Biography

Brian has been developing web sites and web applications since 1995 when he founded his consulting company, New Auburn Personal Computer Services, LLC. Brian specializes in small business web sites, web applications, Ruby on Rails training, and accessibility for the visually-impaired. His clients were one of the first to deploy Rails applications in a Microsoft Windows environment.

When he’s not busy on the computer, he enjoys watching The Simpsons, playing piano and guitar, and spending time with his wife and daughters.

Blog URL http://www.napcsweb.com/

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Portfolios

My Photographs

I’ve always had an interest in photography, and while I am not a professional photographer, I have taken pictures for use on web sites and in publications. Here are some images which I feel represent my best work.

My Web Projects

I’ve been working with the web since 1995 and have developed web sites and applications for many clients. These represent a small sample of the work I’ve done.

My Open-Source Projects

Giving back to the community is something I feel that every developer should try to do. These are my open source projects.

Adobe Illustrator Camera Modeling

Work from a college design course where I made a rendering of a Kodak digital camera using Photoshop and Illustrator. This portfolio shows the stages of development and the final outcomes of the project.

Skills

Each represents a portfolio item where the skill is used.

• Over 5 years of Ruby
• Over 5 years of Ruby on Rails
• About 1 year of Cucumber
• Over 8 years of Training and Mentoring
• About 1 year of SASS
• 7 months of jQuery
• 8 months of Sinatra
• About 1 year of HAML
• About 1 year of RSpec
• Over 4 years of Test-driven development
• Over 16 years of Photoshop
• Over 8 years of Project management
• Over 6 years of Public speaking
• Over 10 years of Microsoft SQL Server 2000
• Over 6 years of MySQL
• Over 2 years of Docbook
• Over 10 years of Illustrator
• Over 8 years of CSS
• Over 15 years of HTML
• Over 10 years of ASP
• Over 7 years of PHP

Professional Experience

Owner

New Auburn Personal Computer Services LLC (1995 to Present)

I operate a consulting business that develops web sites and web applications for small businesses. I also offer remote mentoring and on-site training services to developers looking to expand their knowledge of Ruby, HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery.

Application Developer

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (2003 to Present)

Developed, deployed and maintained web applications used by thousands of unique users

• Managed and mentored student developers as they brought projects from conception to implementation
• Developed a system to alert faculty, staff, and students of campus emergencies via SMS, RSS, Email, IP phones, and PC-based messaging.
• Developed web-based interfaces to grade submission and grade checking.

Technical Lead / Consultant

DecisionHelp, LLC (2006 to 2008)

I lead the development of http://www.mydecisionhelper.com/, working closely with the company’s founder to build a powerful decision engine that could be used by businesses and individuals. My duties included

• Ruby on Rails mentoring, training, and coding
• Deployment
• Assistance with design implementation

Developer - Consultant

SocialBrokerage.com (2009 to 2010)

I assisted with the development of socialbrokerage.com, a web site to help user groups find venues for meetings. I built a testing harness with RSpec and Cucumber, set up development and production servers, and wrote backend code to create and manage events, organizers, organizations, and venues.

Instructor

SkillBuilders (2010 to 2010)

I developed and taught a training course on Ruby, Rails, Sinatra, jQuery, and Cucumber for a client of Skillbuilders, a Rhode Island-based technology training company. This four day course took students through buidling basic Ruby scripts to developing a Ruby on Rails web application with Cucumber and RSpec tests and a Sinatra app that used jQuery for AJAX features. Students learned accessibility concepts, BDD techniques, and the basics of developing with the Ruby programming language.

Education

Degrees

• BBA - University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI (2001)

Professional Contributions

Publications

Awards and Honors

• Best Presentation - Technical Track - "Getting On Board Ruby on Rails" - HighEdWebDev 2006 (2006)

Affiliations

ECRuby (2009 to Present)

Co-founder

RailsBridge (2009 to Present)

Rails Mentors team-lead