Matthew S. Harris

Duties:

• Network administration (2 Windows NT domain servers; e-mail server and print server).
• Workstation maintenance (50 Windows 98/NT workstations)
• User-support to 35-45 employees for a variety of applications and technical areas: MS Office, Photoshop, FTP software, web publishing, video-conferencing, image scanning, high-end printing.
• Install and manage license-manager software for products such as AutoCAD.

Notable achievements:

• Setup a secure backup system enabling recovery of server state for any day in the past 90 days.
• Improve Anti-Virus security in mail systems and workstations.
• Moved company's broadband service from DSL to fractional T1.
• Install and configure EFI Fiery Print Management (a high-end network print management system). During staff training, EFI trainer stated that this installation was the only one she had seen with no connectivity problems and all workstations configured with remote access to EFI management features.

Specifically, Matthew supported these types of products:

• databases
• word-processors
• spreadsheets
• disk drives
• modems
• video cards
• printers

Matthew gained his first published technical writing when tapped to provide product feature reviews to a company newsletter distributed to company clients.

Charon Information Systems was created to develop a single product - the Charon Subscriber System. The CSS was a state-of-the-art system targeted to the sector of the construction industry bidding on public works projects.

The Charon Subscriber System consisted of a central database of jobs currently open for bidding, and a client application used to interact with the Charon database. After a user enrolled in the Charon System, the central database system would call each subscriber every night and download the most recent jobs opened for bid according to the user's selection profile. Matthew was one of four developers on the project, and was solely responsible for programming the user-client system.

Matthew's duties and responsibilities included:

• One of four-person Design & Development (project management) team.
• Design to specification, code, and debug the Charon Remote Subscriber System Program (the user client).
• Work with other programmers to integrate several programs into single commercial package.
• Created a user-interface sufficiently intuitive that no operator manual was necessary.
• Implement program features such as:
  • On line help
  • File maintenance
  • electronic mail
  • telephone auto dial facilities
• Install PC data communications hardware and software at customer sites.
• Train customer personnel to use software and communications equipment.

The Charon Subscriber System was in development for one year and in commercial distribution for a little over 3 years, during which time Matthew functioned on a consulting basis for bug-fixes, user installations, trouble-calls.

Sadly, the Charon System was a little ahead of its time, having been introduced at a time when being "online" in any form was rare, and many businesses were too conservative to adopt the system despite its proven ability to reduce the costs of finding new business. The Charon System was so cutting-edge that most firms that did sign up had yet to buy their first computer! After valiant marketing attempts, Charon Information Systems closed its doors in 1989 and its founder, Mr. Roger Jennings, moved on to other ventures.

At a time when PC's were not yet common, Matthew performed these functions:

• configure printers to work with word-processing software
• taught permanent staff how to:
  • merge documents
  • perform mail-merge operations
  • create and manage mailing lists

Innovative Interfaces, Inc. produced a set of accounting and database products to meet the highly specialized needs of libraries, especially university and research libraries. Such libraries must account for every issue of a periodical subscription and prove that funds from a particular endowment were spent only on texts allowed by the endowment, in an environment where the time between ordering a book and it's delivery can in some cases exceed 2 years.

Matthew's responsibilities at Innovative Interfaces were:

• Perform quality assurance testing on systems being shipped to customer sites.
• Test and repair computing equipment in house and at user sites nationwide.
• Install company's product (hardware and software).
• Provide training and technical support to company's clients nationwide.
• Perform maintenance of Pascal language source code.

Matthew's duties often required him to travel to client sites throughout the United States.

At the time Matthew worked there, Integrated Automation was an applied Research & Development company, developing products to automate various processes for a variety of clients. IA built automated/robotic warehouse systems, banking systems, process control and inspection systems utilizing state-of-the-art software and hardware technologies. Integrated Automation, for example, produced one of the first ATM machines for Wells Fargo Bank, and built systems for the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART).

Matthew's duties at Integrated Automation included:

• Assist engineering staff.
• Work from blueprint, schematic, hand sketch, or oral description to create prototype electronic and mechanical assemblies.
• Make limited production runs; modify and assemble NEMA type enclosures, wire harnesses, printed and wire wrap circuit boards.
• Use milling machine and lathe to create or modify instruments, mountings, machine parts.
• Organize and maintain machine shop area and tools.
• Seek economical sources; purchase tools, materials.
• Make laboratory measurements, keep log books.