About Me
Work
I graduated from Anglia Ruskin University with a first class degree in Enterprise Computing (Computer Science rebranded) in 2006. Since then i’ve gained experience and diversity programming a wide range of systems in PHP for various sources.
I started work after university as a one man IT Department for a company selling batteries via their OSCommerce website. This taught me how to deal with frameworks that others have contributed to and better debug broken code. OSCommerce, as you may well know is a rabbit warren of files and making changes to a shop behond installing the off plugin is no small task!
I left my job to work for the Visium Group (http://www.propertysecrets.net) in 2007 as a PHP Programmer. I spend most of my day extending and maintaining a bespoke PHP framework although with a shrinking team (Credit Crunch) my responsibilities are stretching out a bit into server administration (Windows and Unix) and designing the systems that I am about to write. Although bad for the company, I consider this to be a good opportunity for me because my skills are being extended somewhat. I enjoy designing efficient databases and systems to access them then either writing it them myself or preparing a document so others can do it.
In my spare time I’ve been freelancing doing all sorts, PHP and otherwise. My main focus at the moment is Wordpress because there is a large market using it who are willing to pay for good quality plugins. ‘Your Members’ was the first plugin that myself and Tim Nash from www.newmedias.co.uk released in early 2008. We now have an active forum to deal with and several more projects in the pipeline.
My Kona Shred
Otherwise I’ve been playing with yet more PHP, AJAX, Javascript + JQuery, XML, RSS feeds and maintaining/hosting websites for others. What a life!
Play
When I was at school I used to be a keen rower (sculling). I competed in and around the North West with Queens Park High School Rowing Club in both a coxed quad and a double. I later moved from sculling to rowing in an eight with Royals in Chester. When I was at university I took up running and going to the gym in my spare time.
These days I enjoy Mountain Biking and go whenever I get chance. I built and ride a custom Kona Shred which I have had for a short while now. I have yet to break it so must have done something right!
Short Personal History
Originally from a village called Littleport (Near Camrbidge), I was brought up in Chester in the North West when I was 6 or 7. I went to Queens Park High School and left after my GCSES to go to West Cheshire College to do a BTEC National Diploma in Computing which I got a Distinction for.
Boat being surveyed at Gayton Marina
I decided to go back down south for university and went to Anglia Ruskin University to do a BSc (Hons). I acheived a 1st class degree and wrote my Dissertation on Active Badges designing a small PHP based mapping/tracking system.
Whilst at university, myself and my (now) Wife, Hannah, decided to invest in some property together but couldn’t afford it. So, prompted by yet another property program that featured boats, we decided that we should do the same. We read up on it and then decided to go looking at a few Narrowboats around the country.
Later that week we had bought one and were happily chugging it home from Gayton Marina in Northampton to Orchard Marina in Northwich. It took three or four weekends and a albeit a few mishaps we got it back in one piece. The boat was a bit of a mess and very dated (hence the price) so I decided to completely refit it over one of my summers from university. It was never entirely finished but nothing DIY related ever is!
The second Boat on the way to it's new mooring
After a while and once the refit was complete we decided to move out of the marina and get a new ‘inline’ mooring in Barbridge outside of Crewe. By this time we were both working in or around Crewe to it was a good move. We stayed there for a year or so and then decided to get a newer bigger boat. We got one and luckily sold the old one about the same time although the marina we were in didn’t have any large enough moorings so we moved to another inline mooring near Northwich again. This boat was large enough for pets so we decided to get two rabbits which lived in the saloon area (although sometimes escaped and started demolishing the rest of the boat).
We got married in summer 2007 and went to St Tropez for our honeymoon. When we got back we decided that both the commute from Northwich and an inadequate fire were too much so we bought a house in Crewe. We have now been there for just over a year and live there with the rabbits, 2 tortoises and a cat.
I have picked up quite a few things over the years in woodwork, plumbing, 12 volt electronics and general DIY skills. I am now a bit of a boat fanatic and happily bore people to tears with our exploits at any and all gatherings.
I have quite a busy weekly schedule other than my job(s). Me and Hannah have been learning French since 2006 with a view to move there eventually. I took up the piano in late 2008 and we both sing in the local church choir.
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