About This Site

Why I build this Website

My website exists primarily to publish my web design and development projects and share advice and tips that I picked up from other Web Designers and Programmers. However, it was also conceived as a means of demonstrating a website that uses structured markup (XHTML) and CSS.

Another reason for building this website was to provide other webmasters with useful resources, such as free scripts and tools that i've gathered over the years. Some visitors have found the tools useful and the information I provided have helped them learn and improve on there own web development projects. Some visitors have not, mainly due to the fact that they have came across similar tools on other websites. The tools that I have published are the tools that I prefer to use and personnally like and that I have used over the years.

If you have any recommendations for new tools or questions about my current list of tools and other resources, please let me know.

Site Technology

My main aim was to create a fast, functional and individually designed website that adheres to the W3C standards.

In order to achieve my goal, all pages on my website are built using a mixture of OOPHP with AJAX, XHTML and CSS which, together, have many advantages:

Hand Coding: I don't believe in using Software packages to build websites. They produce too much crap and redundant lines of code. I write all my code using a text editor called Programmers Notepad .
Cleaner Code: Adherence to strict guidelines results in cleaner code. All extraneous or ambiguous elements are eliminated, so pages are smaller, load faster, and render correctly.
Interoperability and Accessibility: XHTML is currently readable by the greatest number of browsers, devices and assistive technologies like screen readers. Accessibility is quickly becoming a legal issue.
Search Engine Friendly Code: XHTML produces pages that search engine spiders find easy to understand. There are no presentational elements or bloated code to confuse the spiders, so they'll crawl everything that matters and rank you accordingly.
Design Consistency: With CSS, the same style elements can be applied to every page of a website. From the first page forward, your visitors will be presented with a consistent design scheme, building their comfort level and effectively promoting your brand.
Easy Maintenance: Changes to CSS web page designs are simple. Instead of having to go back and alter every single page of your site, with CSS only the relevant style sheets have to be updated, saving hours of work and limiting the introduction of possible errors.

I used a number of JavaScript effect libraries such as jQuery External Link , script.aculo.us , Lightbox JS , Prototype and moo.fx . I also used the Magpie RSS PHP Parser class to handle all my RSS feed processing and caching with the PHP Trackback and Akismet classes for trackbacking and spam filtering functionality for my blog.

About Sean

I am a 25 year old web designer and developer originally from Roscrea External Link , a small village in the north of county Tipperary, Republic of Ireland. I love to visit Roscrea, but I don't think I could live there again. I'm something of a believer in "you can't go home again". It would be too strange, I think.

My involvement and excitement with web design and development tends to blur the boundaries between work and having fun playing. I'm particularly grateful that I get paid to do stuff that I'd do for my own enjoyment.

I have been in the industry professionally for 5 years. I am still gaining the knowledge needed to create fully functional static or dynamic websites that meet the requirements of my clients. I don't believe that anyone can have gained the knowledge since Web Standards and Technology change so quick.

Web design and development has been a hobby of mine since the age of 15, and a profession from the age of 18. I'm mostly self learn't although I have a 1st class honour's degree in Computing from the Robert Gordon University External Link in Aberdeen, Scotland. I enjoy what I do and believe that this shows in web design portfolio.

I have lots of hobbies and interests. I enjoy a round of golf and I try to get out as much as I can. I'm a big fan of cycling (road racing) and I love to watch it on TV (esp. Tour de France, Tour of Spain, Tour of Italy et al). I'm a big Wine drinker (even though i'm only 25) and I attend Wine tasting events as much as I can. I am also interested in Linux and Unix. I run both Fedora and Ubuntu on my spare laptops so I can teach myself more about these Operating systems. I've also got a Solaris 10 Operating system on DVD somewhere around the house but I have not installed this on any machine yet.

In my spare time, I like to contribute my skills and knowledge on an online Community of IT Professionals called Experts Exchange External Link where I volunteer my time to help other members around the world troubleshoot their Programming and other related IT problems remotely. I currently hold a masters certificate in JavaScript , Web Development , PHP Scripting Language , MySQL Server , Macromedia Flash , Internet Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) External Link and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) at this site. View my Answer History .

You can also find me on a number of social networking sites such as Twitter External Link , Flickr , Digg , Delicious , Upcoming , Pownce and Last.fm .

Services Provided

Although i'm based in the Aberdeen, I aim to provide web design and development services to anyone who requires them regardless of their location.

I am currently accepting projects, however, as I am in full time employment, any business regarding freelance work will be conducted on evenings and weekends. If you would like me to work on a project, please drop me a line detailing timescales, budgets and any specific details.