Welcome

I am an IT manager with many years of experience handling both Windows and Linux corporate infrastructure. This is a static website that I may update from time to time but is mostly here as a placeholder for my personal email domain. I have used jQuery and Angular on some projects in the past but I decided to avoid using a framework for this page as a challenge to myself.

About

I have worked in IT for nearly 20 years and originally trained as a programmer using the .NET framework. Over time I progressed into management and to eventually run a team consisting of 4 developers and 4 engineers to maintain critical systems that are required 24/7/365. By openly sharing ideas and supporting each other our team have built successful products that have become core to the business, enabling the company to support thousands of other businesses around the United Kingdom.

Skills

This is not a CV-site but here's a brief list of my skills because I need to put some content on the page and a couple of lists lets me try out the responsive design elements! Also, you can see some of the PluralSight course I did a while ago on my profile

  • BTEC National Diploma
  • MCTS: Web, Windows, & Distributed Applications
  • C#.NET / VB
  • PowerShell
  • HTML, CSS, JS
  • SQL (MSSQL), SQLite, MySQL/MariaDB
  • jQuery / Angular
  • PHP, ASP Classic
  • GIT, SVN, Team Foundation Server
  • Bash
  • VBS/VBA
  • SignalR
  • System.Net.Sockets
  • JSON & XML [de]serialisation
  • Lexers and parsers
  • MSSQL Cluster Setup
  • Active Directory Users & Computers
  • AD Permissions Delegation
  • Group Policy Objects
  • Microsoft 365 Administration
  • DNS
  • DHCP
  • IIS
  • Network routing, VLANs, ACLs
  • Windows desktop/server, Linux CLI or GUI
  • WireShark
  • SIP protocol
  • Cloudflare rules engine syntax
  • MailInABox, PostFix, MailEnable, Exchange
  • Telephony: Asterisk, NEC, and Sangoma systems
  • Business continuity planning
  • Positive team management

Interests

I enjoy science fiction stories in book, TV, and film format and genuinely enjoy computer programming. The activity I enjoy most is learning something new, followed closely by working on a project to put that knowledge to use. An on-going interest of mine is to build a CPU simulation in JavaScript that demonstrates the main concepts in CPU architecture (step vs microstep, RAM bus, interrupts, actual bit-level ALU, run levels, etc) and then design a toy language for it.

I also like to get away from technology with a bit of DIY when the opportunity appears, sometimes that's putting together some Ikea furniture and other times it could be a bit of painting or even plastering.

Contact

I occasionally help companies with specialist projects on a contract basis, if this is something you are intersted in then please email me with your scenario at websitecontact@mcgrane.co.uk and I'll be happy to tell you whether or not I can help.