I have always been interested in computers. Even before the initial crude commercial systems were available to the general public in the mid-1970s, I remember avidly following the various build-it-yourself designs that appeared in UK electronics magazines such as Practical Electronics, Electronics Today International and Elektor. I even remember Practical Wireless magazine drifting away from its radio roots around this time to dabble in arcane matters. (For more about these magazines and dedicated computer magazines such as Personal Computer World see the Early UK Computer Magazines page.)
In the 1980s, after a small stint writing programs for the Commodore C64 and BBC B Micros, I
became involved in programming Burroughs/Unisys B2x series
computers initially using Pascal
and then C under their CTOS
operating system. Later, some of the programs were ported to the PCs of the time running under MS-DOS
(Windows was still at verion 2 back then and no-one was really developing for it). In the 1990s I did
an Applied Computing degree at the University of Easy Access East Anglia attaining a
first class BSc. degree. In the latter part of the 90s I worked at the local Training and Enterprise
Council in their IT department and started developing their intranet using the rather crude tools
available at the time under Windows NT.
In 1999 I took a post with
my first dedicated web-based employer, AngliaCampus*, as
their Senior Programmer. AngliaCampus was part of the Anglia TV group of companies along
with its sister company, Anglia Multimedia. Initially I wrote many of their Java applets
such as the specific applets used for the
Ladybird Families
and Countdown
activities for primary age children. Other applets were more general purpose such as one that was
used for this nutrition
unit.
In 2000/1 Granada took over the Anglia companies. This resulted in the eventual closure of AngliaCampus as a going concern in Norwich (and subsequently they did a hatchet job on much of the TV company here as well). As Campus ground to a halt I worked on the original incarnation of the GLPD web site where I developed the back-end administration system using PHP and MySQL running on an Apache web server - a system now more commonly known as LAMP.
(*The AngliaCampus site is now very temperamental and is often unavailable - but that's Granada for you!)
In 2002/3 I used what I had learned to develop a set of predominatly OO-based PHP library routines to make interactive web site building a far easier task. For example, it took only a few days to create the Venture Farm Animal Trust site which rehomes cats and other animals. The library has been under constant development since then and is now used as the basis for all the websites I have since created. For more information about the library and its contents see DLib PHP Library for general info and DLib PHP Library API for the individual function calls - these links are also available on the menu to the left.
Since 2005 I have been self-employed and have produced sites both directly and for other companies such as BMSoftware and Advisory Matters. The sites I have designed over the past few years include:
- Company sites such as Advisory Matters and Made in Mangreen
- Several local Schools
- E-Commerce sites such as Summer Garden Buildings, Poppyland and Partnership Matters
- Music sites. For example: Broeknrule, Charlotte Eve.
- Sites that use 'Mash Ups' such as Panoramic Earth, Norwich Bed & Breakfast, Cromer Carnival, This is Cromer, and, again, Poppyland.
If you would like a quote to build a web site then please contact me.
For more details on the technologies implemented on some of the web sites mentioned above then please see the next page: Web Technologies.
