Visual Lizard
Ross McDowall
Ross is a senior web developer for Visual Lizard. In working for the company for the past 9 years he has steadily upgraded his skills. Both the best and worst thing about this industry is how fast things change. It is great finding new ways to do things, but in finding the new process, it sometimes means having to go back and redo all of the programming that was done the old way. Thus, he fears change... but since the world is always changing, he nevertheless changes with it. He enjoys working for the company as the small staff doesn’t allow for office politics. The office environment allows for independence, creativity, and quick access to a fairly substantial knowledge base.
Ross enjoys roleplaying games, science fiction and fantasy books, and movies. He has his own website which he uses as a place to experiment with his programming skills from time to time. He has done substantial work on the majority of the sites developed at Visual Lizard, with particular pride in working on Destination Winnipeg, The Forks, IMAX Winnipeg, Folklorama and the Winnipeg Airports Authority.
Ross is learning more about developing online web applications including a more comprehensive version of his own diabetes blood sugar testing recorder. He has honed his skills in both PHP and MySQL as these are the primary tools of his trade. His latest goal is becoming fully familiar with the CAKE framework (not easy as I am not good with change *harrumph harrumph*).
In our industry, the concept of standards for web and browser development should be at the forefront. Competition between browsers should not affect how the viewer sees the product which is being developed. It is up to the web developer to determine how a site should look. The browser should just be the platform to view the site, and should not interpret how to display what is written. Unfortunately the browsers are not quite to that stage yet, so for now we have to make the odd piece of non-compliant code to accommodate those browsers. One day soon maybe we will see all browsers following standards. Cross your fingers.
New Destination Winnipeg Dining Launch
Destination Winnipeg has relaunched its Dining in Winnipeg section. The previous version which was built three years ago, had become a bit cumbersome with only very limited functionality. Destination Winnipeg approached us to revamp this piece and expand its functionality to include a listing of upcoming events along with a page for restaurant reviews. Also an added category for food related news which would then be featured in the section. Considering the number of restaurants we have here in the city, this was a bit of an undertaking both programmically speaking for us as well as content related for the folks over at Destination Winnipeg. After a lot of hard work though we now have the newly revamped Dining in Winnipeg section. A useful tool to take advantage of Winnipeg’s vast culinary line-up. Bon-appetit!
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