Technical Skills

I learnt to program in ASP during my first web development job at Ellipsis Media (now know as dotMailer). I have written a number of high profile sites in ASP including Wateraid, HQ Hair, FAC Capability Portal and made a contribution to the commercial content management system from Ellipsi Media (dotEditor). I have 5 years commercial experience in ASP, focusing in particular on back end systems which interact with a sql server database to power front end sites and administrative reporting areas.

SQL Server is a powerful database solution from Microsoft and I have 5 years experience in designing and implementing back end web databases including the use of stored procedures, indexing and performance optimisation. All of the projects I ave been involved in have needed a database to produce multi user dynamic content and content management and I have learnt best practice database design from day one.
AJAX is a term which refers to refreshing parts of a site with new data which is pulled from the server via javascript and which avoids refreshing the whole page when changes to the data are made. It is often event driven and I used AJAX heavily in the photo management site I wrote for Michael Spry. I have worked in depth with EXT Javascript framework which helps to make sure all code is cross browser compatible as well as providing a rich set of widgets.
Javascript is a programming language with object oriented capabilities and with the rise in understanding of what can be achieved is becoming hugely popular in conjunction with AJAX. I wrote the full Michael Spry photo management user interface in javascript with a sprinkling of ASP Server code and SQL Server stored procedures for data manipulation and storage.
XML is an extensible markup language which means that information can be easily shared among different applications, especially over the internet. This is important when interacting with other systems (such as e-commerce payment gateways.). It is also a great way to deliver information to an app in an ajax environment. I have used XML (and JSON) extensively with michaelspry.com and also used it to collect online sponsorship for Wateraid.
CSS is the what puts the style into any web application and is a complex subject. I have been using CSS now for 5 years and hand code all of my own sites. I understand the differences in browsers and how to make sure that all of the applications I write look the same no matter which browser is used. This is vital in ensuring that all potential users are catered for.
All projects I have worked on have involved hand coding all of the HTML. I never use Frontpage, DreamWeaver or any other HTML production software which means that all the HTML I produce is customised for the job in hand and is efficient and standards compliant. I design using CSS rather than tables.
I have 2 years experience in designing web interfaces and graphics in photoshop. All web images on this site have been produced with photoshop.