About me

As of August 2007, I became a freelance web developer, before that I was a web developer for several web development companies based in Brighton.

I have been working remotely from home since November 2005.

University

I studied computing and applications development at Brighton University and The University of Abertay Dundee and learnt about many useful technologies (XML & XSLT) and some less useful (ADA - anyone else even heard of it, let alone used it in anger?). I was also taught about the following technologies:

  • ASP & ASP.net
  • WML
  • Coldfusion
  • Oracle
  • VB
  • and a smidgen of HTML and CSS

In my spare time

I tried to discover more about the technologies that really interested me which I learnt at University such as XHTML and advanced CSS techniques, as well as:

  • JavaScript
  • Image processing
  • Web hosting

During in-between jobs and while at college I also picked up a few other technologies:

  • Access
  • Excel
  • VBA (Excel Macros - I wrote an entire application in VBA while working for a big credit card company - Yes I was that bored!)

Since then...

After graduating from University I worked for a web development company for 2 years, and was able to expand my knowledge of most things web related and also specialise a bit. So as well as using one or two technologies I was taught at University (XML, HTML, CSS, Image editing etc), I have been able to pick up new skills such as Apache configuration and little Linux.

The technologies I now use day-in day-out in addition to those above:

  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • Postgres
  • A little JAVA - well if I'm honest it's only really a bit of JSTL in JSP's

In the future...

I would like to work more with PHP and MySQL as they are my favourite platforms to work on, and try where possible to take them to the next level, using a MVC framework such as CakePHP for example.

I would also like to get more experience with Linux to help with hosting configuration and general development. One of my aims is to move my development environment over to an Ubuntu system. I haven't done so so far because I play a lot of games on Windows XP and my general inertia. Although it may prove more productive to have a separate machine (or dual boot) for games and work, I guess I'll wonder why it took me so long when I finally get it done.