About
I guess you stumbled on this page to find out a bit more about me, well my name is Andrew, I’m 27, live and work in Stirling, Scotland, and I make websites. My ‘proper’ job title is ‘Web Developer’, but that doesn’t really cover it fully. I scope,cost, design, build, and test my clients sites, as well as supplying training. I work at the University of Stirling, where I’ve created over 15 different websites over the last few years for both internal and external clients. I specialise in coding custom content management solutions for the public sector, although I design and build websites of any size for any one.
That’s me on the left, by the way. On top of a mountain.
A history (best read with a movie-trailer-voice-over-man accent)
Born in Scotland, but growing up in Yorkshire, England, Andrew always knew he was destined for greatness. During his younger years, he shunned a possible lucrative career in sports, and instead spent his days in front of various old computers (Dragon 32,Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC) coding simple programs, hoping that one day he would make it big.
Then the unforeseeable occurred. The internet was invented. Andrew was the first person in the school to have a speed 9600 internet connection, and became the toast of the geeks. In 1997 he teamed up with a fellow nerd Simon Choppin (now Dr Simon Choppin…pah!) to create a website, that would not only change their lives, but the very fabric of history…
Ok, I can’t keep typing like that, and I bet your throat and/or head is getting sore speaking with a gravelly voice over. I’ll just continue here.…
We created a site called ‘Vinyl Realm’, linking up with the local record shop to sell their records online. Unfortunately, lacking any idea how to create a shopping cart system, or indeed a stock control system, the website never really took off (although I got a free David Bowie LP for cataloguing the record shop’s entire collection!). Fast forward a few (well, 7) more years, and I graduated at the University of Stirling with a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science. I managed to get a job at the University, and slowly moved into more and more web development. My first sites were pretty bad, but I slowly learnt about what makes a site ‘great’, and continue to learn and grow today.
I am available for freelance work, so if you like my sites, and fancy a chat about a project you might like to get off the ground, drop me an email: andrew@goatkarma.com. If you have a larger public-sector project in mind, contact me at : andrew.wilson@stir.ac.uk.
Personal Stuff
Apart from spending waaaay too much time on my computer, I enjoy Mountain Biking and Road Cycling with Stirling Bike Club, I also love film photography. I spend hours taking photos with my old cameras, and then spend even longer in the darkroom developing and enlarging them! You can see my flickr photos here, I run the popular website HolgaBlog where we have built a small community of writers producing some fantastic articles every week.
As above, I live in Stirling, Scotland, where it rains more than it doesn’t. I share a flat with my gorgeous partner Beth, who is my constant source of inspiration.
