com corporate website, including email campaigns and customer micro sites. Created web pages from Adobe Photoshop design specifications.
Consulted with marketing and IT personal involved in planning 3Com’s podcast initiative. Setup initial podcast RSS feed.
Energy Federation Incorporated - Designed and developed a dynamic newsletter website section for this company that specializes in selling energy related products. In addition to the design and web development work, also implemented the RSS feed needed to add content to newsreader aggregators. Production was accomplished using a combination of PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
Nanometrics - Technical Communicator responsible for documenting a large and complex software system used to control a Scanning Electron Microscope. Documented software architecture including Windows UI, internationalization mechanism, Oracle database and Web connectivity.
Produced detailed multi-media documentation using MS Word, Adobe FrameMaker, CamStudio and Adobe Audition. Gave technical presentations to engineers using Open Office Impress (PowerPoint).
Charles Binder, Binder and Binder Law - Designed and developed a personal website including a podcast section for an individual who owns and operates a law firm. Created the design and did all web development work, including the creation of all graphics and editing of photographs.
Implemented the podcast RSS feed needed to add content to podcast aggregators. Continue to provide website updates, technical consultation services and audio editing services for podcast episodes.
Senior Software Engineer, IBM (Contract, 2006 - 2007)
Senior Software Engineer on a team responsible for designing and developing IBM's Microsoft Office Integration project. Project integrates MS Office components, including MS Word and MS Outlook, with IBM instant messaging and web conferencing software. Responsible for user interface and middleware design and development using C++, .NET Visual Studio, COM and ATL.
Designed, developed and debugged ActiveX Office add-in components that exposed instant messaging and web conferencing functionality to end-users. Also, designed and developed middleware components that interfaced with IBM’s web server software via REST APIs.
Worked with server team to overcome URL encoding issues. Retrieved XML response information from the server using MSXML component. Appropriately handled HTTP return codes from the server. Designed client caching mechanism to control server access.
Created documentation, including detail design documents as well as user scenarios used for product demonstrations.
Senior Software Engineer, Soluris (Full Time, 9 years, 1997 - 2006)
Senior Software Engineer on an engineering team creating software for a Scanning Electron Microscope used in the semiconductor industry. This large-scale project consisted of over 500,000 lines of C++ code with additional Perl and VB components.
The system included 2 microscopes, 2 robots, 3 Windows computers and an Apache/Linux database server. Responsible for everything from project leader to bug fixes for complex multi-person, 6-month projects. Refined requirements, designed the user interface, managed schedules, coded features, wrote automated tests and supported systems.
Soluris Web Design and Development
Designed and developed a multi-featured CGI Web application used for data analysis. Application displayed images, graphs, charts, statistics and summary reports. Developed using Perl and HTML, incorporating open source Perl modules including a DBI module used to access an Oracle database running on an Apache/Linux server.
Created a search and display mechanism enabling user defined search and display of measurement data.
Created a software installation procedure for a Linux server. Written in Perl, it was capable of upgrading the web server, restarting Oracle, and upgrading the Apache/Linux configuration.
Designed and implemented, in both Perl for the Web and C++ for Windows, a feature used to read and render an SVG stream. This was used for vector graphics display and annotation over microscope images.
Soluris Windows Design and Development
Designed a rich client Windows user interface and implemented it using Visual C++ and the MFC. Responsible for UI features that included live imaging, image selection and annotation, microscope management, data analysis and reporting. Extensive GDI coding included Windows palette manipulation and translation of SVG streams to Win32 API calls.
Designed and implemented an ActiveX control used for wafer display and navigation. Features included drag and drop, context menus and zooming and panning of the wafer.
Designed and implemented a hardware system monitoring feature. The project included an XML configuration file, a background thread used to monitor the system, data storage into Oracle and a reporting and charting mechanism.
Wrote a fully automated nightly build in Perl and was responsible for individual software releases, including writing scripts to automate ClearCase tasks.
Soluris Technical Communications
Managed technical documentation efforts including supervision of the dedicated technical writer
Authored, edited and reviewed technical documentation including online help and printed manuals, using Adobe FrameMaker, Robohelp and Adobe Photoshop.
Created audio/video demonstrations of new features under development for customers in France and South Korea, using Camtasia and Adobe Audition.
Communicated with marketing and directly communicated with customers in order to develop requirements for documentation as well as new software features.
Integrated context sensitive help into the software product, coding the necessary C++ header files and Win32 API calls.
Software Engineer, GenRad (Full Time, 1995 - 1997)
Software Engineer as part of a development team responsible for rewriting GenRad's board test software product for Windows NT. Responsibilities included producing ActiveX components in C++ with and without the MFC, extensive C++ programming and GUI development using Visual Basic.
Author
Published author of several technical magazine articles including:
Implementing Audio Captcha for "Dr. Dobb’s" magazine. This article describes my method for implementing an audio CAPTCHA for a website. The article reviews CAPTCHA in general, discusses Section 508 compliance, illustrates a simple front end for the audio CAPTCHA, gives a detailed explanation of the audio CAPTCHA implementation and suggests customized audio alternatives for better site integration. In addition to the article text, the deliverables included complete code listings, screen shots and MP3 files.
Shelling the Pod for "Dr. Dobb’s" magazine. This article explains my process for dynamically creating web pages used to convey information about podcast episodes. The article includes an overview of podcasting and a detailed explanation of the PHP code used to create the web pages. In addition to the article text, the deliverables included complete code listings and screen shots.
Develop an Autobuild Process for the "Visual Basic Programmer's Journal". This article shows the reader how to automate a software build process using Visual Basic.
Also, several articles on music technology, published in "Electronic Musician", "Recording" and "The Instrumentalist" magazines. These articles include photographs as well as recorded sound samples.
Employment Background as Educator
Excellent communication skills developed in the education field. Able to communicate ideas clearly and succinctly. Employed as a teacher by public and private schools in MA. Continue to run music business. Record, perform, teach and write about music and music technology.