Hi, I’m Tom, a software engineer and entrepreneur living on Long Island. I own and operate a number of services, including a hosted store platform named Limited Run and a download card service named Card Included.
Although the majority of my work isn’t open source, I do have a few projects on GitHub.
Aside from writing software, I enjoy spending time with my bulldog, Napoleon, eating sandwiches and listening to hardcore and punk music.
You can find me occasionally writing things here and tweeting on @tsmango.
A Brief History
In 2011, I dropped all client work to pursue my own services full time.
In 2007, I left my job writing JEE applications and began taking contract work, mostly writing web applications with Ruby on Rails.
In 2002, I started work full time at an aerospace company writing Java Enterprise software and attending Stony Brook University as a Computer Science major.
My Current Work
Co-Founder, Software Engineer @ Cloud Warmer, Inc. - June 2009 → Present
- Limited Run - A hosted store platform for artists, labels, designers or anyone selling unique products directly to fans. Whether you’re selling physical or digital items, Limited Run provides tools that let you create a store, or even an entire website, in minutes. Limited Run was launched in 2009 under the name Limited Pressing. It was relaunched at the start of 2012 and renamed to Limited Run.
- Card Included - A self-serve download card service that allows bands and labels to easily design and print download cards to use at shows, performances, in vinyl, or just to carry around with them.
- The Old LP - A community marketplace for collectors. It offers a number of innovative ways to buy, sell and trade your vinyl, clothing and anything else you want. It has an auctioning system, a trading system and various other networking and communication related features.
- Multipass - A single sign on service for all Cloud Warmer and Grey Matter hosted sites. This service uses oauth under the hood, along with a custom concept of "trusted" sites, to seamlessly sign users into various sites without having to worry about standard oauth style accept/deny dialogs.
My Past Work
Project Manager, Software Engineer @ Firefly, Jan 2010 → Dec 2010
- Firefly is a way to see where your friends are on Twitter. Find your friends in the real-world, share your location and photos, and get notified when friends check-in nearby.
- My responsibilities included: product development, configuration & deployment to AWS, the API, the web application, the mobile web application and managing development of the iPhone application.
Software Engineer @ Gawkk, Sept 2007 → Dec 2009 (Sold)
- Gawkk automatically aggregates and categorizes video from thousands of websites. Channels of videos can be subscribed to and videos liked by and commented on by your friends will show up in your news feed. This site was sold in early 2010.
- I was contracted to build Gawkk and was responsible for all technical decisions. I was the sole developer before it was sold.
Software Engineer @ Lourdes Industries, June 2001 → Sept 2007
- Designed and implemented a centralized authentication & role-based access control system. This J2EE web application provides management for users and permissions as well as an API for all other internal applications to use.
- Started development of a thin client J2EE replacement for a legacy Enterprise Resource Planning system. By the time I left, we had successfully moved customer management, quoting, sales orders, engineering and accounts receivable processes onto our J2EE system. When complete, this system will also handle purchasing, production, inventory and accounts payable.
- Developed a J2EE web application in order to manage the relationship between parts and fixtures (shop tools) as well as to provide metrics on supply usage to more efficiently stock the tool room.
- Developed a J2EE web application that enables users to tag material certification documents scanned into a networked scanner as well as search previously scanned documents.
Freelance & Pro Bono Application Development & Design, 2000 → Present
- Developed a job management system for use by a manufacturing company in offices spread across the country. This Ruby on Rails application helps to move a job internally through the company, from sales, to customer service, to the art department, to purchasing and eventually to billing. Additionally, this system dynamically generates PDFs and emails for jobs to be used for customer billing as well as ordering from vendors, all while tracking vendor costs and customer facing pricing.
- Developed a document management site for Staples Contract Digital Copy Services. This Ruby on Rails application allows clients to upload documents in bulk with a custom, drag and drop Java applet. This system is currently live and supporting more than 4000 clients that upload over 20GB of data a month to 10 locations and has processed over 100,000 documents.
- Developed a specialized web based scheduling application for use in a hospital with multiple clinics, surgical rooms and resource requirements. This Ruby on Rails application also utilized the dojo javascript framework to display appointments in a calendar view.
- Developed a J2EE product management system for an electronics reseller. This system allowed for the import of multiple vendor databases and automatically managed the best vendor for a product based on availability and price as well as the automated export to various external listing services and the client’s Yahoo! store.
- Developed a Ruby on Rails application for a local non-profit organization that manages job listings and application submissions for a network of homes that give aid to the developmentally disabled.
- Developed a Ruby on Rails application for a local arts council that manages exhibits, classes, events, artist pages and news.
- Developed a Ruby on Rails application for a local police golf club that manages members, matches, scores and handicaps.
My Other Work
- active_configuration - An engine that exposes a generic settings store to ActiveRecord models.
- jekyll_alias_generator - A Jekyll plugin for generating redirect pages for posts.
- jekyll_flickr_set_tag - A Jekyll plugin for generating image galleries from a Flickr set.
- do*connect - This Ruby on Rails project was developed in 48 hours during Rails Rumble 2010 and provides a simple way to build and grow a third party developer community around a service. Source available at github.com/tsmango/doconnect.
- cacheable_hash - A wrapper for Hashes to prevent frozen values when storing in memcached as well as automatically keeping the cached copy up to date.
- Solid MFG - This Ruby on Rails project was developed for Solid MFG. It offers a unique quote builder that allows you to quickly build a quote, get an estimate and download templates.
- FreeMusicFirst.org - This Ruby on Rails project was developed for FreeMusicFirst.org. It was built as a way to distribute music freely using services like Twitter and Facebook.
- Marketplace - This Ruby on Rails project was developed for the Vinyl Collective community. It was built to give community members an easy way to list and sell their records.
- PGnJ - This Java application is a database development environment. Unlike most clients that came before it, PGnJ has a unique, single window interface.
- Mobile LIRR - This Ruby on Rails project is a mobile optimized web application that sits atop the Long Island Railroad website. The application provides a set of features to help automate and ease the use of the LIRR scheduling system while on the go.
- Mobile Trends - This Ruby on Rails project is a mobile optimized web application that shows the current trends on Twitter and defines them with the API provided by whatthetrend.com.
- Seymore - This open source project is a content management system built with Ruby on Rails. Rather than having a separate administration section for managing content, content management functions are available throughout the site so users are able to contextually and comfortably manage their content.
- Argus - This open source J2EE project is focused on making issue tracking easy enough for end users, while still being flexible enough to satisfy the needs of developers.
Education
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
- Computer Science (3 unrelated credits until B.S.)