My key strength is an ability to learn new skills quickly and over the years I have widened my skill set to include many front end web technologies. . Website Design & Development is quite simply putting it all together and ensuring it works across all the various different browers and platforms.
I have a love/hate relationship with javascript. I love it because I'm good at it :) however, JavaScript it is not strictly typed, which essentially means it is a pain to debug.
The key is finding the right framework, or combination of frameworks for each project.
JQuery is good starting point as it's great for manipulating the DOM and hiding away all the weird and wonderful oddities created by older browsers, but it's not enough when building complex applications or animations. Fortunately my background in Actionscript development has given me a head start as this is what I have been doing for years. All my Flash heros are doing the same, take a look at Createjs - a modular suite of libraries and tools for building rich, interactive experiences with HTML5, GreenSock Animation Platform - an awesome tweening engine, plus there is a free suite of tools available from html.adobe.com
These frameworks all enable more complex interactions, but still do not answer the problem of creating complex web applications. The anwser is to use an MVC/MV* framework. There are many to choose from and after much research I have gone for Angularjs. It's a pretty steep learning curve, but I shall pervail and once I get it I am going to be html5 king.
I use a mixture of Notepad++, Firefox, Firebug / Web Developer and Chrome Dev Tools to hand-code strict xhtml 2.0 or html5 and css. I follow W3C web standards and always try to create universally accessible, cross-platform, responsive websites.
Designing and Developing applications using Flash 8 to Flash CS6, Flash Builder 4.7 and FlashDevelop3. Object orientated actionscript 3.0 and 2.0. Timeline & code based flash animation. Manipulating & encoding Video. Client and server communication. Integration with javascript, json, xml, css, html, video, music. Using design patterns / MVC, Version Control / Tortoise SVN. Working with all the industry standard actionscript libraries including tweener, tweenmax / tweenlite, google analytics, swfobject, jquery, and some more recent ones such as Starling and Feathers which render graphics directly on the GPU.
I have a very keen eye for detail and use both Adobe Photoshop and the Flash IDE for manipulating and creating images and effects.
It’s all well and good creating state-of-the-art websites which look amazing on your brand new state-of-the-art notebook, but what about Tim Berners-Lee's original vision for a universally accessible web?
Progressive Enhancement is to view web design from the ground up, rather than from the top down. Instead of building a state-of-the-art website and adding alternative versions for old browsers, create websites which everyone can access and add your state-of-the-art graphics on top. This way everyone will be able to access your site.
I use the SWFObject to embed all my flash into websites which allows for alternative content to be provided for browsers without flash. If the site is a full flash site then this content should be the same content as is being displayed within flash so that flash is merely another level of styling to progressively enhance the content. The advantage of this being that both visitors with and without flash will see the same content. This includes the googlebot and any other search engine robots.
I also use the SWFAddress for flash and more recently the JQuery-Address for JavaScript, both of which enable deep-linking into flash or JavaScript websites.
Google Analytics allows me to compile statistics on any deep-links as well as anything else I track.
I am very good at troubleshooting & problem solving, and in a past life I worked in a Senior IT Support role and had an MCSE/MCP + Internet, both of which have given me the confidence and ability to know I am able to achieve anything I put my mind to.
