Who is this guy?

This is the blog of Matt Machell; A forty-something web developer living in Birmingham, UK.

I make websites of all shapes and sizes. I spent the dotcom years designing sites selling antiques. I designed the glasshaus website way back when. I worked at Birmingham City University on assorted digital transformation projects including the complete redesigns of their intranet and corporate website. I spent several years as a Senior Developer at Capita Libraries, building software as a service search tools and back-office systems.

I'm currently a Technical Architect for the Office of the Public Guardian, where I seem to end up building teams and processes rather than the apps themselves.

I like elegant and usable design at both the UI and the system level. I build web products that fix your problems. I've been known to do server-side stuff in the area of RESTful web services in everything from GO, PHP or Python. I do some mean CSS and Javascript, know a lot about accessibility. I know a fair bit about Docker containers and building continuous delivery pipelines. Some have commented that I have an Eclectic skillset, hence the name of this blog.

Speaking and Training

I've been known to talk at conferences, though I'm more often found as a delegate. I also teach semi-regular training sessions on standards and accessibility for Media Skills. I've also talked at Multipack Presents concerning ARIA and Web Standards with ASP.NET, Geolocation for parents and retrofitting adaptive design. Given that I work with library catalogue systems day to day, you may see me talk about enhancing their interfaces. Go see my slideshare stuff.

Publications

I've worked on a number of web-related books as technical editor, lead editor or reviewer. You may remember me from such works as:

  • Go Native, or not, 2015, Capita Libraries
  • The Flash Anthology, 2004, Sitepoint
  • Dreamweaver MX ASP Web Development, 2004, Apress
  • Practical Intranet Development, 2003, glasshaus
  • Fundamental Web Design and Development Skills, 2003, glasshaus
  • Contribute - Hassle free Content Control, 2003, glasshaus
  • Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development, 2002,glasshaus
  • Dynamic Dreamweaver MX, 2002, glasshaus
  • Content Management Systems, 2002 glasshaus
  • Usable Shopping Carts, 2002, glasshaus
  • Practical XML for the Web, 2002, glasshaus
  • Web Graphics for Non-Designers, 2002, glasshaus
  • Dreamweaver MX: Advanced PHP Web Development, 2002, glasshaus

Most of this stuff is quite old now...