In case you haven't guessed, I'm Steve and I make websites



About Me

Hey that's me! Hey there, that's me to the left. This is where I write a novel on how Steve became "Steve", or something like that. It's simple really, I was one of the lucky kids of the 90's that were surrounded with technology at an early age. Growing up when Cable TV, personal computers and the Internet were really becoming mainstream has its advantages. Computer classes through grammar school and programming classes in high school introduced me to a world that would eventually become my career. After some years "finding myself" I got into Web Design in my spare time. Needless to say this hobby turned more and more into a passion until late 2003 when I seriously started pushing a career move. At my first web job I quickly discovered that I was faster and (much to my dismay) better at programming than I was at design. Since then I've focused much of my professional career being the best developer I can be in both frontend and backend environments. Though this doesn't stop me from trying my hand at the occasional website design1 and definitely doesn't impede my desire to provide visually pleasing and practical UI.

This Site

Being a web developer, my online presence has taken several (dozen) forms, and actually a few diferent URLs. Back in 2003 when I was looking for a good URL to call home I was obsessed with a song by P.O.D. for the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack called Sleeping Awake.
A couple searches and a credit card purchase later I was the proud owner of sleepingawake.net, and being the adventurous young man I was I decided to try to host it myself. Of course that didn't last long and 6 months later I got the hosting account i'm still at now (thank goodness for guaranteed price lock).

Interested in the visual history of my site(s)? Wait really? No joke? Well shucks, prepare yourself for a good chuckle…

A Visual History

What I Use

*Nerd Alert*

I'm a huge believer in the Mythical Man-Month and am a self-proclaimed axe-sharpener2. In order to combat these two potential fallbacks I use the following in my daily grind to simplify, enhance, and organize my production.

  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • Adobe Creative Suite
  • Coffee
  • CodeIgniter
  • JQuery
  • Wordpress
  • Joomla

What I Don't Use

*Joke Alert*

I figured as i was listing the things I do use I may as well list some that I don't. The energy drink one is half true, sometimes I'll take a RedBull for the team.

  • Website Templates
  • ASP3
  • Energy Drinks

Footnotes

  1. This site was designed by yours truly so apologies if it makes your eyes bleed.
  2. Axe-sharpening - In software management, coordination is not an afterthought or an ancillary matter: it is the heart of the work, and deciding what tools and methods to use can make or break a project. But getting sidetracked in managing those tools is a potent temptation. A celebrated (and perhaps apocryphal) bit of graffiti from MIT captures this: "I would rather write programs to help me write programs than write programs." Similarly, there is a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." This principle, which found its way into the business advice manual The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, appeals to every programmer's passion for toolmaking. But if it becomes an end in itself, it can drive the best-organized project into a ditch.
  3. P.S. Nothing against ASP, just not my cup'o'joe ya know?