I enjoy solving problems — technical problems, design problems, and communication problems. I'm a coder and designer with nearly 10 years of experience in creating websites, web graphics and animation. To learn about what I can do for you, please browse the site, or go straight to my résumé. If you'd like to discuss having me as part of your team, please email me.

The Holga is a medium format camera, meaning it uses film that's much larger and can record more detail than the familiar 35mm stuff. Despite the fancy film, the camera's super-cheap construction introduces quite a few flaws in the photos. Sometimes the shots don't come out at all, but when they do, they have a certain old-timey, low-tech charm which makes using a Holga fun. I took the Holga along to Northern californa and took a a couple rolls of photos, which just came back from the lab. Surprisingly, the exposures were mostly okay!

I've put a few of the more interesting ones up on my photo page, take a look.

My contract at Beckman Coulter will be up this month, so it's time to find my next position. The economy's in the tank and unemployment is up, but I'm feeling optimistic. Why? Well for one, I think most of the folks out of work are in the finance and auto industries, live in already suffering regions, or have limited skills. This is anecdotal of course, but the couple of people I know who have lost jobs are already in new ones. Second, I get the impression that the tech industry has been hit a bit less severely than some other sectors. Joel Spolsky reports that the positions on his jobs board number about half what they have in previous years, but that's a far cry from dried up.

So I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that it's going to be easy, I'm just going to work twice as hard to make sure I get a great job.

I've just returned from a very enjoyable photography trip. The itinerary included San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Point Lobos, and Big Sur. Three amateur photographers and one professional travelled together the entire time. For a few of those days, we were also joined by a couple of shooters from San Francisco, and a great time was had by all.

As a result of this trip I realized I needed some more gear (of course!). I decided I need a standard focal length lens, so I have ordered a 50mm/f1.8 prime. This should be great for low-light shooting. I also got set of ND filters so that I can take those long exposure water shots in daylight. I like those smoky shorelines and especially want to get some of those milky waterfalls.

I haven't had time yet to process my photos, but I hope to find time and get some posted to my photography page in the next couple of weeks.

As part of my duties at Beckman Coulter, I was asked to design and build a new website for the Beckman Coulter Foundation, an independent philanthropic organization founded by Beckman Coulter, Inc. This is a small informational site which was a pleasure to build. I had moderate creative freedom and a chance to try some new techniques.

The site is primarily static HTML, with SSI to consolidate the header, nav and footer. A little classic ASP in the header file generates the appropriate titles, meta data highlighted navigation tab depending on the active page. The shadows in the design were acheived using .png images, and the requisite Internet Explorer workarounds. Another tricky aspect was creating a footer which is always at the bottom of the window, unless the content is longer.

The board of the foundation was pleased with the result, which should make it much easier for them exchange information with grant-seekers, and ultimately help the company donate more efficiently to worthy causes.

I started a new position as a contractor at Beckman Coulter at the beginning of the month, and have finally moved closer to the job, which is in Brea, California. Much closer! My new apartment complex is actually just across an intersection from the Beckman building; easy walking distance.

One thing I am learning is that North Orange County is very hot in the summer, compared to Redondo Beach.

"Well yes, obviously", you may be saying under your breath. No, I mean really quite hot, so much that a five-minute walk at 8:00am leaves you sweating. I did most of my moving in the middle of the night, and just about melted. At least there's a nice pool here!

It's easy enough to make basic patterns in any image editor, even MS Paint. But it's difficult to make a more intricate pattern without being able to see it tiled. bgMaker and Perceptual Background Generator are just a couple of the online tools that help with this. It's much easier to make a good pattern with these tools which show you what your pattern will look like as a tiled background in real-time as you work on it.

Finally, there are also tons of background patterns available for free. Here are a few places to look:

• Kaliber10000 - The Pixel Patterns Colection
• Squidfingers Patterns
• The Inspiration Gallery - Wallpaper Patterns Index
• Root2Art Pattern Backgrounds