Thanks to some abominable computer problems I have learned of the troubles of data loss. Even my backups were lost recently, and I have yet to go about recovering them. My last attempt failed, leaving as many as two recent sites under the status of MIA.
After the sites below I have listed my skills and my experience.
Antithesis – thewickedflea.com
My own website has been a blog for many years now, and one of the first things I wanted to do this year was to escape the use of templates made by someone else! (It doesn't look good for a web designer to use someone else's template.)
In addition, I wanted to change the software behind the blog. So I happened across a nice package by toolmantim and adapted it to my needs, styling it as you see the website before you.
VoicePlex
I started this company with my partner, and in the process (being the web-guy) I put up a website for us. We use the package TextPattern to manage our content, and I took the installation and made it look nice.
The Gettysburg church of Christ's Website
www.gettysburgchurchofchrist.com
This was an interesting part-time project that I volunteered for. The initial requirements were for a site with some static content, and the ability to post articles and sermons. So I used a tool you may have heard of on the 'net lately, called Ruby on Rails.
With the power of Ruby on Rails and my trusty text editor, I turned the old website into the new. But only recently did I take the time to make it look nice. The first goal was to get it operational.
Cumberland Valley Roofing Systems
An acquaintence of mine started a new business and needed a website, so when he asked me I took the job. The project needed a menu organized by the kind of roofing the products can be used upon, with the transcription of the product descriptions. In addition, there needed to be a way to ask questions with the owner, without subjecting him to spam.
Again using Ruby, but this time with a smaller package called Sinatra, I tailor-made a website to his specifications.
My Skills & Experience
I have been involved in web development for nearly ten years now, but have only worked professionally for four years. I've seen the advent of various standards and their obsolescence, and have gone between a great many technologies and languages (and standards) to round out my skillset.
Not only do I design websites, that is stylize them and make them look nice and uniform, but I also develop them. Development, in this instance, means that I program the software that operates the website. I have been a webmaster for those entire four years, and have experience with both cPanel and Plesk.
In case your present web developer, or designer, throws any of these terms at you, these are the skills I have accumulated thus far. Or, if you are in the industry you may just glance down the list of bold words below to pick up my list in short-hand.
- HTML 4, the primary format of most older websites today.
- XHTML, the next-gen set of standards that are making the new websites more uniform between the many browsers.
-
Javascript, the language (of my preference) to make web pages
dynamic on the user's side. I've done a number of tricks with this, from
generating forms dynamically to taking existing content on a page and
making it interactive. I've used the following javascript frameworks:
- jQuery (my preference)
- MooTools
-
I have written web software, and websites, in the following languages:
- PHP 4 & 5, I've done things from simple one-page sites to complex many-page websites.
- Ruby, Ruby is a slightly less-prevalent language on the web, but has already gained many influential supporters.
-
I am familiar with a number of ways that websites are written, if you
aren't in the web-industry then don't worry about these terms unless you
know that you need them.
- Static Websites (flat HTML websites)
- MVC/OO Websites (websites that are dynamic, and use encapsulated parts to improve reusability within the application.)
- Non-Object Oriented (those dynamic sites that rely on functional programming, and few, or no, objects for encapsulation.)
Obviously, as shown above, I have some decent skills and experience.
In addition to what you see above, I have lost a number of past works thanks to my computer. I won't lay blame where it is due, and I know exactly where, but these have been nearly irrevocably lost at this time.
A year and a half ago, my series of contracts with the company DiVitas ended; DiVitas is a Silicon Valley start-up involved in wireless mobility. I worked with them for a total of roughly two years over four consecutive contracts, for I was a contractor with them. I was put in charge of redesigning their template for their server software, in the process I fixed some two hundred (or more) errors within the software's output. I was also tasked with writing a module to control the configuration of T1/E1/J1 connections, and with assisting in writing the web-interface for their serial number generator.
Previously to DiVitas, I had done miscellaneous work in designing templates for myself and various businesses. Again, thanks to the data loss I mentioned above, I am missing some four to six templates that I could display here. In addition to the work upon the templates, I worked on designing logos as well. I personally designed the logo of Visionary Systems Incorporated, which is now out of business. I hope to find this logo again soon and add it to my works above.
