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Jason McIntosh
24 Lexington Ave. #1
Somerville, MA 02143
617-792-3829
jmac@jmac.org
Summary
Hello! I am an independent writer, software consultant, and game critic residing near Boston.
I have been designing, implementing, and maintaining software since 1998 for a variety of fields, including business, education, science, and games. My particular expertise involves web-based applications. I sell my work through Appleseed Software Consulting, a company that I founded in early 2008.
I have a passion for the study of games, and their increasingly central role in modern society. Through my blog and video series, The Gameshelf, I strive to improve the critical discourse regarding games of all sorts, both analog and digital.
Experience
- October 2006 - Present
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Independent software consultant, specializing in database-backed web application development. My primary tools include server-side Perl and client-side JavaScript / AJAX , but ultimately I use whatever tools are most appropriate to the task at hand, learning new languages and technologies when appropriate.
Currently, my favorite working environment is the Catalyst web application framework. Prior to that, I used a lot of Mason.
In February 2008, I incorporated Appleseed Software Consulting, and now operate as its head consultant. Please feel free to contact me in this context for work inquiries, but do note that my rates reflect my expertise and long experience in the field of web programming. (This is to say: I am very good, and I am rather expensive.)
- September 2005 - Present
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President and founder of Volity Games, a startup focusing on the study, critique, and improvement of online multiplayer games.
Projects developed and launched in this role include Volity, an open platform for multiplayer casual games, and Planbeast, a service that helps fans of various online games connect with one another and schedule times to play. I also oversaw the launch of The Volity Network, an limited implementation of Volity.
As president, my principal roles involve managing our projects' technological development, as well as overseeing the operation of the company. My technical tasks include maintaining the software and the machines that run all of our public services. I am also responsible for all of our websites' design, text, and general operation.
Volity Games's projects make use of a great deal of open technologies supplementary to the modern web. Volity makes use of Jabber (XMPP), SVG, and ECMAScript. Planbeast makes use of REST-based APIs.
- July 2002 - September 2005
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Senior Bioinformatics Programmer for the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. I played a key role in the development of ChemBank, a web-based application that allowed chemists and biologists to store, review, and analyze the results of high-throughput screening experiments.
During this period, I co-authored a second book for O'Reilly, Mac OS X in a Nutshell.
- October 2001 - July 2002
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Self-employed as a freelance writer and computer consultant. During this period, I co-authored a book (see Publications), and write articles on Mac OS X for the O'Reilly Network online magazine.
When not writing, I hired myself out as a by-the-hour programmer, crafting dynamic websites using Mason.
- November 2000 - October 2001
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Software tools specialist for O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. (now O'Reilly Media) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I maintained and created software that helped the company publish its books, both in print and in its more recent strides to publish online, with XML as the vehicle of choice in all cases. My work environment was primarily Perl on Unix.
My largest project was a bundle of Perl modules and programs that converted DocBook XML documents to Adobe FrameMaker files and back again. In fact, just about all my projects involved folding, spindling and mutilating DocBook documents in one way or another - much of my other interesting work involved working on the software that prepares O'Reilly book files for Safari, a service that makes book content available on the Web.
- December 1998 - October 2000
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Programmer for The Maine InternetWorks, Inc. (MINT), an Internet and network service provider in central Maine (no longer incorporated - it was being slowly digested by Adelphia when I left, and has since been excreted). I helped develop and maintain a variety of software, largely web-based applications, for use both in house and by MINT's customers. Tools used for all projects were almost exclusively the Perl programming language and the SQL database standard as implemented by MySQL.
I was responsible for the development of MINT's first attempts at online commerce, as well as a web-based application server using the Apache web server and its mod_perl module.
While in this position, I developed familiarity and then advocacy for open-source software; MINT used Linux as its primary operating system for its servers and internal workstations, and all its mission-critical applications were open source as well.
- October 1997 - November 1998
Educational Technician and Assistant to the Director of Technology for the town of Hermon, Maine's school and Information Services departments. Assisted in the management of the town's freenet ISP, and coordinated the technology-related inventory and curriculum for its three schools and adult education programs.
I developed and maintained integrated, Web-based information management solutions with UserLand Frontier and FileMaker Pro, used by both the school department and local municipal entities and businesses.
