<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="0.92"><channel><title>My software blog</title><link>http://chris-matthews.blog.co.uk/</link><description></description><language>en-EU</language><docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs><image><title>My software blog</title><link>http://chris-matthews.blog.co.uk/</link><url>http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/d7/aeeffddc710f6647c7cebec8567876_160x200.jpg</url></image><item><title>Who am I?</title><description>	&lt;p&gt;Hi my name is Chris Matthews,&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;Thought I had better do one of these in the hope that someone in the future might find something in it useful.&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;I am a software engineer and graduated from Birmingham University, UK with a BEng(Hons) in Electronic and Computer Engineering. &lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;For 2 years I worked as a systems engineer design Supervisor Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems for a company called  &lt;a href="http://www.serck-controls.co.uk"&gt;Serck Controls&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;While working at Serck I started to realise that I had really enjoyed my time at university most when I was writing software, so I decided enough was enough and got a job at Marconi as a software programmer doing mostly visual basic and sql programming, with a bit of asp on the side. After 2 years at Marconi I was given the oppurtunity to leave with half a years salary(tax free). &lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;I left and started to work for a small company called Conserv Business Solution. They sell themselves as a bespoke software company and basically invented little neat software solutions that they sold to customers. During my time here I was able to do and learn whatever I wanted the problem being that I new how to code, but not how the code worked. For example how the Garbabge collector works in .Net. So I spent two years writing thousands of lines of code that I thought was great, but towards the end of my stay and Conserv I realised I need to get smart and start thinking for the future. &lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;Me and my girlfriend wanted to move closier to are family so decided to up sticks and head to the beautiful North. I managed to get a job at &lt;a href="http://www.pac.co.uk"&gt;PAC International&lt;/a&gt; as a software engineer and I am now on my way to becoming a &lt;a href="http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcad/requirements.asp"&gt;MCAD&lt;/a&gt;. I passed by first exam in may (70-316) and I am currently reading &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789728249/qid=1121871192/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl/202-7584363-4580652"&gt;Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Visual C# .net and the .Net Framework.&lt;/a&gt;. That will do for today if your lucky I might write another entry tomorrow!
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt; &lt;small&gt; &lt;a href="http://chris-matthews.blog.co.uk/2005/07/20/who_am_i_12/#comments"&gt;Comments&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/small&gt; &lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://chris-matthews.blog.co.uk/2005/07/20/who_am_i_12/</link><pubDate>Wed, 20 Jul 2005 16:55:11 +0200</pubDate></item></channel></rss>
