(See Dennis Forbes' blog, or see the blog "best of" listing)
I'm a Greater Toronto Area located entrepreneurial software developer/architect and team/group manager, and published technology writer, with experience and demonstrated skills in a wide range of software products - From complex web applications (I was designing systems using AJAX-type functionality half a decade ago) to advanced monitoring and control real-time systems to advanced, enterprise-wide database architectures.
I'm a 33 years old proud family man, with two wonderful children: Elizabeth, 3, and Weston, 1, and my beautiful wife Teresa.
I am an expert in a wide range of languages and tools (C#, C++, Delphi/Object Pascal, T-SQL and SQL in general, ASP.NET, the .NET Framework, the Windows and Microsoft software stack, etc). I got the itch for software development back on the Atari 400, typed in countless magazine programs on my Commodore 64, and eventually graduated into C and then C++ on my Atari ST, evolving my skills from there. Today most of my development is completed in .NET, but I happily and skillfully use other languages and tools where the need arises (for example my past week -- relative to when I'm writing this -- has included PHP, Perl, and C++. I will never confine myself into a single technology niche).
My professional career, and the needs of my family, has taken me to a variety of organizations as a consultant, contractor, full-time employee, and now as a business owner selling and delivering my organization's services, or orchestrating the service delivery of others.
My "traditional" employment history includes small engineering shops doing amazingly diverse work (developing distributed power generation monitoring and control systems, low-level communications drivers, among many other fascinating tasks. Primarily using C/C++, Borland Delphi, SQL Server and MS Access, and then web services/XML&XML RPC) mega-corporations like Bell Canada (Systems and Database Consultant - SQL Server, ASP, .NET - Network Transport) and RBC Financial Group (Team Leader of a software development team at RBC Insurance-Life, largely working with, and guiding development for, massive SQL Server databases and various n-tier COM/.NET/C++/Delphi applications).
Each was a rich experience that made me a better software developer, manager, and business person.
My business, yafla (bespoke Software Development, customizations, consulting and outsourcing), operates in the Greater Toronto Area, and I originate just down the highway, in St. Thomas, Ontario.
My business is largely catered by word-of-mouth clients, and I've made very little effort to actively advertise it at this point, until the proper infrastructure is in place to properly service a greatly expanded customer roster. I additionally develop "web properties" (an exciting venture, 360notes.com, will be publicly available shortly), and technology products for inclusion in other organization's software products.
I've read countless books and attended numerous training sessions on various development methodologies and project management techniques, and I am looking forward to posting reviews of some that I think are great, and some that are not so great. I present my opinion as nothing more than one person's take on things, and I welcome disagreement or criticism for any view or supposition that I present.
While I've been posting online papers for years, in Septemer of 2005 I started doing so in a "blog" format for a variety of professional reasons. You can find my blog at http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/.