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Hobby Web Development
1996 - PresentWeb development is my life. It all started way, way back before the turn of the century (hah, true though). I have always been into figuring out how things work and the internet has always been full of interesting things to take apart.
Fast forward some 20 years, and I still find myself dissecting the internet and creating awesome things. I use my spare time to mentor others and stay on the bleeding edge of web development.
I will program until I physically cannot! I love watching things come together right in front of my eyes.
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Agencies and Freelance
2002 - 2012I have worked through a LOT of agencies in the past for many clients.
From 2002-2003 I worked for Triangle Webnet (now TriTechDirect) in Raleigh, NC. This was my first job out of high school.
Other agencies and/or companies I have worked for: Paramount Parks, Caffeine Labs, Red Storm Entertainment, ISD, ATOMIC Entertainment, Turnkey/Matchstick Media, Leafguard, Cedar, JAMPC, CyberDen Systems, The Agency, Aquent, and more...
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Corporate Web Experience
2013 - presentFor three years (2013 - 2016), I was a Senior Web Presentation Architect at Ally Financial where I developed landing pages, applications, APIs, and a responsive framework.
I am currently a Senior Developer at TIAA.
I was a Front End Engineer at Bank of America during 2016 and early 2017.
Banks and insurance companies are the top of the food chain around here. I love my job and the people I work with.
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Hobby Game Development
2006 - PresentGame development is another facet of my skillset that I believe lends a lot to my web development talents. I went to school for User Interface design, 3d Modeling/Animation, Simulation and Game Engine Design/Development. I use those skills to create immersive web apps with rich interactions that keep the end user engaged.
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What else?
1983 - PresentI am a jack of many trades. I am a percussionist, a cook, a mechanic, and an inventor. I have been a game tester for multiple companies, a travelling casino game technician, and a record-destroying Carowinds game barker. I have played drums for/with many bands, friends, and thousands of complete strangers.
... but it all comes back to the web.
- CodePen profile (updated daily)
- Basi.css OOCSS framework and on github
- The Front End Primer (my book)
- Scaling CSS (adaptive theory)
Languages
- HTML5 [semantic]
- CSS3 [modular]
- JavaScript [immaculate]
- nodeJS and WebSockets
- Angular, Backbone, Ember
- PHP
- Ruby (+Rails)
Data Storage
- MySQL (tables)
- MongoDB (objects)
- Redis (key->val)
Software
- Any IDE: Sublime, Notepad, Dreamweaver, vim, etc.
- Cloud: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Heroku
- SVN: git
- Tracking: Jira, Gemini, Mantis, Bugzilla
- Graphics: Illustrator, Fireworks, Photoshop
- Marketing: Adobe Target
- CMS: Tridion, WordPress, and more. I have built many custom solutions.
- Audio/Video Production: Premier, After-Effects, Soundbooth, InDesign, Vegas, FL Studio, Flash
- 3D: Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Blender
- Game Engines: Unreal, Unity, Source, Torque
- Continuous Integration (CI): websites under a state of constant deployment, usually built from a git repo.
- Object Oriented Programming (OOP): coding style used to keep things modular and organized.
- Model View Controller (MVC): on the front end, MVC apps consist of API data, HTML/CSS views, and templates/funtions for controlling them.
- Representational State Transfer (REST):
- Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP: Linux could be swapped with Windows (WAMP). Apache is the web server... I have a deep understanding of Apache. MySQL is the database... and PHP is the language that drives the back end of the website.
- Content Management Systems: custom software used to easily manage web site content entry, deletion, and modification.
- Canvas is the modern HTML5 drawing engine. This may sound simple, but Canvas rivals Flash when it comes to animation and interactivity.
- Data Mining: I have created many bots for gleaning data from different sources. Some examples: Game character stats, social profile matching, professional phone numbers for lead generation, image mining, etc.
- Adaptive Strategy and Responsive Design: I am a proponent of an adaptive strategy... one that considers progressive enhancement by the way of a responsive (media queries) layout, and strong mobile consideration in regards to content.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the most important part of a website's search value lies in the sematic value of the HTML. SEO these days is half semantics and half content.
- Search Engine Marketing (PPC) is the act of managing a keywords for a website that will generate clicks via sponsored ads... usually paid for per click (PPC, the lower the better!).
- Asyncronous JavaScript (AJAX): dynamically loading and managing page content.
- e-Commerce: I have made and managed some sites with stores... ranging from custom SSL cert/credit card sites to PayPal Store pages.
- Webkit browser extensions are fun and I whip them up all of the time to solve little problems, or tweak websites I frequent.