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my profileIn my professional life I am the owner and Managing Director of Trendi Solutions Pty Ltd, which specialises in information systems strategies, business applications development and implementation, and since 1997 have run Solutions for Tomorrow, an IT consulting business providing technology-based solutions and expertise primarily for the SME sector. Previously I was responsible for the enterprise management system and respective business processes for Synovate, a global research company. Prior to that, I worked at Curtin University of Technology for seven years after finishing my study, and held a variety of management positions ranging from electronic information to community life. In a voluntary capacity, I am the President of edventures wa, formerly Karawara Community Project (KCP) that works with hundreds of at-risk young people each day. And am also the President and co-founder of the Alchemist Foundation, based on the book by Paulo Coelho, promoting a life philosophy for young people to engage with their respective communities for mutual benefit. my designsBefore you start reading my thoughts and suggestions on design let me first be clear that I am not a professional designer. I am merely a person interested in ensuring things look ok, and more importantly that they are usable and are relatively intuitive to the average relevant user. My passion for design started way back as a child building anything I could think of out of Lego™. Truth be known, I am still obsessed and regularly use my nieces and nephew as an excuse to bring it out to play, which works great until they steal all the 'good' bricks. The next step for me was designing applications, and in particular I had a fixation with user interfaces, where I would often be found spending the night reworking a set of ASCII characters to make a nice looking (for back then) user interface. When the World Wide Web became accessible via a dial-up modem, I started building websites, luckily becoming a FRAMEs supporter early on which relieved some of the immense frustration in having to utilise dozens of nested TABLEs to create a simple HTML interface. I have also been using either or a combination of Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop for the past 15 years and spent many a night deep etching a person out of a photo, or shifting design components quite randomly around a window until it looked alright. It is all these ad hoc experiences that have shaped my interest and skills (used loosely) in design. I believe in designing brands and websites that are clean and crisp with plenty of whitespace. Although there are probably times when a really busy interface works, I personally just find them far too cluttered and confusing. [ check out my brand and logo designs ] [ check out my latest website designs ] a selection of my previous brand and logo designs 
my design linksHere are some online resources I utilise to help with design:
my developmentI have been developing software for over 15 years, starting out using Assembler code and GW Basic to create graphical functions and simple games, then building full suite applications in Pascal and C++, processing enormous volumes of text data with Perl, designing and administering enterprise Oracle and MySQL databases, and now 'in-love' with the client-side power of JavaScript and libraries like jQuery. Like many of my fellow developers these days, my preferences are for Open Source whenever possible for the flexibility, security, stability and often power it can provide over the commercial alternatives but if a certain technology fits the end goal then I am far less biased (eg if it is critical transaction based operation then I'd still recommend Oracle even though MySQL is probably my favorite technology of all time). However it is highly unlikely you will ever see me promoting MS products at any stage in the near future as they only seem to be getting even less reliable in my opinion. Those that know me, know that I am a perfectionist developer - if the code looks messy or the screen outputs are a pixel out then I won't be satisfied until it is rectified. This AR behaviour, although often frustrating for my employees, has continually proven to save considerable time in the long run, so it is unlikely to change. My advice for any upcoming developer these days is to buck the trend and don't just specialise in a certain development area or stay in just the development arena even. If you can understand the basic workings and data flows of the physical servers, the load balancer, the OS, the database, the application layer, the web layer, the network and the client/browser then you are already far beyond most IT people and this knowledge can be invaluable in creating applications that are very fast and reliable. If you can go a step further and understand business models and processes, business drivers, intuitive interface design touching on psychology and anything else that can help you create amazing web apps then send me an email... I might have to find a job for you! [ check out my list of links to tools I use on a regular basis ] manageme
manageme is a customised management system I designed and developed for Synovate, a global research firm, to manage time, tasks, clients, projects, employees, costs, invoicing and revenue. Originally built for the Australian business it has since been rolled out globally and is being used in all of its offices in more than 50 countries. Unlike other management systems, manageme is primarily about productivity management and encourages delegated accountability by informing individuals of their own profitability and performance. Enterprise consolidation and visualisation of key metrics such as sales, revenue and profitability provide senior managers with comprehensive knowledge of not only the current financial performance but also the trends over time. trendi plannerTrendi Planner is an online planning system for businesses of any size. After a simple configuration process the system is ready to distribute a customised interface to collect planning data from relevant employees across the business. Whether a start-up or a long established business, Trendi Planner, walks users through the creation of a comprehensive plan that fits their business size, type and situation. Users can select a number of common planning tasks such as preparing a budget, undertaking an industry analysis, defining a vision, strategies and objectives and even a trackable action list. trendi managerTrendi Manager is a full blown management information system for managing employees, clients, projects, time and tasks. Designed for, although not restricted to, the SME sector, this is the ideal application for any business that wants improved visibility over relevant key indicators to help make better business decisions. The real power of Trendi Manager is how it can integrate seamlessly with existing information sources and be configured in only a few simple steps. Just basic use of this intuitive system can lead to considerably improved productivity and profitability management across a business. The system encourages delegated accountability by keeping individuals informed of their own profitability and performance. Instant consolidation and visualisation of key metrics such as sales, revenue and profitability provides managers with comprehensive knowledge of not only the current financial performance but also the trends over time. trendi analyserTrendi Analyser is a tool to consolidate (often disparate) sources of business performance data and generate live online visualisations and breakdowns to provide users with a real-time one-stop-shop to analyse the performance of a business. The power of Trendi Analyser is in the considerable speed it processes vast quanitities of data and drills down to present key metrics and trends to inform the decision making process. Completely web-based, this is a visualisation tool like no other as it can quickly and easily cut the data any way that is needed. my development linksHere are some of the companies, technologies and tools my development team and I utilise (almost all of them are Open Source and free to download):
my photographyI start by declaring that I am merely an amateur photographer and therefore cannot be held responsible for any information or suggestions I provide being of any real value to you at all. It is one of my many hobbies, although it has recently outranked DIY as my number one. Photography for me is all about capturing something about a moment, a place, or a situation that reminds me of what is was like to be there at that time and if possible also shows something that the average person hasn't seen or noticed before. I think you know you like photography when you start looking and even virtually framing 'a shot' even though your camera is tucked away in the cupboard at home several kilometres away. My advice for anyone considering getting into photography is don't just go out and buy the most expensive camera you can find, it is unlikely it will make you any better at photography. I have seen plenty of photos taken with a simple point-and-shoot that are far better than anything I have ever taken and have blown me away. My advice is to learn and try out some of the basics to improve your photography on whatever camera you have now and once you learn the art of finding and framing better shots, then decide whether an upgrade of your camera equipment will make the photo taken considerably better. Check out my galleries by clicking on the links below: [ Greek Islands 2011 ] [ Paris 2011 ] [ Giverny, France 2011 ] [ Wildlife ] [ The Kimberley, Australia ] [ Perth, Australia ] [ France and Italy 2009 ] [ Asia ] [ Miscellaneous ] I have also listed the [ photography software and resources ] I use or recommend my photography linksHere are links to some of the software I personally use:
Some photography information resources I recommend are:
I get my camera equipment almost exclusively from Camera Electronic Service on 230 Stirling St, Perth. my contact detailsFeel free to email me, although I can't guarantee a quick response: shane@shanefisher.com Or alternatively you can try and contact me through social media using the links below. | ||||
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