Introduce yourself

As this is a new forum, I thought it would be nice if we all introduce ourselves. So come on, say hello and tell us a bit about yourself? What's your name, where do you come from and most importantly, why are you interested in web design.

Sam England

I'm Sam England, Age 16, I am doing A levels at the moment but want to go on to University to study Business/IT/Law subject(s).
I own a website that I am trying to develop, primarily so I can learn some web technologies and get a feel for running a website, and over the past few months, It has provided me with just that, and has proven to be quite popular too... It doesnt have the best design, and best of code, but Im working on improving it! (www.ivirtuaforums.com).
So thats how I got interested in Web Design, The field just interests me really, and I found this when I got my iPod at the start of the year, so keep up the podcast guys, It really is a great resource for me!

Im using a very modded phpbb, but Vanilla is certainly amazing, with all the addons, It really is looking great so far, keep it up here too, and I think the amount of categories is just right, as is the look and feel of the site.

Thanks,

Sam England

boagworld

Hi Sam,
nice to have you onboard :) Hope you get a lot out of the forum... presuming anybody joins ;)

danny

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the approval and welcome.

I hope to be of value to the community and with my experience on xHTML and CSS for the past few years if you have a questions feel free to ask!

Regards,

Danny

amorphic8

I'm Rich Cirminello.
I live in New Jersey, USA and work in New York City as a Web Design and Development consultant.

I am also part of the adjunct faculty at New York University and at the Art Institute of New York City. At NYU I teach courses in streaming media and audio production for film and television; at AiNYC I teach streaming media and webcasting, principles of audio, and moonlight occasionally teaching CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript.

My company, amorphicmedia.com, has traditionally produced small web sites for entertainers, promoters, and talent agents in the New York City area, but has recently moved on to consulting on bigger projects for hospitals and larger corporations.

I have only started listening to Paul's podcasts in the past week when my 2005 MiniCooper S was in the shop having some body work done and I was forced to take the trains into NYC.

Paul, keep up the good work!

EDIT: I was born in 1972, not 1996. Just thought you'd like to know, Paul. Feel better now?

EDIT: In June of 2007 I was recruited by Yahoo! in Sunnyvale California and was relocated to the west coast. I no longer teach at NYU or the AiNYC, but when I am not coding up the front end of Y! Finance, I am having a great time with phototography and cycling!!

boagworld

Thanks Rich, nice to have you on board.

burley25

Hey I am Matt,

I am 17 and I live in Warrington in the North West of the Uk and I own and develop Expandgame.com (Not done yet just trying to get the css for a wordpress blog sorted so I can dynamically update my site)

Anyway, I have been making websites since I was ten when I made a Roller Coaster Tycoon website using Geocities :p.

I read .net magazine very frequently and buy many many css and javascript books to see what I can learn. I am currently in the process of learning PHP so I can have much, much greater control on how my Wordpress Blog site looks.

I study Multimedia at Warrington Colligiate, this involves Webdesign, 3D MAX design and Video editing as well as many other things.

P.S I think my personal tutor is going to write to you Paul, Lol, because I asked her to write to ask you could you come do a presentation to my class on what it takes to be a web designer these days. If thats Ok with you. LOL :P.

Anyway I really really like the forum. And I hope to be a member here for ages.

P.P.S I love the podcast and visit this site all the time.

matthew

Hi, I'm Mattew.
I'm 23 and Live in Alabama, in the States. I hope your forum grows and grows. I've set a few of them up in the past and now have first hand knowledge of forum failure.
BTW, love the podcast.

chris.garrett

Hey everyone, I'm 17 aswell, dropped out of school to run my own web design business which has since serviced clients including CNET and Boxxet. Although my staple work comes from local firms, where I'm based in Gloucestershire. I love producing simple yet eye-catching designs which work well under the hood aswell. I'm a minimalist at heart :) Been listening to Boagworld for a few months now, unfortunately Headscape won't outsource me work though :(

Nick

Evening all! I'm 21 and a freshly-graduated Geography Uni student. I've co-run a small web firm for the last 5 years or so through school and Uni, and now work as a technical consultant in London for a global digital agency, pushing the wonders of web standards for some pretty big clients. If only Headscape had advertised the web designer position a few months earlier, and my CV would have been on your desk the next morning!

A long time listener of the podcast, but first time poster on anything Boagworld!

