Design and Development Services
As a Microsoft Developer of more than 5 years experience, I am well versed in
the varied technologies required to deliver web and Windows desktop
applications. Through my many years of experience I am able to translate the
needs and wants of a business into workable, effective solutions that
communicate and get the job done efficiently.
My current specialisation is in the development of web and desktop applications
using the new Microsoft
.NET architecture. .NET is an all-encompassing system of development
for programmers familiar with ASP, Java, Visual Basic, C++ or C#, enabling them
to develop fully modularised components that can be slotted seamlessly together
producing applications for the web, or for the Windows desktop, web services,
database back-ends etc.
The list below summarises the skills I have available:
Web Application Development
This website you're looking at is an example of a .NET Web Application. It
employs both static visual layout (through HTML) and offers dynamic content,
through Active Server Pages and
business-logic-encoded programming.
Some other recent web applications I have
produced include Call The
Watsons and Dealer
Capital. Such developments required the bringing together of a myriad
of different technologies - web design, business-logic encoding, database
design and connectivity, and XML data source reading.
Windows Desktop Application Development
My original forte, learned through many years of experience at software
companies and on short-term contracts. Originally I developed Windows
applications using Microsoft C++, but with the advent of .NET, found that their
new language C#
provided equal performance with only half the lines of code required by its
ancestor. In developing Windows applications, the skillset required is less
broad than that of web applications, but are often more challenging, through
the need to multi-thread and deliver high-performance.
Web Design
Producing a web page
is easy. Anybody can pick up a copy of FrontPage or Dreamweaver and produce
"John's Home Page". But producing a good web design is that much harder.
There are many pitfalls to producing attractive, compact web sites with a
consistent look and feel. In my web sites I use
cascading style sheets version 2 (CSS2) which, in my opinion, are the
only way to go in achieving the website holy trinity of compactness, useability
and consistency.
Web useability, the quality of a web site being easy to use and navigate, is
actually a pretty rare trait amongst the millions of sites available throughout
the web. Can you recall the last time you got annoyed with a web site? Probably
very recently. I employ many of the web-useability guru
Jakob Nielsen's principles in the development of my websites, with the
goal of not just making the Internet a happier experience, but meaning that my
clients' sites will be liked, and returned to again and again.
Database Design
Most web applications, and
many desktop applications these days have the purpose of storing, manipulating
and presenting data, and so being able to program is not enough - one has to
understand Relational Databasing - the process of storing multiply-linked and
cross referenced data. I use Microsoft's SQL
Server database technology to integrate data storage logic within my
applications.