Resume

Summary

I am an all-around web developer — I enjoy taking an attractive design (sketching and creating first, where necessary), converting it to accessible and standards-friendly X/HTML and CSS markup, and then figuring out how to best implement site functionality in both server and client-side code; always keeping in mind best practices, continuous improvement, accessibility and progressive enhancement.

What I have to offer:
Skills and Abilities, etc.

• Deep understanding of HTML and CSS.
  • Good at troubleshooting display issues across wide variety of browsers (IE 6-8, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera)
  • A great fan of hand-coding.
  • I am aware of and use helper tools when they speed up the process necessary or when necessary, but often hand-coded is best.
    • Familiar with tools such as Dreamweaver, and ways in which they can be used to save time and improve things, but also importantly aware of their pitfalls and the ways in which they can totally hose things up. I know when to use them and when to watch out!
  • I also create HTML emails, which are their own painful ball of wax, and strive to do it the right way, with an eye toward accessibility and working in all major email clients.
• I program in PHP, Javascript, Python, Perl, and more. And always happy to learn a new language!
  • Familiar with, and a fan of, MVC (Model-View-Controller) approach to setting up web applications.
    • I've used (and love) CodeIgniter, as well as custom-rolled MVC frameworks.
  • Fan of jQuery and progressive enhancement
  • Not afraid to write, look at, figure out, troubleshoot code. In fact I love it!
• Always striving for best practices and continuous improvement.
  • I care about Accessibility and Web Standards.
• Security-minded; aware of security issues when it comes to web development and coding, and always striving to improve in that regard.
• Skilled proofreader, speller, and copy editor — I'll find spelling and grammatical errors you might have missed. (Yes I am aware that this page may need a few more edits :) .)
• Observant and aware of detail.
• Familiar and comfortable with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
  • Including command-line administration of remote Linux servers (I'm not a sysadmin, but I know enough to setup stuff, troubleshoot stuff, get things done, and generally get around).
  • I love Linux and other open-source OSes best of all, but often end up working on Windows; I know and love Macs as well, and have used them at work, but never owned one.

Selected Work History

Freelance / Self-Employed : 2006-Present

I've been working mostly freelance since mid-2006; I've had some work from my former employer, the Center for Action and Contemplation, and some other projects, for many of which I was a subcontractor of The Graphics Station.

Selected Projects — see my projects page.

Center for Action and Contemplation : 2004-2007

A small nonprofit based in Albuquerque (with a worldwide reach), founded by Richard Rohr, a "rock-star of the progressive Christian lecture circuit" (my words :) ). Their mission is to assist people in the integration of positive social action and spiritual contemplation/meditation.

• Started as front desk / receptionist, ended as webmaster / database admin / IT & PC support guy / sometime graphics and print design guy.
• Office Geek - PC Support and Troubleshooting, networked Windows XP / Server 2003 environment (but not yet domain-enabled)
  • Provided support for all sorts of end-user issues and difficulties
  • Oversaw weekly backups & rotated offsite HDDs
• Database Support: MS Access frontend with MS SQL Server 2000 backend
  • Maintenance of backend tables and queries and forms on frontend
  • Creating queries for data as needed
• Graphic design, Layout, Desktop Publishing
  • Creating brochures, flyers, forms, mailing pieces for many events and conferences each year
  • Layout of Radical Grace, the semi-monthly publication
    
• Maintenance of website
• Wrote an online registration script in Perl
• Wrote an email merge script in Perl
• Maintenance and creation of pages on the website, including dynamic pages with both server-side and client-side code. Not the proudest of all of it because it's not my best work; it was when I was still in the "bad old days" of my understanding web standards and web design. But, I got the job done, learned lots, and got better.
• Creation and sending of HTML emails
  • Yep, they're a horrible pain, but I did (and do) a lot of them there.
  • Went through several solutions for mass email sending; from using Outlook and Thunderbird, to purpose-built desktop clients, to finally installing a mailing list solution on the webserver and initiating a confirmed-opt in list (which grew from 5,000 at the beginning to over 30,000 at present (5/2010)), to choosing a hosted solution provider and migrating over to it (Constant Contact; maybe not the best, but a big improvement for now).
    

Trader Publishing Company (Auto Trader Magazines) : 2000-2004

• Hired as a data entry guy; did various jobs at the local office, including deliveries and photography, until I created a software position for myself by writing a more automated leads-generation system for them.
  • Wrote a system that automated the process of harvesting leads from newspaper classifieds by scraping them from classified websites and entering them into the database. (Auto Trader used classified ads from people selling cars as leads for telemarketers to try and sell those same people ads in the Auto Trader. Was this "evil" ? I'm not sure. Auto Trader certainly provided a more compelling product than the paper, but I don't think, in retrospect, that I feel 100% correct about what I was doing. I did, however, love the opportunity to take the initiative to see somewhere that I could build a cool system to automate a tedious job assigned to me, and make it real.)
• Also served as Office Geek and IT / PC Support Person for all office needs (with some small exceptions) (about a 10-15 person office).

Now defunct; I think they closed down the Albuquerque branch and magazine sometime around 2007.

References

• Available upon request.