About
About this blog
This blog has been created by Toby Mills for Toby Mills and will consist of a range of rabblings on a variety of topics which take my interest. These will mainly be technical articles but the odd philosophical, social comment or just plain old rant will appear here and will be distinguishable by their keywords.
You can find Toby on LinkedIn or on FaceBook.
You can contact Toby on Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype or by leaving a comment on this blog (all comments are moderated before being published).
Alternatively you can view a sanitised version of my Resume (PDF).
About Toby
I’ve always had a fascination for how things work and had that very typical boyhood syndrome of taking things apart but never quite able to put them back together again. When computers finally came into my life, (first was when I was 15), I loved the ability to not just take them apart but also that you could put them back together again fairly easily. You can even change a computers abilities without physically taking it apart but by programming them and just as easily wipe them clean and start again when things go wrong or to try something else.
Due to my interest in both the hardware and software side of computing i initally undertook a degree in Computing Systems Engineering at Kent University however after two years i felt the course material, while interesting in parts, did not appeal to my core interests and thus did full capture my imagination or attention. I decided to take a year out which i treated more as an Industrial experience and was deteremined to ensure that it was a year well spent. During this time (1999-2000) i found a small finacial advisory company and worked as the IT manager and web developer helping them to tap into the emerging web industry.
In 2000 I returned to the University of Kent to undertake a degree in Multimedia Design & Technology which was in its inagural year and which had a wide variety of modules covering everything from web developement, 3D modelling and video editing through to networking architectures and operating systems. Although being a new course it had its up’s and downs, the students and department worked together to make the course an enjoyable and educational experience. This time round i managed to graduate with a first class degree 
While I was obtaining my degree at Kent University I continued to carry on working for my previous employer and also secured a part-time position (full-time during holidays) as a web and applications developer at Kent Institute of Art and Design (KIAD). This was a great position that enabled me to work with a team of people to create cutting edge on-line applications which not only worked well but also looked great. It was here that I truly appreciated the importance of working closely with a graphic designer and anaylising user interfaces and interactions to improve the look and feel of a site. KIAD, as the name suggests, is an Arts based educational establishment, and at the time Europe’s largest, which meant they gave me a lot of free rain in development and enabled me to try out new technologies and techniques. One of the best projects i remember creating was building a web based Files & Folder explorer using XML, Javascript to enable real-time updating of the interface without requiring post backs. Today this is known as AJAX but at that time it didn’t even have a name
After University I returned home to Glasgow (2003) and secured a position working for the Sopra Group as an Intermediate developer where I worked on a number of large and medium size projects for the Scottish Government and a number of local authorities. My work at Sopra included being placed at West Lothian Council to assist in the development of a Business portal for the region using the Media surface content management system called Morello. The portals aim was to attract new businesses to the area as West Lothian had previously been a fairly successful technological business region attracting companies like Motorola and as such had been referred to at Silicon Glen. However due to poor infrastructure and lack of grants a lot of businesses failed or moved on leaving West Lothian Council with a substantial void to fill.
Working for the council from within their offices gave me my first real taste of public sector work and the problems that can entail. These can be as obvious as design by committee and needless levels of bureaucracy through to under-skilled and undervalued employees. I worked for Sopra for just over a year but having to commute for 2½ hours each way everyday took its toll and so I decided to look for work closer to home and was lucky enough to find work with Equator (Scotland) Ltd.
I will return and update this with more details soon but you can see my latest CV here
