I was recently asked how much I think I am worth in monetary value to a company and this got me to thinking that in this global economy in which India and China are churning out IT developers at factory rates all willing to put bids in for huge pieces of work on vworker.com for $200 and then spend their whole time on sites like this asking for help I wonder what my readers think someone with a CV like my own would be worth in today's IT environment. My online CV can be found here but here is a cut down version of it.

Overall Skillset

• Over 15 years of SQL development work. From relational to real-time VLDB's I have designed, developed and maintained systems from MySQL to MS SQL 2008 (and soon SQL 2012)
• Experience in a wide variety of languages including (in alphabetical order) ASP (classic), ASP.NET, C#, CSS, HTML, Java, JavaScript (server and client side), .NET, PHP, XHTML, XML and VXML.
• Developed a large number of systems   (200+)  that are still running that use 3 versions of a system I personally developed (back and front end). These systems offer the sometimes unobtainable mix of a high turnaround to increase sales through very short development times, very customisable, good performance and an ease of maintenance that means most of the bugs and setup errors are fixed at the press of a button. These systems currently compete with the market leader in our field at a fraction of the cost.
• I have a solid grounding in both object orientated and procedural development methodologies.
• Caching, minification, compression and other optimisation techniques both database and front-end side.
• JavaScript widget development including creating a number of custom JS widgets as well as creating JavaScript reliant sites that are progressively enhanced.
• Automated tasks to report, analyse and fix potential issues all without a finger being lifted due to data driven database systems.
• Good coding practises that can improve old systems written in legacy languages like ASP Classic including how to limit 3rd party COM object and other object re-use, reduction of logging, regular expressions that don't create catastrophic backtracking and other well known but sadly untaught tricks of the trade such as how to debug problems.
• A search on Google for "Stricty-Software" will show you the wide variety of tools, sites and skills I have available and these include
  1. Developing and now selling my own Windows Applications including the Twitter HashTag Hunter Application that allows new site owners to find the @accounts and #hashtags they should be following and using by scanning Twitter for certain keywords without getting you blocked.
  2. Developing 5 WordPress plugins that have been well received by the SEO community as well as other WordPress users. These include plugins to Automatically add tags to posts imported into site (AutoBlogging) without using 3rd party plugins. Another favourite is the Strictly-TweetBot that allows users to post multiple Tweets to multiple Twitter accounts whenever posts are published. The options for each Tweet include the ability to add tracking codes, content analysis to block or allow the post and the use of tags or categories as #hashtags in the Tweet. I have even fixed problems in other well known WordPress plugins that were key to integrating with WordPress.
  3. Still on the subject of WordPress I have written a 3 part "Survival Guide" for Microsoft programmers new to Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP get their heads round the many problems WordPress and a LAMP system can throw at you that covers basic SSH terminal commands, Performance tools, Plugins to install and to avoid and security options to prevent your site from being hacked.
  4. Being able to understand, de-construct and find problems in well known and well used frameworks such as jQuery and Prototype. I have also created my own lightweight JavaScript framework Getme.js which offers selectors, chaining, Sizzle compatibility and a few important functions but leaves the majority of the coding up to the developer. This prevents the sometimes annoying choice of having to go "all X framework" or "no framework".
  5. Developing and releasing a large number of free scripts, projects and functions for readers of my www.strictly-software.com site. From HTML Encoders (that encode properly), to SQL performance tuning and SQL injection clean up scripts my site is a key source of information for techies around the world.
• I am also a developer of a wide range of free online tools which can be found at tools.strictly-software.com including de-packers and reformaters, encoders, compressors, scanners and one of the first online Twitter Translators.
• I am an expert in Regular Expressions and SQL Injection detection. I also was one of the first people to discover the SQL Denial of Service attack that is possible on certain sites that allow users to enter complex search patterns. I also regularly list common hack vectors and de-encrypt SQL injection attacks so that people know what they are doing.
• Having to defend critical systems from constant hackbots, scanners, spammers and content scrapers I have over the years become an expert in ways to reduce "bad" traffic through various means including .htaccess rules, trick robot.txt files, free advertising through blocking image hotlinking and using real time data analysis to determine spoofers from humans and BOTS.
• On the other side of this coin I have also created many SEO tools (both white and blackhat) that include apps for proxy hunting and checking performance, content scraping without overloading servers or being blocked as well developing directive based languages for scraping with ease.
• I have developed a number of BOTS, Web and Windows Services, as well as writing regular expressions to parse HTML from external sites, creating my own two step CAPTCHA's to beat BOTS and many other techniques.
• As well as being a keen sportsman into martial arts, badminton and football I am also the creator of the term "Techies Law" and "Job Rapist".

I would suggest taking the time to read my full online CV or a cut down version on LinkedIN before taking a minute out of your day tell me what you think someone with this wide ranging skill set should be paid for an annual salary in the UK.

Remember £1 is about $1.60 or €1.22. If you have another answer please write a comment and remember you can only vote once as the poll is blocked by IP and cookie so you can only vote once! Thank you

Web Developer Browser Survery

Browser Survey for Web Developers

I have created a small survey aimed at web developers to gauge their opinions on the various browsers they use for developing and surfing the net. There are many great browsers out on the market and the browser that is best for development may not necessarily the one that is used for web surfing. For example I tend to do all my development in Firefox due to all the useful add-ons that are available for it such as Firebug, Web Developer toolbar and the Hackbar. However because of the number of add-ons its very slow to start and can be slow on loading certain pages. Therefore for pure web surfing I tend to use Chrome because its simple and quick.

Please spend a few minutes to take part in this survey and let me know what you think.

Take part in survey now