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“No matter how many times @Neilmacintyre and I play, we always get here. #chess http://t.co/GCepPAUj”

Hello! My name is Chris Blackwell. I'm a web developer and I live online.

Chris on Couch

About Me

I have been developing websites for over ten years now, and I am still loving it as much as the day I first started. I have moved away from website design in the last few years, and focused more on the development of either web applications, or websites with extended functionality.

Where I Work

I am currently employed full time as the web developer for Legend Boats. Almost all of our websites and backend stuff is built with Ruby on Rails, while our dealer system was developed in PHP.

I am the co-creator and lead developer of The Middle Man, an employee to employeer matchmaking service. We hope to have a beta out by this fall, and launch sometime this winter.

I also work very closely with Fuel Multimedia as their programmer and WordPress theme developer. The people at Fuel are some of the most creative in the business, and I highly recommend them for any design work you need, both print and web.

I am currently working on a course on SitePoint’s Learnable that will be all about WordPress theme development. I will have more on that soon as I finish it off.

Programming Languages / Frameworks

I know several programming languages, but some I am much more confortable in then others. My programming language of choice is PHP. While I am very confortable using PHP, I tend to use a framework for most of my projects. My framework of choice is Codeigniter because of it’s commitment to quality, speed, and it’s vibrant community.

I also have a great deal of experience using Ruby and more specifically the Ruby on Rails framework. This is what I use in my day job, so I have became quite familiar with that. I like Ruby, and like the Rails framework. The only reason PHP is still my preferred language of choice is because it is easier to find developers to help you work on PHP projects, then it is to find Ruby developers.

I of course know all the basic web languages, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I tend to write almost 100% of my JavaScript these days in jQuery, just because it’s such a great JavaScript framework, and it handles all of the cross-browser JavaScript quirks.

My Computer Setup

I am a Mac Guy, but I do have a PC for Gaming / Linux purposes. My laptop is my main programming/work machine, wit h the follow specs:

  • MacBook Pro early 2011
  • 27″ Cinema Display (first generation)
  • Rain mStand
  • Apple Wired Keyboard with Numeric Pad
  • Logitech G500 Laser Mouse

I am in the processing of building a new PC for gaming (you know, Battlefield 3), so I will post it here when I’m done.