Nate At Work

So what do I do during the 9 to 5 hours you ask?

Well, I work with the Internet designing websites and so forth for a small company here on Cape Cod. I've been with them since '96 which is by far the longest I've stayed put anywhere, so I guess you could say I'm content.

What I like about my work is that I'm, for the most part, a one-man operation when it comes to the actual development part of webstuff. Which doesn't mean I like to always work alone, but rather my tasks are more varied. I get to do everything from the initial concept, design, HTML, a little copy writing, custom software/script development and so forth.

It's fun to be able to have an idea (or set of ideas) in your head and make them all come to life simply with the power of your mind. With computers and the Web you're creating something from nothing (materially speaking) which benefits someone else.

Over the years I've done literally hundreds of websites for mostly local mom n' pops. It's satisfying to know that you are helping them in some small way with their fortunes, even if they don't always appreciate it themselves. They haven't all been winners, mind you, but keep in mind I started when the Web was just a baby; and the sites were well regarded for the time.

Content Managment Systems
Lately I'm finding more satisfaction in doing deeper, custom developed stuff with content managment systems and such. What's a content managment system (CMS) you ask? In a nutshell, it's a set of scripts which allows the user to easily update their website via an admin interface and to easily (optionally) provide for an online community. Think of it as "Blog+" where you can easily post news and take comments, but also have other functionality which can be added on such as calendars, polls, links directorie or whatever custom application you choose to create.

This website is running on a popular CMS called, "Drupal" which uses the PHP scripting language and runs off of a MySQL database. They're easy to set up and I encourage you to check them out when time allows you. If you have some remedial web knowledge (or aren't afraid to figure it out), most come with a slick install routine which will have your site's guts up and running in minutes. Here a good site which lets you try some on for size: OpenSourceCMS.