About Me...
I am a PHP developer based in Leeds, presently in full-time employment working for All Points North.
Please note: s/geek/nerd/ig as appropriate :)
First and foremost, I am a geek. I not only admit it, but am proud of it!
I started writing code around 10 years ago, and it's remained one of my favourite things to do. I even got a job doing it.
My first language was PHP which was used to develop some very basic school sites for Moorside Junior and Ripon Grammar. For University however, I wanted to try out the software side of programming and decided to do a degree in software engineering on which I learnt C#.NET, C and C++, as well as best practices and techniques from project start to end (not to mention keeping up with PHP and learning ASP.NET, geeky I know).
Anyway. After Uni, I moved to Leeds, and quickly found others "like me". This came in the form of GeekUp (heh) and WYLUG. I had been part of geeky meetups and projects before such as Hull LUG and FreeSide where I had the fortune of getting to know Wesley Mason, Jonty Wareing, Jono, Tom and Mat, all of whom were FreeSiders, Linux users and general geeks, but Leeds was my first serious go at "RL" geeking.
After a while, Wes decided to start Leeds2600, a chapter of the global 2600 Hackers Quarterly which started me off with an interest in hardware hacking.
Several months later, Jonty (along with Russ Garret) started their bid for UK Hackerspaces, starting with London, and later coerced me into starting a Hackspace following here in Leeds, which has gone very well (check out the site if you're interested in joining us).
There are some other great events in Leeds that deserve a mention too, such as Leeds PHP, Leeds Ruby Thing and Social Networking Zero.
Outside of geek time (if there is such a thing), I like meeting up with Leeds peeps, playing the good ol' 360 and Wii (well you can't like games and not have Zelda can you?), playing out of tune guitar, heading to gigs, getting involved in odd events like origami, and believe it or not... cooking!
So. That's me. I'm generally a nice guy, and I certainly don't bite*, although I may have a slight addiction to a certain fire bird, so feel free to get in touch with me.