AyCee

Hi! I'm Ali, I'm (very nearly) 24 and I've from near Derby in the UK. I've been using the Internet and creating sites for the best part of 10 years now (as evidenced by some very dodgy websites created in the past!), I graduated last year with a degree in Internet Computing and have been working as a Web Designer (html/css coder rather than designer but that's my official title) for a successful company in Derby for the past 15 months.

I've been listening to the podcast for several months now and find it very entertaining as well as useful. I tend to listen to it either on the train to work and back or while I'm in the gym - the longer you guys talk about a topic the longer I stay in the gym so thanks for that!

Keep up the great work!

Anton

Greetings all, I'm Anton. As a man aging well into my 30's, I can say that I've honestly been doing this a very long time. Before the first dot-boom I was creating dual-platform Multimedia content on CD-Rom. These days, I create illustrations, logos, and yes... even a website once in awhile. Also, I've been a listener since episode 1!

By day, I work for MultiAd creating interfaces for web applications, by night I take care of my kids, work on a little freelance, and game when I need a little down-time (WoW, HL2).

Anyway, as a side note, I'm going to start doing both a screencast of my design work, and a podcast... so, I'll keep everyone posted for when I launch that. Right now I'm working on a realign of my site, because it desperately needs some usability attention!

Ludwig

Hello all ;

My name is Ludwig Wendzich. I live down-under in the great country that brought your Lord of the Rings, The Last Samurai and King Kong....still don't know? Well I live in New Zealand (",). I am 15 years old. Been making websites (in terms of HTML) since then (ouch that hurt >.< ) Now-a-days I'm here.

I go to secondary (High) school, (got 3 years left) and I'm not planning on dropping out. I want to to go AUT and take their newest course in Digital Design.

I've been following you guys from the start and love it :)

That's me :)

Keri

Hi! I'm Keri, a web and computer geek to the end. I started with PC Logo on my Dad's 286 Sanyo when 765k was the most data you could have in one place. I've recently graduated from college. I've taken a lesser-paying job as a lab manager, but it has a few perks like continuing to work in my field (biology), bringing my dog to work, giving me a chance to publish, and interacting with intelligent, easy-going academics. I listen to boagworld's podcast while I work away on the microscope or keep up with other fairly mindless activities.

I've taken up web design in my free time as a means of raising my standard of living (possibly), but it's really just something that interests me a lot. I began my independent study of knitting and web design in earnest back in May. I've gotten pretty good with the knitting thing, but I've redone my personal website about four times in as many months to incorporate new features and concepts I've learned. In all, I'm very eager to learn what I can, and I've found boagworld.com a wonderful resource. I, for one, have been anticipating this forum for a few weeks. So, refer your friends! Community and collaboration are beautiful things.

elitefireninja

Hello! My name is Billy, I'm a kid from the States. I'm taking up web design as a hobby, not a profession. I have started doing TRANSCRIPTS for boagworld, but it's a big job! Please help me along with the whole boagworld community by collaborating to make transcripts! ;)

Ludwig

Hey Billy, I almost had a heart attack when I saw the word transcripts as I thought you had/were devloped/ing a transcript directory like I had just done.

It's good to see you are making transcripts, saves Marcus and Paul from shedding out money to get them transcripted :)

Crimson Fox

Hello People.
The name's Russ. I'm living out here in Australia.
I suppose my official title would be graphic designer because I've been doing that for about 10 years now.

But in recent years I've been breaking out into other related areas. Web design and construction, 3D animation, DVD promos and promotion in general. Got into CSS about 6 months ago and have been listening to Boagworld ever since. Slowly getting my head around PHP and Actionscripting so I can get some basic CMS's working.

I'm currently working full time for someone else and slowly getting my own business together on the side. You can see the beginnings here at Crimson Fox Creative Studios.

Look forward to speaking to you all.

Speak to you soon.

Russ.

benj

Hi All,

Name's Ben, originally from the deep, dark North Yorkshire Moors, where my nearest neighbour was a mile away and only said one word: "Baaaahh".

I escaped from there some years ago, and after working in Leeds for several years as a graphic designer, landed a job as a graphic designer in The Bahamas. Within a year, I partnered with my then-employer to form a web design company (http://www.thymeonline.com/), and now, heading a 'massive' 3 man (well, 2 men, one woman) team, run a pretty successful business.

Proudest moment: The day I launched islandbrides.com - a site developed entirely by me, for me, in my spare time, with the help of my wife who wrote much of the starting content.

