Jon DiPietro

On August 6, 2009 I presented “Social Media and Its Effect on Water and Wastwater Industries” at the ISA’s 4th Annual Water and Wastewater Automatic Controls symposium.
Social media is changing the world; this is not hyperbole. If you doubt this, just ask the Iranian government about Twitter or the Boston Globe about eBay and Craigslist. As the tools and technologies that facilitate communicating, sharing, and coordinating become increasingly boring and (by and large) free, they are empowering groups to organize themselves and challenging the value propositions of long standing institutions. And if you think this doesn’t or won’t affect you as a municipality, private operations company, equipment supplier, trade organization, engineering firm, software developer, or government regulator you are wrong.

The New England Water Environment Association (NEWEA) contracted Bridge-Soft to build a new web site, which was commissioned in May, 2009.  The site was built using the DotNetNuke open source Content Management System.  This allows NEWEA to act as its own web master, being in complete control of the pages and content on the site without the need to pay a web developer to make these changes.

The site includes many advanced features including member only features, a blog, job postings, and more.

Database developer consulting contract from April, 2008 – Present

I worked with the Information Management department at Liberty International Underwriters to develop comprehensive metadata registry for the organization that standardizes data definitions across source systems, data warehouses, data marts, and reports. Developed database (SQL Server) for metadata, wrote import processes to pre-populate database (VB.NET, SSIS), developed maintenance front end and report developer user interface (VB.NET), and various reports for end users, power users, and developers (SSRS).

Domesticating IT is my solo consulting and web design business, and also serves as my professional blog (be sure to subscribe).  Since its main thrust is to serve as a blog platform, the site is built on the WordPress platform.

ASP.NET development consulting contract from January, 2008 through April, 2008

This consulting project involved the development of a custom web server control suite for global ASP.NET web site in order to display language-specific pages to users for HP Partner Program.  The localization is stored in the database (not resource files) and are dynamically configured in-place via a control panel that is displayed for users with appropriate security credentials.

ASP.NET development consulting contract in September, 2007

Developed automated marketing collateral generator for HP Partner Program that incorporated partners’ contact information, solution description, and logo into dynamically created PDF, PowerPoint, and HTML files that could be downloaded on demand and immediately incorporated into marketing campaigns. Developed in ASP.NET using VB.NET 2005, SQL Server 2005, Aspose Slides, and Dynamic PDF Generator by ceTe.

VB.NET development contract from December, 2006 – January, 2008

Participated in development team at Injured Workers Pharmacy to replace FoxPro database application in VB.NET 2005 / SQL Server 2005. Responsibilities included database architecture (table design, views, stored procedures, and functions), business object creation, and Win Forms user interface development. Main focus included prescription workflow (approving, filling, verifying, and shipping), flexible patient notes module, and ad hoc querying and reporting module. Constructed bi-directional ETL processes between FoxPro and SQL Server using SSIS. Worked extensively with DevExpress control libraries.

Web design contract in February, 2006

Bridge-Soft was awarded a contract to design and maintain a web site for the New Hampshire Water Works Association. This is a static HTML web site that I designed using Dreamweaver (now maintained with Microsoft Expression Web).

New Hampshire Water Works Association "About" page

Bridge-Soft client;VB, VB.NET and SQL Server consulting contract in from June, 1999 – September, 2005

The original development of QMS occurred through a contract with specialty chemical manufacturer Shipley Company of Marlborough, MA (later acquired by Rohm and Haas).  It was an enterprise quality management system that maintained QC specifications for over ten thousand part numbers and managed the data entry of test results and created certificates of analyses for product shipments.  Technical details of the project included:

• Developed using Visual Basic 5.0 and 6.0 with a SQL Server back end.
• A central unattended application automatically rendered and delivered certificates of analysis for every product shipment.
  • The company could not ship product without this system functioning correctly.
  • In the original implementation, warehouse pick lists were pulled from querying the MRP system (PRISM). 
  • This was later replaced with an interface to SAP using the Developer’s Toolkit.  It retrieved the pick list from SAP in XML format, parsed the contents, and then rendered the certificate.
  • The certificate was automatically routed to the appropriate location based upon dynamic customer profiles.  They were printed to one of thirteen warehouses in North America and Europe, exported to PDF and emailed directly to the client, and/or exported to customer-specific XML formats and then uploaded via FTP.
  • Certificate results were wrapped into XML format and uploaded to SAP quality module via SAP Developer’s Toolkit via SOAP protocol.
  • I also wrote a web service to respond to data warehouse requests for data.  This service would retrieve results from the database in XML format and perform a bulk upload to the SQL Server data warehouse using XSLFO.
• An external web portal was written for Shipley customers to log in and download certificates online.  Security authentication was retrieved from a Lotus Domino server via SOAP protocol.

ASP.NET development contract in September, 2005 – present.

Developed interactive web site for the New England Water Works Association with content management, membership-based services, job posting board, event sign-up, and shopping cart features using ASP.NET with a SQL Server 2005 back end. Recently migrated to VB.NET 2008 and integrated DevExpress control suite.

New England Water Works Association member-only journal download

VB/ASP consulting contract in May, 2001

Developed web-based advertising reservation system for Compaq’s inform Internet magazine using Visual Basic Web Classes, COM objects, Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), and Active Server Pages (ASP) with a Microsoft SQL Server database back end. Several management reports were developed using Crystal Reports Web Server. Members of the Compaq Solutions Alliance (CSA) program could request advertising space online for upcoming issues, and specify the size, location, and content of their ads.