Web Developer, Bristol, England, UK

Watch me speak!

I spoke about using CakePHP at massive scale, on a budget at CakeFest, the CakePHP conference, in Chicago, Illinois. September 2nd - 5th 2010.

Core web development skills

I make and maintain high-traffic websites and web apps.
They are well engineered, highly-available and serve millions everyday.
I primarily use PHP (often with CakePHP) and MySQL or MongoDB.
I build standards compliant sites with CSS, Javascript, jQuery, XHTML.
I've been using Python recently with Django.
I'm a fairly advanced Perl programmer but don't use it much these days. The same with C.
I can also do Java and Android development.
I do a tidy bit of systems administration on FreeBSD and Linux boxes.
I use Chef to automate the configuration, management and deployment of those boxes.
I play football for a Bristol Downs League team called Clifton Rockets. I support Bristol Rovers.
I like music a lot.

Awaydays Android App
Android app to help away football fans find grounds, hotels, pubs, trains and bus stations near the away ground.
Positive Cache Expiry with CakePHP
Using core CakePHP functionality to implement positive cache expiry.
CakePHP at Massive Scale on a Budget (VIDEO)
My talk at CakeFest 2010 in Chicago. Slides.
View Caching with Memcache and CakePHP
Using CakePHP and Memcache to deliver pages of your website faster than fast. (Historical page)
Before You Implement Caching on Your Website
As well as thinking about caching you should also optimise your code. This introduction to profiling PHP with xDebug should help get you started.
Development Environments

Some thoughts about web development environments and why you should be doing your development inside a virtual machine.

Bikely.com
Bikely is a cycle routes web application which was acquired by Future Publishing. In order to help move the site forward, it has been recently relaunched (although not yet redesigned) following a rewrite with CakePHP and MongoDB. MongoDB is fast and it's geospatial features will allow the addition of innovative new features.
T3.com
I was architect and project lead on the rebuild of the website for the very popular, internally licensed, Future Publishing magazine T3.
Cyclingnews
The world's number one cycling site. There's a lot of cycling fanatics in the world and it copes fantastically with all the traffic they generate.
Away Days Map

A network of maps to help traveling football fans find grounds, hotels, pubs, trains and bus stations near the away ground.
TotalFilm

A nicely executed website for the popular Future Publishing magazine. It includes reviews, trailers, film news and regularly features on IMDB and Digg.
Archers Direct

Part of the Cosmos Holidays group, Archers Direct specialise in touring holidays. Their customers have many options to customise their holiday package so the website needs to be easy to use. It takes advantage of jQuery to ease customisation of each aspect of the holiday.
BikeRadar

The UK's Number 1 Cycling site from Future Publishing. Covering all disciplines of cycling and incorporating content from their market leading cycling magazines.

Transport Central
Despite the rather grandiose headline, it's an easy to use interface for finding out when the bus is going to arrive at various stops where I catch the bus in Bristol on my phone. Code here.
@fivetwentyfive
Python script that uses National Rail's Live Departures Board (along with Beautiful Soap and Python Twitter) to Twitter train delays between Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads. Code here.