About Jess
I am a 25 year old single gay girl from the western suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. I’m a geek, but I’m one of the cool ones… yes, really! I have a cat named “Cat”, I’m 5′9″ and I pretty much only wear Chucks (Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars) – even to work.
Personal Life
I was born in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East while my parents were overseas working there. My Mum is from England, and my Dad is from Australia. I have been here since I was about 1 year old so I can’t remember any of it, but it makes for something interesting to tell people – the usual response being “abu-what?”
I have a brother named Kris who wanted a mention on my website so this sentence is for him 
I love cooking and I’m hopelessly addicted to chili. Some of my favourite types of food are Indian, Mexican, Thai, Korean, Mediterranean, Turkish and Italian. There isn’t much that I don’t enjoy, and I love trying new things. I drink Pellegrino water, but I’m not a snob I swear!
I’m not really into the clubbing scene but I like to go occassionally to meet new people. I like going for drives – esspecially if I’m a passenger, having BBQ’s, watching DVD’s, going shopping, going to the movies, random day trips and just being with friends. I like the occasional drink but I very rarely get drunk – my favourite drink is probably gin and tonic – or maybe kahlua and coke.
TV shows would have to be my favourite type of entertainment, but I rarely watch the TV itself. Some of my favourites include;
Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, South Park, Torchwood, Blackadder, That 70’s Show, 24, Absolutely Fabulous, Coupling, The Brittas Empire, Mythbusters, Eureka, Family Guy, Friends, American Dad, Penn & Teller: Bullshit, Criminal Minds, Bones, The L Word, The League Of Gentlemen, Tru Calling, Lost, Heroes, The IT Crowd, Prison Break, Allo Allo, The Vicar Of Dibley, Futurama, Scrubs, Keeping Up Appearances, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Chuck, The Lost Room, How I Met Your Mother, Supernatural & Firefly.
I listen to a wide variety of music including a lot of mainstream stuff normally played on the radio. I tend to lean towards the more alternative and punk styles of music, some of my favourites being;
AFI, Alkaline Trio, At The Drive-In, Billy Talent, Bush, Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park, The Living End, Millencolin, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Panic! At the Disco, Paramore, A Perfect Circle, Placebo, Rage Against The Machine, Reel Big Fish, Rise Against, Something For Kate, System of a Down, Taking Back Sunday, Tool, Unwritten Law, The Used, The Whitlams & Yellowcard.
I don’t watch that many movies but my favorite genre is probably comedy (but not the really stupid comedies.) Some of my favourite movies are;
Fight Club, Super Troopers, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (the radio show, tv series and movie), Reservior Dogs, Pulp Fiction, James Bond, Mallrats, Clerks, Antitrust, Sin City, The Italian Job, Bridge To Terabithia, But I’m A Cheerleader, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, American Psycho, Back To The Future, Boys Don’t Cry, Office Space, Queen Of The Damned, Team America World Police, The Bourne Identity & Snatch
Professional Life
I contract as both a website designer and a web-based software developer for a group of companies at Archerfield.
My first job was working as a kitchenhand for an Indian restaurant, from there I got a job working as an onsite computer technician and after a few years the boss offered me the business. I ran this on my own for a while until I could no longer stand fixing computers and found a position doing what I really enjoy – Web design and software development.
I have no formal qualifications because I found the courses I was taking a waste of time. Instead I taught myself everything I needed to know during a year off and I learnt everything else on the job. I’ve found that formally educated people usually only know one of way of doing something, and if something breaks they have a hard time troubleshooting. Self taught people learn by troubleshooting and normally know a number of different ways to accomplish something.
I’m late to work nearly every day, but when I’m at work I don’t mess around and I work fast. I put in the extra hours whenever it’s required, and I take a break when I’m not needed.
I use a Mac because I prefer the operating system, but I am very familiar with Windows Desktop and Server versions as well as Linux (Debian-based). I run a combination of all three operations systems on my servers, laptops and media PC.
coding: My favourite programming language is PHP, which I use with MySQL, HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript & AJAX. My favourite editor for coding is Vim which I also use for putting together the HTML for websites – I much prefer coding everything manually rather than letting a WYSIWYG editor make a mess of it. I have built my own Content Management System, and I have worked with CRMs, POS Systems, Warehouse Management, Online Banking Anti-Fraud Systems and E-Commerce.
design: I spend a fair bit of my time designing web pages and my software of choice is Adobe Fireworks – strange I know. I can design for print as well using Illustrator and InDesign, but it’s one of my weaker areas.
the rest: Having working in the IT industry, I have all the knowledge to build things like Windows servers with Exchange, or a Debian/Ubuntu LAMP servers with Postfix. I completely understand networking and all the rest, the only thing I never, ever, want to do again is IT support – ever!
Basically.. I’m pretty good at what I do, but I don’t have the paper to prove it. Instead I prefer to show what I have done and what I can do which I think is much more important.
