All of
Don’s current tutoring subjects are listed at the left. You
can read more about
Don’s qualifications in specific subjects below.
Computer Programming
I began my professional career in programming after taking several computer science courses in college as a Math and Engineering student. FORTRAN, PL/I, Assembler for 8080/8085 and RSX-11-M-PLUS (DEC PDP-11), RPG, COBOL, VB, and VBA are what I carry in my tool case as a programmer. My programming career spanned the first 18 years of my career.
As part of a Mini and Micro Computer Design course that I took as an Electrical Engineering student, we learned data structures and real-time (interrupt) programming using a motherboard connected to a CRT, downloading assembly code from the department’s PDP-11 (predecessor to the VAX-11) to the motherboard, and then executing the programs on the motherboard. We also created our own software editors within this same setup.
I spent much of my programming career on the IBM S/38, AS/400, and iSeries platform, programming in variants of RPG and COBOL. These languages were well suited for the business environment that I was working in. With the database built-in to the operating systems on the IBM Midrange platform, I never wrote any search or sort routines my entire career. I also believed strongly in well structured and well documented/commented source code for all of my work.
Microsoft Access
I have been using MS Access since the very first version was released almost twenty years ago. The first real use I found for it was my wedding. I created database files to capture invitees' information, printed the necessary mailing labels for the invitations, assigned table numbers to those that RSVPed that they were coming, printed labels for the guest's table numbers, and even captured gift information.
I can tutor on all of the basic features - database tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros. Plus, I can also tutor VBA and SQL for macros/queries. Other areas that I have experience in that I can teach are: importing data, connecting to external data sources, design normalized databases, report formatting, and data validations. I can tutor on any of the latest versions of MS Access - 2003, 2007, and 2010.
Microsoft Excel
My greatest expertise with MS Office products is with Microsoft Excel. I spent three years becoming proficient with pivot tables and charts on Office 2003, and have now transferred my expertise to Office 2010. Much of my time as a project manager is spent monitoring projects and creating "control" charts, customized for the audience I'm presenting to, and then transferring the charts into PowerPoint slides for presentation to those audiences.
I have also worked with complex formulas, cubes, and many types of formatting, including the new Sparklines and Slicer features in Excel 2010.
Microsoft Outlook
I have been using Microsoft Outlook as my personal email client for over 10 years. I heavily customize my Inbox folders and create rules to automatically file emails that are received on a regular basis. I know how to configure the backup and archiving processes, configure email clients for different users, and import/export contacts, calendars, tasks and email from other email clients when converting to Outlook.
Other common features that I use on almost a daily basis are the Calendar for setting up Meetings, entering new Contact information, and new Tasks for common "to do" work or chores I need to schedule in my personal life. All of these features can be utilized in professional or personal settings, as more and more companies have converted over to using MS Outlook (coupled with Exchange Server) as their preferred email client over the last 10 years.
Microsoft Project
I am a certified project manager (PMP and CSM) with over twenty years experience in information technology software development, consulting and operations, over three years in engineering Reliability/Quality Assurance, and one year in Research and Development planning and scheduling. I first started using MS Project in 1996 on the '95 version, received training on the '98 and 2003 versions, and currently use MS Project Professional 2010.
Visual Basic
My first programming language was FORTRAN back in 1975. I was able to pick up and program in BASIC, beginning in 1985, as it was very similar to FORTRAN. My first professional programming work was on the Olivetti M20 system, working part-time customizing packaged software.
I learned Visual Basic 5.0 in 1996, while working at JPMorgan Chase in New York City. I participated in developing a Broker’s Loans Collateral client/server application with VB as the client, as my first VB project. Later, in 2003 I took classes in ASP.NET using VB as the scripting language, and have been using mostly VBA since, as it is most useful for programming macros in all of the Microsoft Office applications.