Following is a short-form resume, presented in chronological order. For a copy of my normal resume (in traditional format), please contact me. (Last updated 2003-01-14.)
Education
In 1987 I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (with an emphasis on digital design) from Santa Clara University. After graduation I pursued a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (also at SCU), which I received in 1992.
Employment
From 1982 through 1986 I spent my summers working for Far North Systems, a software consulting firm that specialized in mainframe disk diagnostics and embedded software. During this time I worked as a “programmer’s aide” and eventually as a programmer, learning assembly language and Pascal along the way.
After graduating from SCU in 1987, I joined ARGOSystems, which eventually became a subsidiary of The Boeing Company. Although my ultimate goal was to do hardware design and development, I spent my first year working on an offline signal analysis system coded in Fortran. I returned to hardware design and worked on numerous embedded signal-processing systems. ARGOSystems created signal processing systems for the government — these systems evolved from mainframe-based offline processors to embedded microprocessor systems and finally to custom ASICs. Although government contracting is sometimes overloaded with paperwork, I learned the value of a well-defined process tailored to the situation. I also took away a great appreciation for designing a system to specification — in many cases over designing it to increase reliability.
In 1994 I switched industries and joined Quinton Instrument Company — a medical equipment provider. I managed the engineering team for the Imaging Division. We created cardiac imaging systems (used in cardiac catheterization labs) based on standard hardware and custom software solutions. Our systems were initially based on MS-DOS but evolved to Windows NT over time. Our team developed image capture, viewing, quantitative analysis, and archiving software modules — all deployed across a high-speed network of connected workstations within the hospital environment. One of the best benefits of this job was the amount of time spent with end users. Even when their feedback was negative, we were able to take the lessons learned back to the office in order to improve the product.
In 1998 I found a great opportunity to join Palm, Inc (now palmOne). During my first year I built a small software team responsible for OEM, derivative, and sustaining software projects. In 1999 I became manager of the Desktop Applications team whose responsibilities include Palm Desktop software for Windows and for Mac platforms. We also create the installers and CDs for every Palm PDA product. Palm Desktop software is a personal information manager (PIM) designed to be a perfect counterpart to the Palm handheld. During my tenure at Palm, the team has made several significant releases, including an extensibility interface on the Windows side and support for Mac OS X.
Current Interests
In addition to following the “Palm economy” and tinkering with Palm software development, I spend a lot of time learning about and doing web development, focusing on my own cantoni.org web site. Specific areas that interest me include accessibility, cross-platform support, and usability from small-screen or mobile devices.