About Me…

Portrait photo of myself. I'm an idealistic, young web developer devoted to improving the accessibility, usability and overall quality of the web as a whole. I strongly believe and promote that websites should be allowed to degrade gracefully in older, less capable and/or less standards-compliant browsers, such as Netscape 4.x or Internet Explorer — the content must be accessible, but the presentation will not always be perfect.

I believe the web is a global, interoperable and accessible medium. It must be open to everyone regardless of the software, platform or device they are using, and regardless of their limitations and/or disabilities. The best way to achieve this is through adherence to all the relevant standards.

I am passionate about open access to the web and the W3C’s stated aim: to “lead the web to its full potential”. I seek to uphold and promote the use of all the relavant specifications, standards and recommendations to meet accessibility guidelines and to improve the quality and user-friendliness of the web as a whole.

I grew up in Parkes, a small town in central NSW, Australia. Those of you who've seen the movie, “The Dish”, will recognise Parkes as the home of the Parkes Radio Telescope. I've been around computers, and on the internet much longer than most people my age, that I know. So, it was only natural that I would eventually head into a career working with computers. I developed my first website during my senior years of high school, where I was taught the very presentational techniques that I'm against using nowadays.

At the end of 2003, I completed a 3 year course of Information Technology, studying various programming languages, including C++ and Java; databases and website construction. However, most of what I learned about web development has been self taught over the years by delving into the specifications, reading countless recommendations and articles about how to use standards to their full potential and listening to what the experts had to say.

From April to October 2004, I worked as a Graduate Web Developer at The Farmshed and undertook a complete rebuild of the entire site. For this, I did my best to ensure the site was completely standards compliant according to all relavant W3C recommendations and guidelines, including Level A accessibility guidelines. Most of the site does validate, but I am no longer in any control of the site, so I cannot guarentee, nor expect that it will continue to do so.