About Me

I suppose to make this page worth reading you should know a little bit about the person behind it. So who is this Shaun Ellerton? Well, let me tell you…

A little bit about Shaun
Shaun is a man with a background in joinery, music, administration, management, web development and computer technologies. A friend and father to a wonderful daughter, he is also a family man. He likes to create and produce things which has led him into a stronger, more passionate pursuit of development.

Shaun is a web development geek that likes to work late into the evening. He gets really weird late at night (or early in the morning as it were). He starts looking for things to keep him awake when his many projects weigh him down. He likes to start development projects while still learning the development environment he is working in. He likes to watch his programs work right the first time. He apparently likes writing in the third person narrative and now it appears that he likes to blog.

A little more about me
OK, enough talking about myself as though I were standing right next to me. How about the important stuff?

I finished high school in 1998. All aspects before this time have been erased from my memory banks (except for computers, a few friends and of course the girlfriends). I attended College in Burnley, Lancashire for two years right out of high school. I studied Wood/Tool Occupations and was in the process of transfering to another department when I left school to pursue other matters.

I have studied different subjects from varied places but my biggest life change was having my first child. When you are faced with a tiny persons life in your hands (and I mean so little in your hands) you begin to see things through another person’s eyes. My life became all about my daughter that day and I thank God for her as I am truly blessed.

Through the years I realized that I would love to spend more time with my family. I also realized that I had a strong desire to be in business for myself. So I began writing web pages in 2000. I say write rather than design because at that moment in time I had all the visual design skills of a sneeze. After writing web pages for a few years I began to want to do more with my pet project, PCStress Burnley (formerly Less Stress PC).

Since I had yet to further develop my skills, I had to learn how to manage computers, fix them and build them. After a while I thought why not run my own Web Hosting Company (SpikeyByte Hosting formerly SpikeyByte) I know, tell me about it. What was I thinking at that stage of my life. My first experience with web scripting was with HTML and CGI scripts. I then moved fairly quickly into PHP because Perl always seemed like a cryptic language to me and still does in many ways.

I learned early on that PHP, while a very strong scripting language, was a whole lot more powerful when coupled with a database backend. So I learned SQL (namely the MySQL database). Then, at work, I had to learn all about Online Marketing Techniques. It was then that I branched off and started SpikeyByte SEO (formerly SEO++).

Because my clients that I worked for were Microsoft agents of doom I also had to learn SQL the SQL Server way. I also learned my way around an Access database. Because Microsoft and the development community are kind of depricating classic ASP, I spent some time learning ASP.NET using C# (because it is the closest thing to PHP ). I also picked up a little HTML, CSS and JavaScript along the way. I am now beginning to step into learning a little more of the other languages – and I am loving the diverse nature – but still honing in on my PHP development skills.

All in all, having a family, coupled with an intense desire to take care of that family, has pushed me to the point of staying up until 3:00 AM writing code or thinking up new ideas and business developments in a hope that one day I can generate enough money from my projects that I might be able to fund my larger projects. Then I would hope that some mega giant corporation would buy me out for millions of pounds so I can spend the rest of my life enjoying the company of my family and not my family of the company.

I have since studied many other subjects and gained many diverse qualifications ranging from woodwork, electronics, artificial inteligence to things such as British Sign Language (BSL), Equality & Diversity, of course more computer courses (come on what did you expect ) and even more NVQ’s in Business Administration and Customer Service. I have even completed self development courses from such widely recognised names as Clifford Baird, Susan Jeffers, Kevin Trudeau, Eric Berne, Napoleon Hill and even the master zen himself Mr Tony Robins.

So Why a blog?
Blogging caught my attention about a couple of years ago. I had read a blog from a developer and thought that it would be a great way to share information across the Internet without having to develop, or dedicate a site to, the information framework. It took me a while to get to grips with the idea of blogging because I did not want to waste time on things that might not be followed by others. But seeing other developers blogs even the personal blogs gave me a desire to use blogging as way to express the thoughts, ideas and opinions I have in a fairly non-confrontational medium (not that I mind a good confrontation now and again, I do bite back you know… but it seemed nicer this way). From that I have formed several blogs but it became troublesome to deal with and manage such a volume.

A quick note on blogs and blogging software
I originally started blogging on Blogger.com, then realized that I really don’t like Blogger’s technology (sorry Blogger.com). I found a few C# apps, quite a few PHP apps and after testing several of them I came to the conclusion that the best blogging software around is WordPress.org’s blog application. I have installed it on several of the websites that I manage and I use it extensively. It is also what drives this particular section of this website.

Some parting words
So there you have it. Almost everything you’d want to know about in a little blog entry. Feel free to comment if you want to or you can email me if you like also.

Socializing with me
If you ever want to know what I am up to when I am not totally neglecting this blog…

Twitter: Shaun Ellerton on Twitter

Facebook: Shaun Ellerton on Facebook

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