Mad Web Skills

Although the conference proper starts on Thursday, I’m attending a couple of workshops tomorrow and Wednesday. I don’t know how much I’ll get out of them, but I’m sure that at the very least, I’ll meet a bunch of great, like-minded people before the conference gets into full swing.

The Web Connections website which has been set up for the conference is a great idea. It allows attendees and speakers to register their profile, upload a head-shot and tag themselves with all manner of things, from the hotel they’re staying at, to how much they don’t like beer. Although my profile page is a little bare on the friends/connections side of things, I’m hoping that by the end of the conference I’ve got a few names, at least on the left hand side of the page. There are plently of attendees/speakers who’s work I am familiar with, but noone I’d feel confortable adding to my list just yet. Living in Country Victoria means that I don’t get the opportunity to mingle with many others in my field, at least at my level, so I’m really looking forward to the social aspect of the event.

I’m staying at the Hotel Mercure which is almost literally a hop, skip and jump away from the conference venue. I’m staying in Sydney with my wife and two-year-old daughter so we spent this evening scouting the area for the best places to dine. We found a great little Thai-Aussie hybrid pub/bistro with some tasty, reasonably-priced meals. Methinks we’ll be going back there.

Technorati Tags: wd06

Hi. My name is Michael, and I run this little web design thingy called Mad Web Skills. I say “thingy” because it’s just me really. Its a business I run which specialises in standards-based web design and development for both external clients as well as making some cool stuff for myself such as an online web chat (Australia’s first webchat actually), virtual tours for real estate agents, a simple temporary bookmarking system and an RSS aggregator, as well as working on my own robust content management system. Unfortunately, having this many irons in the fire means that progress isnt exactly speedy. I also do a bit of domain and hosting stuff as well.

Outside of Mad Web Skills, I work full time (doing pretty much the same thing, but for an employer), so this business (as well as bringing up my 2-year-old daughter) keeps me occupied in my spare time.

One of the main reasons for setting up this blog is because tomorrow I head to Sydney for the Web Directions 06 conference, and thought it would be a good idea to collect my thoughts online somewhere, as well as provide commentary of the event for those unable to make it.

Finally, I have a few friends who are just starting out in the web biz, so following the event, I hope to share some of the knowledge I’ve gathered in the field over the last 10 years in the form of tutorials, code snippets and links to other online resources.

So, kick back and enjoy.