Motivation
This site is something that I have been slowly working on in my spare time. This is where I am able to play with new things that I learn and hopefully build it into some exciting content. Although it started out as just a place to learn the languages that I needed to know for a new job, I feel like things are finally coming together into a worthwhile website, considering the plans I have for the near future.
Plans
The site is still lacking in content, but the structure of the site has come to a point that will allow me to add new features quite easily when I have time for further development. A few things at the top of my list are a photo gallery developed in Ajax and a recommended links section with categories for many of my interests in hopes of providing good information to anyone interested in similar things. Some of my biggest interests are cars/trucks and computers, so you can expect to see a section dedicated to those soon as well.
Development
The site has been developed using php and is database driven with a mysql back end. I built my own object-oriented php framework that has served me quite well both on this site and the University's site that I am responsible for at work, even though it may not be quite as robust as other frameworks available on the internet at this point. It has allowed me to effectively use a Model-View-Controller (MVC) approach to developing content. Smarty templates and CSS stylesheets manage the view, while the rest of the framework manages the majority of the controller aspect. AJAX has emerged as an exciting technology, and am working to incorporate Ajax features into the site in some places where they are appropriate.
Standards Compliance
Although I had developed some previous websites in very basic static HTML, I considered myself to have been fairly new to web development conventions when I started this site. Because of this, I made an effort to learn the proper standards and conventions early in attempt to get up to speed. The programmer in me strives to ensure that my code is correct in as many ways as possible, so I have made a point to validate the entire site against XHTML 1.1 and CSS3. As any web developer comes to know, the newest, best standards are not always the right fit for the web. For reasons that I have learned since first developing the site, I have changed the DOCTYPE used on the site to HTML 4.01 Strict. However, I still work to make sure everything still validates against the more restrictive XHTML DTD.
Support
I develop entirely on a PC and therefore only have the opportunity to test in Windows and Linux. Since this site will also have a fairly limited audience without the demands of a commercial website, I have decided to make things slightly easier on myself by supporting only Internet Explorer 6+ and Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is far more standards compliant so if you are not already using it, I highly recommend downloading it here.
As a bit of a side note, since the lowest resolution installed by default by modern operating systems is 800x600, I have set the margins of the pages to display properly on displays of that resolution and higher.
I only guarantee compatibility with what has been mentioned above. However, I am not at all against fixing any problems outside the boundaries of my support. If you run across a problem that I may have missed for any reason, please report it to me through this contact form, and I will do what I can to correct the issue. I always appreciate any feedback that you can provide.
Subscribe
There is an RSS feed available for the site so that you can be informed of anything new almost immediately. Currently, only site updates are included in the feed, but there is more to come soon.
Hosting
I've decided to host my site on DreamHost for a number of reasons:
