Growing up, I was lucky enough to enroll in a high school with a laptop program. So since I was in 9th grade I've had a computer at my fingertips using it almost daily. I had a few friends who were extremely advanced in computer programming, more so on software then internet design. But needless to say, I wouldn't be where I am now without their help. They pushed me farther, and encouraged me to try new things, even if I didn't know exactly what I was doing, because neither did they really. The only bad side of trying something new on a computer was that I became intimately familiar with the BSD (Blue Screen of Death). Whether this was due to some error in the code I was writing, or a failure by windows 98 to handle the programs I was running is unclear. I like to think they were all due to windows 98 crashing on me. But I'm sure a few were due to my code. Since upgrading to Windows ME, and subsequently Windows XP, I have still managed to crash Windows a fair number of times. However, it has almost always been due to me using up all the free memory running various programs such as Photoshop, MS Word, MS Excel, an FTP program, Interet Explorer, and a few other miscelaneous programs.

Finishing my freshman year of college at Tulane University, I had dreams of developing my own personal website over the summer. Those dreams crashed hard due to the Llama CD taking up most of my spare time, and making me avoid any technology at all costs. However, before I embarked on the Llama CD, I had sent an e-mail to Shawn Pitz, the administrator of Tulane's StudentWeb asking why I couldn't connect to the Tulane servers. I spoke with Shawn over a series of e-mails where Shawn informed me that the FTP program I was using did not have SFTP capabilities, and therefore couldn't connect to the Tulane network.

Over our e-mail conversations, I had asked Shawn about him needing any help with StudentWeb. I had envisioned me and Shawn sitting side-by-side at a console, with him explaining what he was doing and how a UNIX server works, and me slowly taking on responsibilities. As it turned out, Shawn had just graduated from Tulane and had lined up three students to take over StudentWeb from him. Only the three students (I later found out I knew two of them) weren't doing anything at all. Over the course of the summer, Shawn and I e-mailed back and forth a few more times, and when the end of the summer came and the three guys still hadn't done anything, Shawn handed over StudentWeb to me.

I think it should be noted here how much prior UNIX experience I had: essentially none. I had FTP'd into a gaming server before, but only in a graphical environment. I had used DOS a lot, so I was familiar with the command prompt, and I had taken Computer Science 101 my freshman year, so I had used the UNIX system to log in, write my computer programs in a text editor, compile, and then run them. I knew all of seven commands. Luckily for me, the majority of the work for running StudentWeb consisted of responding to e-mails from students who have problems with their code or a software program on their computer.

The StudentWeb website was made in PHP, with a number of include files (a feature I have used heavily in making my site.) This forced me to meet PHP, and learn it's inner workings. Some of the past admin's of StudentWeb have been code-writing geniuses, and there are a number of old files on the server with massive scripts and perl files to automate various maintenance tasks. I have spent time exploring the server, learning how it works and what different files and programs on it do, as well as checking out the scripts created by the old admin's. I hope in a year or two to be writing my own scripts to perform newer tasks required of the StudentWeb admin.

I got to know Shawn through StudentWeb and we spent a lot of time talking in the first month of my sophomore year at Tulane as he gave me pointers and taught me about the StudentWeb server. Shawn had graduated from the Tulane Architecture School the previous year and was still living in the area, but desperately wanted to sever his ties with Tulane. To do this, he had handed StudentWeb off to me, but he was still the administrator of a different website for Tulane University Campus Programming (TUCP). TUCP is a student organization in charge of bringing entertainment to Tulane. They bring comedians, weekly movies, nationally known musicians and speakers from around the globe. Shawn had taken the position of Vice President of Communications (VPC) with TUCP. This meant that he was in charge of everything internet for TUCP. A 'laid-back, easy job, where you program some things for them occasionally, get into their events for free and get free candy' as he explained it to me. He worked on me for about two months, until I agreed to take it over from him. He then pulled out some more details, like the fact that I had to apply for the position, and I later learned during the interview that I would be required to coordinate with Loyola (a neighboring University) if we do any joint events with them, as well as run an automated phone number giving out information about campus events.

I started to worry that I had stepped into more than I could handle, especially because the TUCP site was programmed in PHP (I was just beginning to get comfortable with it from StudentWeb), however it had the added attraction of using MySQL databases. I spoke with shawn, and he promised a database training session. In the mean time, I worked through everything as best I could, until Shawn showed me an online graphical interface (PHP Admin). From there, everything clicked, and I was able to understand and change anything on the TUCP site.

I'm a sucker for helping people, and I couldn't say no to Lyle. He needed some internet database help, which he had no clue how to do, and while I didn't really know either, I decided I needed to learn MySQL at some point, and now would be the time to do it. I knew I was already taking 18 hours of Engineering classes (some consider that a feat all by itself), and with my involvement with TUCP, StudentWeb, The B, and now Lyle, it would be like having a whole extra three credit class in my schedule. I justified all this extra commitment by saying: 'It's a great life experience, I enjoy this kind of stuff, and last year I was extremely bored by just my classes.' A few of my friends didn't buy that as a reason. They think grades are more important than anything else, and should be the number one priority. To them I respond: 'Yes, grades are important, but I'm learning much more real-life information in my extracurricular activities then I could in any course at Tulane.' To those who still protested, I told them I can put all this stuff on my resume.

Lyle and I met for the first time at a coffee shop on campus. And boy was he surprised to see me. He had visions of a middle-aged computer person working for Tulane University, not some young Tulane student half his age. I think he was a little wary at first, unsure of my talents and abilities. But we sat down, got right to business, and quickly grew comfortable with each other. Neither of us was sure of what the other wanted at first. It took us a few weeks to get Lyle's visions hammered out into an idea which could be implemented. Lyle had designed a therapeutic device to aid in the recovery process after knee surgeries or injuries. He wanted to determine the specific market niche for this product, as well as gather information on a target demographic so he can sell his product to physical therapists. To do this, he wanted an online form which users could put in their information, and then send it to a database where Lyle could sort, pull records, etc at will.

Using my HTML knowledge, Lyle and I created a thorough questionnaire which I then turned into PHP using MySQL to put it into a database which ended up being just shy of 100 data fields. Through working with Lyle, I learned all about his device and his progress in trade-marking it. I will continue to work with Lyle as people fill out the survey, and the process of analyzing it begins, and into hopefully will continue to work with him as his product is created and marketed.

Something I've always had my eye on through the years of web development would be Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). They allow you to easily change the entire appearance of the site with the click of a mouse. Click here to return to the normal colors. This has also been something which I could have put to good use at getoffmyllama.com. But until working on this site, I never learned what I now discover to be a very easy, powerful tool. I have used style sheets through this whole site which means that every color, font, alignment, etc is controlled from a separate document.

This site puts GetOffMyLlama.com and my other previous sites to shame both visually and technically. I have always struggled with creating a site which looked great in all resolutions. All my previous sites have always looked decent in smaller resolutions (800x600, 1024x768), but have looked much better at my resolution (1400x1050). In creating this site, I limited myself to an 800px width table. In doing so, I forced myself to develop a site which would fit on a monitor with standard resolution.

This site has brought out the best of my web development abilities, but even while creating this site, I am seeing it's flaws and inabilities, and have already set my sights higher to bigger and better things. For example, while beefing up on CSS, I came across a nice explanation of XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language), and have been working to make this site using strict HTML coding (the first step in converting to XHTML), and I will go through and partially turn it over to a transitional form of XHTML.

Counter-Strike was the most popular online multi player game around the year 2000. I believe I started playing around 1999 with some friends from my high school. After a few months, like any fad in high school, it got old and boring, and most of my friends stopped playing. I however, continued playing online in a local Seattle server, where I ran into a group of players I now call close friends even though I have never met many them in real life. Together with two other guys online, I started a gaming 'clan' as they are called. In the online world, we are known as Clan Craap, and put "[Craap]" at the end of our player names. I use the name "Stevo[CrAAp]". The two capital A's signify that I am a leader of the clan.

You may be curious as to the significance of this story, and why I would post it for my hopefully future employers to read. Over the past three years of Craap's existence, I have been thrust in the leadership position, taking charge of a 20 or more rowdy teenage boys (and a few girls) who have become part of Clan Craap. Me and another co-founder wrote the rules, held meetings, scheduled practices, scrimmages and matches against other gaming clans. We set strict guidelines for whom we would recruit, and what the recruitment and interview process would be. We have had to deal with cheaters who made their way into our clan, hackers who play in our server, and quarrels between members.

The average life of a gaming clan is around six months. I see our existence of nearly three years now to be a point of pride. When we first started, we had about 7 members in the clan. Four of those 7 are still around and active today. Since then, we have increased our numbers to nearly 20, depending on who is bogged down with college course work, and which cable modems are working. For the past year and a half, we have run our own server which we play in. We have a large following of 'regulars' who always play in our server, and enjoy our company. The single biggest problem we have faced is new games coming out with better graphics and more game choices. This has killed a number of clans and gaming servers in the past year. We rely on monetary donations from people who play in our server to keep our server funded. We still have members coming back after playing newer games, and server regulars who play with us because of who we are and what we stand for.

Counter-Strike, as much as I like having the nerd stigmata attached to me, is part of me. Through Clan Craap I have learned leadership skills, personal skills, how to deal with personal conflicts and how to make hard decisions with heavy consequences. I am certain that these skills will help me out later in life, and I know they have already helped me out at College dealing with conflicts between different groups of my friends.