I also performed tech support for the schools when the need arose.
- July 1996 - September 1997
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Sales and purchasing manager at Technology Source (also variously known as Computer World, Maine Advanced Computer Systems, and Honest ABE's Computers), a computer sales and service shop in Bangor, Maine. Required an expertise of personal computer, network and Internet use, specializing in Macs and compatibles and their related operating systems and applications, in order to act as a consultant as well as a salesperson for the shop's customer base of (at the time of my resignation) 3,000 home and business users.
- May 1995 - February 1996
City Editor for the University of Maine's semi-weekly, student-run newspaper, The Maine Campus. Was responsible for each issue's local news content, and recruiting, supervising and giving assignments to the paper's staff writers.
- February 1995 - July 1996
News Clerk at the Bangor Daily News. Assisted editors and writers on production evenings by writing cutlines, researching names, sizing photographs, and running courier duties and other odd tasks.
- March 1994 - May 1995
News Editor for the The Maine Campus. Used Macs to design the layout of each issue's front page and news sections, write headlines and cutlines, and select and edit stories from wire services to use in each issue. Also trained, over time, five other Campus editors on layout for their respective sections.
- September 1991 - January 1994
Consulting Assistant with UMaine's "MacAct" program, which leased Macintosh computers to on-campus students. Installed Macs in dormitory rooms each September and spent the rest of the academic year as a full-time system and network use instructor and consultant for the program's users.
Publications
Books
- Mac OS X in a Nutshell, co-authored with Chuck Toporek and Chris Stone, originally published in 2003 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., with more recent editions published in 2004 and 2005. A deep reference to Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system.
- Perl & XML, co-authored with Erik T. Ray, published in 2002 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. A book about processing XML with the Perl programming language.
Articles
- I used to write articles and weblog entries about various technology topics for the O'Reilly Network, an online magazine aimed at developers. See my author page there for an index.
- Of particular note is a column on ComicsML, published on The O'Reilly Network in 2001. It proposes and describes an XML-based markup language for online comics, inspired by the writings of Scott McCloud. It got Slashdotted.
Miscellany
- I have written much of the Volity project's documentation.
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My website, http://www.jmac.org, contains all sorts of strange things that I have programmed, written, or otherwise created over the last few years. It includes essays, journals, games, experiments, and other collected detritus of my creative life.
Technology Skills
Most of my information technology experience involves using the magic LAMP platform - Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl - to create dynamic, database-driven websites. I am also experienced with using XML to organize and transform documents and data, with particular skill in using Perl and XML together.
I am an expert with the Perl programming language, which I have used nearly every day since 1998. Through Perl, I regularly process plain text (such as logs and config files), HTML/XHTML/CSS web pages, SQL databases, images, web services through SOAP or XML-RPC, and just about anything else I need to do with information crunching.
My recent entrepreneurial experiences with Volity Games have provided me with deep knowledge of the XMPP messaging protocol, the SVG vector graphics standard, and manipulation of the XML DOM via ECMAScript (a.k.a JavaScript). The Volity Network is largely based on Perl libraries and programs I wrote that must handle all of these technologies, and which are publically available on the CPAN. Volity has further required me to keep my Java programming skills reasonably sharp to assist with development of Gamut, Volity's client application.
My years of experience have also given me flexibility with picking up entirely new programming languages, learning new ones when the task at hand requires it. For example, I learned C# while studying software development targeting the Xbox game console, and Inform 7 while working with modern interactive fiction.
In short: I've been doing this for a long time, and I've gotten good at deciding when it's time to learn a new technology, at which point I do so quickly and competently.
As far as coding style goes, I consider myself a stickler for maintainability, no matter what language I work in. I always err on the side of legibility and clarity, maximzing the chance that another developer (including myself-in-the-future) will be able to work with my code without pain. I write documentation and permanent regression tests as I go, and insist using version control (such as Subversion or Git) wherever possible, whether I am working alone or as part of a team.
Education
- May 1996
- Graduated from the University of Maine with bachelor's degrees in journalism and English.
Awards and Scholarships
Received a four-year presidential scholarship from the University of Maine.
Received a $1,000 scholarship from the Maine Press Association.
References
References available upon request.