I’m in a bit of a predicament at the moment. As many of you know, I’m back doing the web consultancy thing full time again after a 18 month hiatus. I made a couple of rules that I’m trying hard not to break:
I’m not supporting PHP4
I’m not supporting or modifying badly written OpenSource projects (basically crossing out WordPress, osCommerce or phpBB jobs)
Which (maybe un-)suprisingly I get asked for a lot. As a result, I’m looking for some PHP developers that haven’t become totally jaded by years of PHP4 abuse that I can sub-contract out to. I’d say I’m looking for mid-level developers, I’ll be there to help out find out WHAT needs to be done, and HOW it should be done - I just need someone to actually do the work.
I’m pretty anal about coding standards and software practice, so things like SVN are a must. I have a development server if you need an environment to work in.
If you think you might fit the bill, and want to work with someone who’s been around the development block a few times, email me on myles@madpilot.com.au with a short CV and your rates.
Finally, some kindsouls have cared enough to tag me with the blog equivalent of a chain letter (or maybe that is the web equivalent of Amway) - the “8 things you didn’t know about me” meme. Rules are, you tell eight things about yourself that the web doesn’t know, then make eight others do the same. So….
I have dual passports, one Australian and one Greek, even though my paternal grandparents are Macedonian and my father and I were born in Australia. I’m not sure how this could happen, although I’m sure goats changed hands. There was also a possibility that if I ever went to Greece (nope, never been) that I would get thrown in the Army to do national service, although I think my Dedo (grandad) paid me out of it. Viva la corruption.
I started MadPilot Productions when I was 18 with my two best mates (and ex-housemates) Andrew and David. The Mad bit refers to our initials and I can’t remember where the Pilot bit came from. Andrew went on to become a lawyer and is now in his final year of musical theatre at WAAPA, and David is a reporter for the ABC, after graduating from WAAPA. I once went to WAAPA to watch someone give a recital.
Myself, Andrew and David once won the Hammarskjold trophy - which is a mock UN Security Council debate for high school students. Our school had been trying to win it for ages - and the other teams we had entered had been together for two or three years, and had been training for months. The three of us were recruited the week before, stayed up until 3am the morning of as our preparation, and still to this day have absolutely no idea what we did or how we did it. I think this is completely representative of the real UN security council.
MadPilot once did work for 96FM (a local radio station), on a promotion hilariously called Cunning Stunts. It was at this point I got to live out my childhood dream of riding in a Black Thunder drinking an Icy cold can of Coke, whilst listening to Triple J.
I have an unnatural facination with late 80s sitcoms. I have many theme songs in my MP3 collection and own two seasons of the Golden Girls on DVD. My favourite 80s trival fact is that Estelle Geddy holds the record for playing the same character (Sophia Petrillo) in the most amount of shows (5: Golden Girls, Golden Palace, Empty Nest, Nurses and Blossom).
I once did a fifteen hour stint at Little Creature Brewery in Fremantle. The only rules were weren’t allowed to leave the premises. We got there at 9am, had the first beer at 10am (It would have been 9am, but we didn’t realise that served beer that early) and had out last drink at midnight. we only got one free beer, despite spending over $600 between the three of us.
I’ve never climbed a tree.
My mum would never let me watch The Simpsons as a child. As a result, I own series 1-8 on DVD. Despite this child abuse, I picked up many Simpsons quotes from those more fortunate than I at school and have recently realised that pretty much everything I’ve ever said that is mildly witty was some sort of Simpsons quote.
Ok. Now to pass this thing on (I don’t want any fairies dying)
Just to test our sanity, AWIA decided to pull together Ideas4 in two weeks, (minus a couple of days because of public holidays) and not only did we do it, we managed to hit our attendance target and managed to have the show run smoothly!
We had 84 attendees (one all the way from America!), and two lovely presenters who did a terrific job.
A big, huge thanks to Rachel Cook, who despite being 8 months pregnant, told us about her time in Silicon Valley as an Angel Investor, and to Lisa Herrod who flew all the way from Sydney (on her birthday no less) to remind us that standards-based code and semantic markup aren’t enough to make a site accessible.
Jordan recorded both talks, and has uploaded them to Vimeo, and there is an Ideas 4 Flickr set. If you took photos, remember to tag them as ideas4.
