Java is a portable object oriented high level language which was designed for the internet. Java is written in plain text .java files which are compiled into byte code in .class files. These byte code files are interpreted by the Java Virtual Machine at runtime and executed.

We've used Java in desktop applications using Java SE and web applications using Java EE (Spring and Hibernate when needed) on mutliple platforms such as Windows and Linux.

C is a general purpose programming language and is still one of the most popular programming languages in the world today. We have used it in embedded programming in devices like the iPhone, in automated test equipment using additional libraries and hardware. C++ is an adaptation of C which provides object oriented principles such as inheritance, generics and much more.

PHP is a web scripting language. We've been using PHP for years for creating and managing websites. We have experience in PHP 4 and PHP 5 making use of the object oriented abstraction available with PHP 5. At the moment most of out websites are built using PHP 5 and a framework we use to provide abstraction, modularity and search engine optimisation to every website and web project we build. We also use MySQL with PHP for database driven sites in the typical LAMP setup (Linux Apache Mysql PHP).

MySQL is an open source relational database management system which is used by millions of people and businesses all over the work. We use MySQL primarily in websites but we have also been known to use it with Java applications using Java's JDBC database libraries to communicate with the database. We have also used Oracle, PostreSQL, JavaDB etc.

Android^TM is an open source operating system for mobile devices which was originally implemented by Google but is now part of the Open Handset Alliance. Android^TM provides developers with a high level set of API's based on the Java programming language. Developers can compile this code into dex files which are an optimised byte code, this byte code is packages into .apk files and installed onto Android^TM phones via download from the Android^TM Market. Our developers have created a couple of useful Android^TM applications which are available for FREE on the Android^TM Market.

At the moment everyone at Vivo has a HTC magic to play with. For more information on what we've done with Android^TM click here

JavaScript is a web scripting language which has become synonymous with the web and creating dynamic effects within the web browser. Within the last few years we've seen it packaged into the term AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and RIA (Rich Internet Applications). We've used JavaScript and third party libraries to create dynamic effects on sites and recently we've started using the Google Web Toolkit to develop RIA's quicker and cheaper as the nice people at Google have provided us with the tools to do the job.

CVI is "C for Virtual Instruments" which is an IDE, Compiler and set of libraries created by National Instruments to help engineers with their measurement and automation. We have used CVI in the aerospace industry to implement a series of automated test and calibration systems using different hardware and protocols such as data sampling, Thermotron control for temperature controlled environments, pressure controllers, GPIB, Ethernet, Arinc 429, 575, 561 and so fourth.

LabView is a graphical programming language which took us a little while to get out heads around when we started working with it. National Instruments have been developing LabView for around 20 years and it is a mature graphical environment which provides high level abstraction over the system being implemented. We again have used LabView in the aerospace industry for test, measurement and automation.

Eclipse is an open source IDE which was initially developed by IBM before being made open source and handed to the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse has been written in Java but also provides some C bindings for some user interface elements which is why the user is so fast compared to that of Netbeans. We have used Eclipse for Java projects and mainly for developing our Android^TM applications with the SDK.

Netbeans is an open source IDE which was initially developed by Sun Microsystems. Netbeans has been written in Java and provides a large number of plugins for various languages such as C, C++, Java, PHP and so fourth. We have used Netbeans for Java projects. At the moment we're quite happy to use Netbeans and Eclipse but tend to go for Eclipse due to responsiveness.

Textpad a simple text editor for Windows, it is one of those applications which people start using at university and never quite leave. We use this mainly for coding websites (HTML, JavaScript etc) under windows.

Kate stands for "KDE Advanced Text Editor" and is one of the main text editors we use on Linux (aside from VIM). Kate provides similar functionality to textpad under windows.

Vim, pico and nano and are command line text editors and are used by us when editing source code, scripts, HTML, etc remotely usually via SSH. Vim is probably the most well known and highly configurable text editor of the three and is installed in most Linux / Unix based systems.

We've used Microsoft Windows from 3.01 to the new Windows 7. Most of our machines run Windows 7 now, with some test rigs running Windows XP. Everyone in the office has the skills to run windows and office software such as Visio, project, Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint etc.

We do have a fair amount of machines which use Linux. Our primary web servers run CentOS and OpenBSD, our internal servers which we use for development run SuSE Linux and some of our developers dual boot their machines with Windows and Linux (SuSE).