Freelance Web Developer

I am a qualified professional web developer from Gloucester, England with over 3 years commercial experience and over 7 years using PHP and HTML. My role as a freelance web developer has helped me gain tons of new skills to bolster my experience and cover many new avenues which to most developers is inaccessible.

My current skill set is as follows:

• PHP – 7 years experience of which 3 years is at a professional and commercial level. I have covered pretty much everything during this time such as OOP (Object Orientated Programming), emailing, database interaction. XML integration and lots more. This has been mostly PHP5 although I have used PHP4 for older server setups. Not yet used PHP6 but it will be some time yet until we see this rolled out commercially.

• PHP – CodeIgniter – used this PHP framework for the past year and I have to say it had been far easier to learn and use than Zend Framework, in my opinion. I have used Zend but only on a small scale. I have rolled out large-scale voucher code solutions using CodeIgniter and currently (at time of writing) building a new project also in this framework. It is my favourite and I feel I am at an expert level.

• WordPress – if you hadn’t already guessed then this website (Ross Tanner) is built on the WordPress platform. I used WordPress for my blog/portfolio because it is written in PHP, widely popular amongst web designers & developers, very easy to alter and customise and it has gained raving reviews from pretty much anyone that has used it.

• Serendipity – another blogging platform which I have encountered during my time a professional web developer, although on a commercial project as opposed to personal. I used Serendipity to display and manage a blog platform on an online public relations agency.

• MySQL databases – perhaps the most popular “partner” to PHP, MySQL is a database structure that I have picked up during my time learning PHP. I find it is incredibly easy to use and supports both small and large scale database setups which has been very handy in my line of work. It depends on the project as to whether or not I would use a database but in all cases I would use MySQL unless specific instructions not to or to use an alternative has been suggested by the client.

• XML – during my time building voucher code solutions I have encountered XML a lot, just as much as PHP to be honest. I believe I am currently at a very high level in XML and can integrate it with PHP smoothly and to good effect. This includes data feeds, data transfer, RSS and more.

• XHTML – web development starts at HTML simply because it lays out the foundations of any website. I have expert knowledge of HTML and have used it every working day since I started in web development. This also includes HTML5.

• CSS – Cascading Style Sheets weren’t exactly popular with me when I first started out as a freelance web developer. Sounds silly and amateur I know, but I was confident in the syntax and relied the dreading ‘table layout’ instead. I have since learnt the error of my ways and use CSS on a daily basis as a powerful tool when integrated with HTML. This also includes CSS3 and image sprites.

• JavaScript – back in the day when I first started as a freelance web developer JavaScript was frowned upon – a lot. It was considered (probably rightly at the time) a way to infect computers with viruses and malware. Times have changed rapidly since then and pretty much every modern website will use this technology in some form. Recently designers use JavaScript (the library called jQuery more specifically) to alter the page being displayed to a user without having to refresh. I have a great knowledge of JavaScript and jQuery (which I have described in more detail in the next point) and have used it both on a personal and commercial level to great effect many times.

• jQuery – a JavaScript library jQuery is considered one of the biggest advances in web technology. The ability to alter the page without having to refresh is outstanding for designers and developers alike. In addition, it massively improves user experience. You would have seen this – most likely without noticing – on some of the mot visited websites on the Internet – BBC Sport Vidiprinter, Twitter and Facebook.

• AJAX – this is a way of loading server-side script on a page without having to refresh the browser window (not the only benefit obviously but something which I have used it for on many occassions). Orignally hard-coded using JavaScript it is now much easier and more effective to script using jQuery.

• Java – small amounts of Java. I started my college course by creating an application in the Java language which found fun but challenging. I have forgotten a lot of it now but would be great to start using it again because there is so much that can be done with it. I’d put my current skill level down to beginner but if I was to start learning it again then it wouldn’t take as long as somebody starting out for the first time.

• Ruby on Rails – somewhat similar to PHP and the MVC architectures used in both Zend and CodeIgniter. I would again put my level down as a beginner.

• SEO – Search Engine Optimisation (or Search Engine Optimization for those not using British English – SEO being used right there!) is perhaps the most recent “tool” that I have come to use and learn. Over the past 12 months it is something that has dominated my perception of website building and the way in which I write code. I now write with SEO in mind which gives me the cutting edge over fellow freelance web developers that overlook it. I have had a lot of success with SEO and achieved top 3 ranking for many broad and niche terms to drive large levels of traffic to personal and client’s websites. SEO and cannot be underestimated and the changes in which it’s used is rapidly on the increase. You must keep up-to-date with what is going on in the SEO world if you wish to succeed and this is something I do very well. I have a strong understanding of SEO and can help improve and increase rankings quite easily.

That is my complete and current skill set in web development. As you can see a lot of that is due to me being a freelance web developer which is great because I have learnt a lot in my short yet promising journey so far. I hope to expand on this as you can imagine so I will try my best to keep this page updated as I go.