About
Who am I?
I'm Alex Dickson from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. I work as a website developer, and am interested in all things technology related.
I've had an interesting adventure in Web Development. Starting way back in 1999, using notepad, I created my first site and uploaded it to Tripod. I eventually got started learning a server side language, and I picked up ASP (I was familiar using VBScript form using Visual Basic 6). It wasn't long until I realised ASP had some serious shortcomings, so I made the switch to PHP.
After a brief hiatus for about 2 years (10+ web years), attending university, I then got back into Web Development in late 2007, thus making me a relative newcomer to the web developer world.
Outside of my technological interests I enjoy music, reading, camping and my lovely girlfriend, Courtnee :)
Where is the Internet Explorer support?
Like most web developers, I don't particularly like Internet Explorer. This site will look great in Firefox, Safari and Chrome. It will gracefully degrade in IE, only affecting some visual things such as rounded corners.
If you are using IE, do yourself a favour and get one of the newer browsers listed above.
How is this is this site made?
This site is built using PHP 5.2.12 and MySQL 5.1 utilising the Kohana framework and Wordpress Publishing Platform.
All backend is done using a slightly modified version of Wordpress. The entire front end is built from scratch for maximum customisability.
This site also makes use of open source packages such as GeSHi for syntax highlighting, jQuery for a powerful JavaScript framework and Eric Meyer's CSS Reset Reloaded to ease cross browser development.
Do you provide some sort of license for code snippets?
All code snippets that appear inline on pages on this site are licensed to the Public Domain. However, downloadable files under the projects section have their own license. See the specific project for more info.
Why this site?
I started this site to help me get some of my ideas / projects / what-have-you out into the real world, and also to give something back to the community that has helped me greatly in the learning process.
If you want to get in touch with me, please visit the contact page.
Any general disclaimers?
This website and it's contents are representative of my (Alex) personal opinions and in no way reflect the views of my employer.