I'm a web junkie, a Mac junkie, a very, very proud daddy. I try and share whatever knowledge I can with whomever asks for help, and endeavour to ensure that every single day of my life I learn something new.

Came across the BW podcast a few days ago, and its become standard listening on my way to work as I catch up. While lots of the stuff in there I know, there are always nuggets that I don't, and that's worth its weight in gold. (Though I did think the bits on SEO and Google rankings were a bit 'misinformed' - happy to expand if need be!)

Looking forward to joining in here and watching the new forum grow. Keep up the great work.

Ben

PS: We're hiring!

mescutia

Boy, some of you guys are making me feel old. And I'm only 32! :)

Anyway, I'm Mike. I live in southern New Hampshire (about an hour north of Boston), and have been attempting to get fully into the web design/development business for a while now. I even attempted my own web design business (co-owned with a friend of mine) a few years ago, but the lack of business skills and an advertising budget kept the business from being anywhere near viable. I subsequently attempted to do freelance work on my own, only to fall flat on my face even faster. I've also been working extremely part-time (read: once in a blue moon) for another company, spending way too much time struggling with FrontPage templates (not my idea -- honest!); working the occasional temp job; and trying to find work despite the fact that way too many IT jobs "require" a four-year degree.

As you can probably tell from my portfolio, graphics are not my strong point. I'm trying to refocus myself on the coding/markup side, but my PHP skills could use work and I've let my JavaScript skills collect virtual dust, but improving both of those are in my plans for the near future.

Why am I interested in web design and development? Well, it's probably because the field allows me to work with computers in a way that benefits other people in a fairly direct way. To me, that's more interesting than, for example, working on code that handles low-level networking processes.

I've actually been listening to the Boagworld podcast since somewhere around episode 8 or 9, though I started at the beginning and listened to the first eight episodes in about a week. I've been too lazy to visit the Flickr forum, but this new forum gives me the opportunity to jump in. Paul and Marcus, I'll take this opportunity to belatedly congratulate you on fifty episodes. :)

Mike

shiftthis

Howdy Paul and all...

My name is Marcus (no, not that Marcus) and I'm 27 and from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada! I've been a fan of the Boagworld podcast since it's early days and have become an avid listener ever since. I work for a small design firm in a small city as a web designer and developer - though design is still my stronger suit at the moment. I now pride myself on designing my clients websites using web standards and accessibility and I credit Paul's little podcast as one of the main reasons for convincing me and my employers to realize why these practices are such a good thing. I am still learning new tips to help with designing my clients sites every week from Paul! I have even managed to get a company paid trip to Florida in November to see Paul (and others of course) at Refresh06!

Anyway I have a blog called ShiftThis and I am a big WordPress fanatic!

Nice forums!

shanecolvin

Hello everyone!

Mike, I agree...being a young-hearted 33 yr old, I felt a bit elderly whilst scanning through the ages of those participating in the forum :-) Then again, I believe Paul and Sir Marcus are no "spring-chickens".

Anyhow, my name is Shane Colvin, I am the head IT engineer at the University of Oslo, Norway, working with communications, new media and webdevelopment.

I've been an avid listener to the podcast ever since the "awkward" beginnings before Sir Marcus and Paul's inflated ego ;-)

I hope this forum proves as useful as the Boagworld blog and podcast.

Thanks Paul and Marcus!

alex

Hi everyone!!!

First off, love the podcast. It's very informative and funny.

It's good to find a board where I can get some answers to any webdesign questions I have.

My name is Alex, I'm 26 and from Scotland. Just finished my degree in Computer Networks (but now I kinda wish I had done the webdesign degree).

Currently have a lot of spare time on my hands while looking for a job so I'm taking the opportunity to read a few books and mess about creating a few sites.

deadlyhifi

hi all,

I'm Tom, from Leeds UK, and am 27. A nice mix of people with different skillsets turning up here, should be a great resource.

I run www.jimmyteenstv.com which is a website for young cancer patients to submit video diaries of themselves going through cancer, so they can help others. In constant development as my knowledge catches up with my intentions...

Apart from that I do freelance web design and development with a trusty partner in crime.

