I’m a Software Engineer in Mid Wales where I live with my wife and our 2 cats. My interests lie in PHP development, Cycling, Cooking, Gardening and many other, often geeky, projects/interests.
I am a keen user of the PHP language, which I’ve been using almost exclusively for about 10 years now. I learnt programming through Java but have not really re-visited the language since its 1.2 days.
Along with the core language, I use many technologies to get my day to day work done.
- XML
- XSLT
- SOAP
- REST
- JSON
And then there are the XML standards which I work with daily:
- METS – Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard
- MARC-XML – MAchine-Readable Cataloguing
- ALTO – Analyzed Layout and Text Object
- Dublin Core
- MODS – Metadata Object Description Schema
- Premis – Preservation Metadata
- and many more relating to the world of library automation and digitisation mainly..
I try to keep on top of new technologies and attend 1 or 2 conferences per year. Recently I’ve visited the International PHP Conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, and PHPUK in London.
I work for a RedHat shop and I’ve been a Linux user since 1996 when I first sat down with a set of slackware floppies and a 386 SX and tried to get a system up and running. Suffice to say it was a challenge. Now I’m a qualified (albeit out of date) RHCE but I tend to keep Linux on the server, preferring the world of Mac OS on the desktop. I converted OS X in 2002 with a huge 17″ PowerBook, which I’ve downsized over the years to 12″ powerbook and now a MacBook Pro. I also run Mac Pros at home and work for my desktop systems.
Perhaps the Apple usage hints at artistic tendencies. I’m not really artistic, but I do enjoy occasional photography. I’m currently using a Canon 30D with a 50mm prime and nothing else, having sold most of my lenses and kit to fund my other hobby which is cycling. Mountain Biking, Cross Country cyclocross or road time-trialing, I do it all. I’m not very fast but I’m getting faster, and that’s good enough to keep my interest up. It helps, living in Mid Wales to have access to fantastic mountain roads and trails.
Stephanie Williams
September 1st, 2010
Hello! I just found your post entitled “ALTO Viewer,” while searching for a way to create ALTO files from ABBYY output. In it, you mention a conversion script you’d like to release as open source–have you had any luck there? I’m going crazy trying to find non-proprietary ALTO tools/creation methods. If you ran into trouble trying to open-source your scripts–was the initial work difficult to do? I’m a programmer in the US working to digitize newspapers according to national standards, but outsourcing our metadata (mets/ALTO) creation isn’t an option. Thanks so much for your time; any advice you have would be very much appreciated!