Software Projects and Assignments
Software Projects and Assignments |
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E. Ivar Husa |
I have worked on a wide range of software projects over the years. I have contributed to a body of work that has required I play different roles, from coder of small projects to customer/owner of large-scale systems developers. A favorite role I have taken has been to observe a process and recognize an opportunity to apply custom software productively, and then provide it. I have done this over and over.
What follows is an incomplete listing, but enough to give one a good idea of what I do. Most of what I have to share are screen shots of the software in use. What is generally missing from this collection is documentation I have written or contributed to. Documents such as requirement specifications or testing plans are often critical to the success of a software project, and I have written (or contributed to) these as well.
I have done most of my recent software development in Visual Basic. In earlier days it was Turbo Pascal, Basic, FORTRAN, and dBaseII. I am a quick study, and become adept with new software tools relatively easily. I am very familiar with the MS Office suite (Word, Access, Excel, Outlook) and am often called upon by coworkers to help them use these packages.
Note: Most links below are to screen shots of the applications.
I have only become involved with the Best Basis Inventory Management (BBIM) Tool since January 2001. It is a sophisticated SQL Server and MS Access Application created for the Tank Farm Contractor by PNNL. My unique contribution has been to recognize the need for a variety of data queries that were not provided in the tool, and create the queries myself.
I have had a variety of roles in conjunction with the Tank Waste Information Network System (TWINS). For a time, I was the number one beta tester, outside of the coders at Battelle. When new features got implemented, I was often the first to provide constructive criticism or to provide help to other users in the field who may be having trouble with something. I am a data custodian or backup for a variety of data types. I provide field support to TWINS users.
I was a part of the team who created the Surveillance Analysis Computer System (SACS) to store repetitive measurements taken in and around the Hanford waste tanks. The core data (original data sets) are temperatures and surface levels, and it has expanded. I spent several years helping pull this together, from the first requirements documents to acceptance testing. My role was primarily 'translator' between the coders (LMSI), and the managers and technicians who needed to use the data. It was a very good role for me, as it made good use of my communication skills. I used Oracle on UNIX workstations, cutting my teeth on Structured Query Language (SQL).
My definition of "Little Projects" means that I was the entire development team. This does not mean the software had little impact. For example, the LOOKUP software was a huge, Hanford-site-wide, success. Most of the other projects had few users, but some, such as the SCOPE-AT and Electrochemical Data Logging, paid very large dividends.
I originally created this on a UNIX workstation, in simplified form, using a combination of AWK, SED, GREP, UNIQ, and standard UNIX commands. I follow up with a Turbo Pascal application that swept the site and earned me a Monthly Performance Award, and a Total Quality Achievement award as well. Users are able to find names and work addresses of site employees given fragmentary and/or incomplete information, such as a first name and the building they are in. What returns is more than just a listing of phone book details, but the identity of their co-workers and complete management chain as well. The site "computer contractor", LMSI, has reduced this to a web-based query with reduced capabilities, but the spirit of LOOKUP lives on in "LOOKUP Lite", which is an application I wrote in 1996. (Visual Basic)
I developed a software tool that would flexibly sift through many hundreds of data files at a time, and return a data summary in an Excel spreadsheet. The calculations performed were quite technical, and helped isolate significant corrosion events in Hanford waste storage tanks. (Visual Basic)
I saw the need, and created a tool that helped a team investigating the probabilities of catastrophic events occurring in Hanford tank farms and predicting the consequences. Software created at Los Alamos would perform all the complex analyses, but the report output was virtually impossible to use. My software let analysts extract elements of interest from a large set of analytical reports, and put them in a spreadsheet, ready for comparison. This saved many hundreds of man-hours of labor, and enabled the team to meet their schedule goals. (Visual Basic)
At one time, our company required that each group post its safety statistics in a prominent way. This would require each group to search for their numbers out of a data report, published weekly and format the output for display. I wrote software that reduced this task to running a single program, and providing it a group's org code. It then spit out your 'numbers', formatted with large fonts for a wall display. This software enjoyed wide use until the posting requirement went away.(Turbo Pascal)
I was able on several occasions to provide incredibly quick feedback from a large audience by creating electronic questionnaires. Beyond being fast, my method was very cost effective. These were programs people would run on their PC's and their answers would be instantly available for analysis. On was done for the Voluntary Protection Program (second screen shot) and another for the Advisory Council of Administrative Professionals. (Turbo Pascal and later Visual Basic)
This was a fairly ambitious project, for not only did it provide a useful catalog of video tapes from a variety of sources, it would print labels for the tape and its case. The program created labels for both VHS and 3/4" format. This seemingly small bit of automation facilitated the proper storage, searching, and duplication of tapes in an extensive library (multiple hundreds of tapes). It made the video tape library a very professional operation, with greatly reduced probabilities of losing or misidentifying a tape (saving rework). (Visual Basic)
Recently, my group has been called upon to store large sets of files for retrieval by systems such as TWINS. This has required us to apply a consistent file naming convention. I have written several applications where the basic elements, such as farm, tank, and type of file, (and more fields) are selected from pull down lists
In the early days of networking on the Hanford site, we used passwords to access network shares. This has been since replaced with User Level Security, but for a time, keeping track of passwords was a chore. I created and distributed NETCON to give people a way of managing their network connections by storing their share names, passwords and more importantly, a description of their use of that share. Sometimes we would forget. (Visual Basic)
On a relatively routine basis, I get requests to parse data from mainframe systems into more usable form, typically a spreadsheet. Usually, the input for my program will be a seemingly endless list which can be reduced to a convenient table with meaningful rows and columns. (Visual Basic)
I created and distributed a program that, when inserted in one's PC's Startup routine, would display a brief safety message. These were either a selection from the site's Master Safety Rules or (less frequently) a humorous safety slogan from Burma Shave. If you are under about 50 years of age, you may have to ask me about this, or look it up on the web. (Visual Basic)
Contents: Main Resume | Software Projects and Assignments| Education | Employment History | Honors | Community Service
Ivar can be reached via ivar@owt.com or
8635 W. Canyon Ave.,
Kennewick, WA 99336
509 735-2254
Updated: February 5, 2003
