This website belongs to me, Daniel Bryant, shown in the picture to the right of this text. I've created this website to reveal a little of who I am, and showcase what I do inside and outside of my daily work.

I currently live in Guildford, a town approximately 40 miles west of London in the UK, having originally lived the first 20 years of my life in the South West of the UK, specifically Silverton, a small village just outside of Exeter in Devon.

During working hours I like to engage in a broad range of activities:

• My main skills relate to IT Consultancy, specifically developing web-based enterprise applications using Java JEE , Spring, Hibernate, MySQL and Oracle RDBMS, (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DWR, Prototype and jQuery.
• I am a Sun Microsystems Certified Professional (having completed multiple certifications: SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD,SCSNI), a Sun Certified MySQL 5.0 DBA (SCMDBA), and am a Professional Member (MBCS) of the British Computer Society and member of the Professional Contractors Group.
• I am the Owner and Director of a company, Tai-Dev Ltd, which offers IT Consultancy services. More information on this can be found at the Tai-Dev Website.
• I like to write regularly about new technologies, tools and books and have set up the Tai-Dev Blog. Here I share my opinions on the latest trends and also offer code/tool tutorials. I also Tweet about interesting articles or reviews that catch my eye, and these can also be found at the Tai-Dev Blog or at the Tai-Dev Twitter page twitter.com/taidevcouk
• I'm currently working on my Entrepreneurial skills, and have been involved in a range of IT startup companies over the past 5 years, in addition to forming Tai-Dev. I'm currently working with TriOpsis Ltd, a company specialising in creating software for the management of visual business information. I was the primary server-side architect and developer for the company's initial flagship product - the Retail Display Manager.
• I also actively conduct academic research within the field of computing, specifically artificial intelligence and creating computational models of how humans reason and argue. I am currently studying for a PhD at the University of Surrey, and have published in respected peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences.
• As part of my link to academia I like to take the opportunity to teach as much as possible, and have lectured to all levels in the Department of Computing within the University of Surrey and also Sixth Form students from a local college. Topics I teach include Enterprise Software Development, Visual Computing, AI, and Research Techniques and Tools (typically including an overview of the "Getting Things Done" method and Life Hacker, both of which I am a big fan of).

In my free time I'm into listening to music and attending live music concerts (RnB and Hip Hop), watching the occasional TV show (particularly American dramas, such as Sopranos, 24, Lost, Prison Break etc.), going to the cinema, playing pool, chatting with friends and reading. Currently I enjoy reading running, fitness and computing magazines, and self-development books and other thought provoking material, such as Eastern Philosophy.

I like to keep active through running, and you can follow my training via the Running Log below - I record my runs using the Forerunner 305 watch, which contains a GPS receiver, and upload the results to Garmin Connect. My favourite race distance is 10k (such as the excellent G3 series here in Guildford), but I have run an increasing number of half marathons over the last three years and completed the London Marathon in 2009. I also enjoy cycling, and participated in the London Duathlon a few years ago (although my advice is not to ride a mountain bike if you want a fast time!). My next fitness challenge for 2010 is to complete an Olympic length Triathlon, but I will have to work hard on my swimming skills, as this is a particular weakness of mine!

I also enjoy going to the gym and taking part in martial arts/eastern excerises, such as Ju Jitsu, Tai Chi and meditation. I'm currently a member of the Lam Association and am enjoying learning Zhan Zhuang Chi Kung in London. The Association not only offers training, but also regular social activities, and in March 2009 we visited Yunnan Province and Beijing in China in order to celebrate the 90th birthday of Professor Yu, a master in the art of Zhan Zhuang. The whole trip was amazing, and I will definitely be returning to China!

You can contact me by email: daniel [at] danielbryant.co.uk, and if you want to find out more about my work activities please look at my CV, or my LinkedIn profile page http://www.linkedin.com/in/danielbryantuk.