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How I got started in Coldfusion

After reading some of the other stories of how people got started in Coldfusion, I decided to add my own story to the mix.

At the beginning of 2008, I was ending a freelance contract Joomla/PHP development job with DSA Consulting in Sacramento, CA. On top of that I had moved back to Maryland (my home state) after 8 years in Sacramento. As my contract was winding down I was looking for work locally and my dear sweet wife saw a job posting on Craigslist for a Web Developer position about 15 minutes from our place. I read the post and was skeptical, since it mentioned Coldfusion and I had never used it before. However, my wife with the utmost confidence in my skills pushed me to apply for the position.

I sent in my resume and a small cover letter and received a positive reply and setup a phone interview. I explained that I definitely had not ever used Coldfusion, but I also explained I was willing to try. So after a face to face interview I was hired. I started working in Coldfusion in early April 2008, by August I had created a Coldfusion based content management system (modeled on Joomla) to run their intranet.

I'm still working there today and I'm still using Coldfusion everyday, it definitely makes developing and maintaining 6 different websites much easier.

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Download Resume

Some Facts

  • I have a Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design that I received from California State University, Sacramento.
  • I don't have a Masters Degree although the thought has crossed my mind.
  • I don't like the Papyrus type face and I am partial to Caslon and Helvetica Neue.
  • I have served in both the Army Reserves and the Active Army, 4 years with each.
  • I had a Top Secret clearance while in the Reserves because I was a Secure Communications Repairer at the time.
  • The FBI once questioned my neighbors about my personal activities and other miscellaneous things (see previous bullet for why).

Current language

At the moment I am primarily working in Coldfusion. I'm really actually enjoying it more than I originally thought I would.

About

Currently..
I work for Keya Inc. as a Web Designer/Developer and I'm really enjoying myself. At the moment my job has me doing both design and development for all projects.

Recently..
I rode the Seagull Century with my old friend Eric. Very tiring, but incredibly rewarding just the same.
just a couple of crazy guys riding mountain bikes for a hundred miles.. Apparently, we are crazy for riding mountain bikes 100 miles in a single day..

Buzzwords

  • Languages, skills and software I use.
HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, Coldfusion, MySQL, Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, HTML5, jQuery, ExtJS, Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, (coming soon... Ruby on Rails, iPhone/iPad app development..)

Not Buzzwords

  • I learned how to write html by hand way back in 1997 by reading a book. (A book! imagine that!!).
  • I learned CSS by following online tutorials after being fed up with table based layout techniques.
  • I started using PHP while creating PHPNuke based site for a Soccer team
  • I have been using SQL for a couple of years now, with MySQL databases mainly.
  • I don't know what to say about Joomla, I found it while looking for a "good" open source CMS to use with clients. It has been amazing to work with and just keeps getting better. It makes it so much easier to design a complete look and feel for a client and then empower them to keep up their site without an IT department.
  • I toyed with Flash for many years, but I took the dive in 2004 after learning how to use Director and wishing it could do more. Flash is very versatile, it can be a whole site, a dynamic accent to a site or a more functional component.
  • Actionscript was imposing at first, but once I really started working with it I wanted to do nothing but that.
  • I started as a Photoshop novice back on version 2.5 in a Kinkos in Dover, Delaware. I'm on CS3 now and I love it.
  • Picked up on ColdFusion April 2008, wrote a production ready CMS with it by July 2008.
  • Still working with Coldfusion, upgraded to CF9 and I'm lovin' the new features (Ext JS is yummy).
  • I'm looking into RoR (ruby on rails) at the moment and playing with iPhone/iPad app development.

Recent Projects

pleasant to behold and tasty
 

Something could go here

Perhaps..

I like your style dude...

 

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