I like to get some fish and chips and listen to the boag-cast as I walk through the park. Then I get home with the best of intentions, fire up my RSS reader, get stuck on engadget and forget what I 'urgently' wanted to check out.

jedi58

Hello,

I'm David from Leicester, and a fairly new listener to your podcast - very good I must say. I run my own site built off my own CMS over at http://www.newearthonline.co.uk

Leesy

My turn! My name's Lee, I'm 24 and I live in Cambridge, UK. I'm a Java & web developer working for a company that provides search solutions to various other groups. Like most people, I created my first really poor website about 10 years ago. Looking back on it now just makes me chuckle :)

Anyway, I hope to be able to help people out with their coding problems as it's nice to help people and it's good practice for me!

[MC]

Hi I'm Mark and I work for IBM UK as an application developer. I started playing with HTML/JavaScript back in the late 90s when frames were all the rage.

My areas of expertise are server side development, databases, operating systems and beer.

boagworld

My name is Paul Boag, I'm 35(!) years old and I am a recovering web designer...

Seriously all, thanks for pitching up. Its nice to have you all hear and I havent even announced it on the show yet! This could be a busy forum!

danny

hear here ;)

It's good to have a forum like this though Paul. To many web dev type forums out there cover way to many things and do get a bit much.

This forum is also good as its not just about web dev/web design, but also covers of the 'afters' such as the day to day running etc.

Keep up the good work,

Danny

gerardmcgarry

Hi folks - I'm Gerard and I'm a Web Designer/Blogger from Northern Ireland. I've been working with websites for over 10 years now, and I try to adopt a 'holistic' approach to web projects: Standards-based design, programming & database development, search engine optimisation and website marketing. I won't do a blatant link to my site, but if you do a little search for "Scribble Designs" you'll probably find me easily enough!

Anyway, congrats to Paul for launching the forum. I promise to drop in now and again. Good to see a UK web design forum being launched!

dbloete

Hi there, my name is Dennis and I'm from Bremen, Germany.
I'm currently studying Digital Media at the University of Bremen and two years ago I finished my training as a Media Designer in an internet agency.
My focus is on webdevelopment and standards-based design, if you like to, you can check out my portfolio at http://dennisbloete.de/.

Bye,
Dennis

P.S.: Do I have to mention, that I'm a huge fan of the podcast? ;)

boagworld

Yes Dennis, it is compulsory!

Ratsoap

Hello I'm Tim

I work for a multimedia company based in the Orkney islands, but work mostly from Edinburgh. I do a lot of xhtml and css, but my main passion is ASP.

I started about 6 years ago mainly doing CD based stuff with Director, but have gradually shifted over to web stuff, and I have to say I enjoy it a lot more.

frank

hello all...

My name is Frank and 35 (tied for oldest so far) and live in Philadelphia, USA and have dabbled in web design/development for a couple years. I created 2 websites for a local computer club to help myself learn web design in JavaScript (http://www.javascriptworkshop.com) and ASP.NET (http://www.aspdotnetworkshop.com).

There is so much to learn, but I'm getting there...slowly :)

Great podcast Paul, the best on the net. Looking forward to saying "hi" at Refresh06!

swurv

Hi

My name is Rudi. I've always had a creative side and stumbling into html several years ago allowed me an outlet where I immediately felt at home.
Always a hobby, i'm now looking to develop my skills a little further and offer my services to small / startup businesses.
I've recently had the 'eureka' moment with css layout and thank paul's podcast for focusing my attention.

I'm a partner in a fitness equipment hire company http://www.ownhomefitness.co.uk and built the site myself.
My philosophy and aim is to build websites that achieve their main aims... and look remotely cool too.

boagworld

@ Frank - make sure you say hello! Nearer the time I will think about somekind of formal meet up. It would nice to all get together.

firebird

Hi all,

My name's Ruth, I live in the south of England (recently moved back from NYC). After many a long year as a tech support engineer I'm taking a swing at designing web sites for money rather than fun so I can actually see my nearly-3-year-old daughter grow up. I'll post my home URL when I feel it's good enough, I won't say 'when it's finished' because I think we all know how that goes ;o)

Ryan

Hey everyone!

I am Ryan, I am a 18yr old Web Developer / Student, and I am currently studying Computing for Business Applications (With a sandwich year) at Manchester University. I have been creating websites since I was about 13, however in the past 2 years I have worked for a small company in Grantham as a part-time Web Developer / Designer / Maintanence Guy / Coffee Maker.

My current project is www.thewinegod.com (About 5% complete) however I cannot give out full details about it until it is complete.

A lot of the podcasts have helped me a great deal in getting to where I am today, so cheers Paul & Marcus!

