Let’s get to know you first. Tell us about yourself.
First and foremost, I’m not a designer. I’ve always wished I had the talent and artistic ability to be one but I was not so lucky. At best, I like to hope and think I have a decent appreciation for design. I consider myself a builder and have been working on creating solutions to problems through software for years. My work history includes a variety of software development work, both contracted and in-house. Some of my past projects have been featured on prominent news outlets including Bloomberg and Fox News.
Cool, so what’s the story behind your website and its design?
I’ve always enjoyed quirky and irreverent personal websites. My site at the time was a bit long in the tooth and so when I came across this on sitepoint a while back I decided to go the geekiest route possible for the next iteration. Frankly, I didn’t design it. George Lucas did 35+ years ago and Craig Buckler brought it to life on the (modern) web. All I did was add my story with hopes that people would appreciate the fact that it was a unique spin for a personal site.
What part of your website is your favourite, and why?
The background music always puts a smile on my face every time. Everyone I’ve ever shown it to reacts the same way. There’s a built-in nostalgia element to the track.
Is there anything you wish you knew when you first started building your website?
Cross browser ‘standards’ adoption still sucks since for audio the tag was standardized but the format was not. Laziness led me to only using an mp3 for the audio, which means most Firefox and Opera users don’t hear anything.
Originally I hacked in a YouTube video that was hidden away to provide audio for the title track. This is never a smart thing to do as the video was taken down shortly after but it was the most cross-browser for the least amount of work.
Technologies, languages, frameworks, or libraries?
The current site is pretty basic. CSS3, HTML5 Audio, and Google Fonts.
Any upcoming changes we should look out for?
If I ever get some spare time, I’d like to put some real thought into creating something that aggregates all of my other web presences into one. Something like what about.me tries to do but in a more custom and integrate way. No promise on timeline, though.
