About
When I was 13 years old, I had just entered the realm of the internet. I discovered emails, Napster, and personal websites. I was amazed that people created graphics, and set up a website to where anyone could go to it and visit it. So I started to try to find out how they started up their websites. I found some tutorials online for basic html, and soon discovered free hosts. Eventually I bought HTML for Dummies books, and would try to recreate the examples in the books. I thought frames were the coolest thing ever!
For a few years of my high school years, my passion and dedication was for a fansite I was running for a band. I ran it with a good online friend of mine for a few years. I did the design, integrated it with MovableType (and to think at the time, it was so frustrating trying to set it up!) and we updated it almost on a daily basis. Our hard work paid off, because we got the chance to get free press-passes to shows, and I was able to get more involved with design. I had the chance to redesign a small local record label in California (he was best friends with one of the guys in the band that we had a fansite for!) Soon that led to me doing other websites for other local bands around the US.
Of course, my demise at the time was Myspace. A lot of bands just didn’t want to pay for the upkeep of a site, so I stopped doing work for other people. I then just focused on working on my own personal websites, and other projects I wanted to work on. By that time it was already 2004, and I had already had a few years of experience under my belt. Running a personal website at the time, I was able to get more involved with various content management systems, learned what xhtml was, and also started using CSS to replace tables.
In October of 2005, I decided a new project I wanted to start up would be a hosting company. At first I didn’t think I would really go anywhere with it, I just wanted something small to work on and to see how it went. By the time the first year was over, I was just so surprised that I was able to get it as far as I did. Now I’m coming up on three years of running it, and is still a major focus. Alongside with running the hosting company, I decided to start focusing more on webdesign as a career. In the summer of 2007, I made the decision to start working as a freelance webdesign.
I love designing websites. It’s been 9 years, and it’s still a huge part of my life and something I’m still extremely passionate about. Although webdesign is my life, I still do have other hobbies! I love photography, playing video games (like Halo 3, Gears of War), as well as rereading the Harry Potter books over and over again, spending time with friends, and of course blogging!