Colourpool

Howdy From the sunny North East England :0)

Im 22 and a Web designer (code and design), been doing it for around 5 years now. I work for the county council Web team on the Graphics team, its not fantasticaly interesting work but i am forced into using standards and all... i really enjoy the work i do freelance the most for a bloke in Darlington. www.sound-guides.com is the current project, its still a little rough and its not Particularly accesseble (sorry :P). but you know its pretty :)

I'm pretty abitious (spelling checker please!), and im always willing help anyone who ask's. I belive good will goes along way.

Anywho back to work for me! wooo Broken links to find and fix...

Dan

simnom

Good day one an all from a rather rainy West Sussex, weathers a bit cack but hey you can't have everything. I'm a 31 and a full time web dev geek and try to keep myself entertained with various bits of freelance stuff on the side.

Right then, off to create a Marcus fan-club thread!

benj

This isn't a good sign.

I've just read through all the posts since mine about how some folk feel ancient in here....

Well, I didn't mention it before, but I'm 36.

I believe that gives me the dubious honour of being the closest to senility so far.

(sigh) Oh well....

boagworld

Dont panic. Marcus is older ;)

danny

not by much though eh? ;)

Danny

benj

@baogworld: That makes me feel better.

@THiNK: So much for feeling better!

: (

Cliffius

Hey everyone. My name is Cliff, I'm 22, and I graduate from the University of Florida this spring. Right now I am doing web development as a *cough*unpaid*cough* intern at http://www.trimarkproperties.com. Please don't view the source, because it will make you cry. I've been working for about a month on redoing the entire site and bringing it up to web standards, thanks to this site. Hopefully I'll be done soon.

albertrosa

Good day,

Name's Albert Rosa from New York City, NY.

I am a 25 year Old, Mobile Developer. I have developed software for approximately 1 year now for the National Kidney Foundation. As a pass time I try to dabble here and there on web technologies, mostly coding not design. Haven't done much but have been very active on widget development for the Opera Systems.
I also keep a small status blog and post code that may seem useful to some one I hope at http://my.opera.com/albertrosa/blog I may have came into the game late but that doesn't stop me from finishing strong!

Much love to boagworld you guys just keep the inspiration coming!

Thank you,
Albert Rosa

dieter

Howdy -- Dieter from the savage netherworld that is Florida, USA, here. I've been a web developer for a long time now, but have only recently launched ubermondo, my personal website.

Ubermondo is built around tiny, a mini-CMS that I've developed in Ruby on Rails. Tiny's site will be launching soon...

Thanks,
Dieter

stanton

Hey all,

Stanton from West Yorkshire popping in to say hello, been listening to the podcast for a few months now, picking up loads of handy tips and ideas for my online community website http://www.homeofmuppets.com :)

Mark Stephenson

Hi, I'm Mark, 34, a web developer living in the Northwest of England. I started out as an electrical engineer after graduating from JMU (way back in the past) before moving into programming, particularly database design, gained a second degree from the OU in software engineering before branching out into developing for the web. For the past two years I've been developing my front end skills.

Reading these comments I didn't realise so many boagworld users were so young. It's good to see new blood getting into this game.

AA

Hi everyone, I'm Andrew, 28 living in Lancaster in the NW. Just started up my own business designing and developing small business sites so found the podcasts really helpful over the last 6 months or so! Spent the years since university doing various things but decided to follow web design after selling generally rubbish, overpriced, non-standards web sites for one of the 'big boys' who shall remain nameless!

Also studying for the CIW certification, currently battling on with PERL and PHP although can see XHTML and CSS becoming my main strength. Thanks for the podcasts guys....keep up the good work!

Nick

(Mark Stephenson) Reading these comments I didn't realise so many boagworld users were so young. It's good to see new blood getting into this game.

I'm 21 and feel old - we've just had an 18 year-old contractor finish at work!

While it's good to see new blood, it's also great to see old dogs learning new (web standards) tricks ;-)

mikeroberts

Hey everyone! I'm Mike, 23, from Austin, Texas, which, thankfully, is the most un-texas part of texas :) My real job is as a software developer, mostly .Net Web Applications. On the side I've been helping my graphic designer fiance put together the sites she designs. I'm also an aspiring professional Lindy Hopper, the original form of Swing dancing from 1930's Harlem (www.thelindyproject.com). Eventually I'd like to go freelance and work with my fiance, but that's a ways down the line.

-Mike

P.S. Please ask me about Lindy Hop, its a real passion of mine, and I love to help people learn what it is.