Daniel J. Dick

WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, TikiWiki

I am amazed at the contribution many dedicated developers have made to provide some of the best CMS and Blogging packages available.

I loved watching them mature from clunky, table based systems to secure, flexible, high performance, modular, commercial quality systems

Pre-Oracle Experience

Prior to working at Oracle, I worked 4 years for Ingres where I was trained in SQL development, Administration, and Performance.  During my stay, I performed countless installations into approximately 80 systems based on about 40 variants of Unix and VMS.  I provided maintenance and troubleshooting on installations damaged while reproducing bugs reported to the support department.  I also served as final sign off and approval for Release Management and trained support staff in installation and QA of installation packagesLater, while supporting Unix systems with Oracle installations, I took training in Oracle Development, Data Modeling, and Database Administration, and I began studies in Computer Science at Stanford University at the graduate level in two areas — Advanced Systems and Databases where I studied Database Theory, Distributed Databases, and Transaction Processing in addition to Software Engineering and Operating Systems.

Oracle Experience

Linux Experience before Linux was Available

When Linus Torvalds came out with Linux in 1991, I had nearly a decade of Unix administration and C development experience.During that time, I built the technical environment for California State University, Fresno’s Computer Science Department installing and managing Unix systems based on Berkeley 4.2 and 4.3 BSD and AT&T Unix including a room full of Convergent Technology systems.Afterward, as an independent consultant, I installed and configured Unix systems for the Agricultural Department, a phone company, and an Air Conditioning company before going to work for NASA where I managed networks of VMS and Unix based systems and developed the project plan for migrating the Information Sciences Division from VMS to Unix.Following that, at Ingres, I supported Ingres installations on approximately 40 variants of Unix and VMS for Ingres, provided Sun desktop support for Direct User Support, and support of Unix systems for the Education Department.  I also trained staff in quality assurance for the Ingres installation packages and served as the final sign off approving distribution of new product to customers.

Castle

I walked into the training room at work, got my binder and name tag and sat down.  The seminar was called,  “Making Your Dreams Come True” by Marsha Weider.

What did I get myself into?  Cinderella dreams?  No.  Something vital.  Without it, nobody succeeds.  Without it, life is a meaningless existence.  But, with it, the sky is the limit.